The Capability Group is a professional services organisation that combines behavioural psychology, learning design and learning technology to assist clients throughout the Asia Pacific region with leadership development, traditional and e-learning solutions.  Today fifteen professionals from the Capability Group and their subsidiary, Added Insight, spent a day at CUE Haven helping out with walking track improvement work.

The group arrived first thing in the morning and included Courtney, Dan, Drew, Fiona, Guy, James R., James T., Libby, Maria, Rhiannon, Ryan C., Ryan M., Tim, Trevor and Wendy.

Because almost everyone was new to CUE Haven, we spent some time getting acquainted over morning tea, and then Mahrukh gave a short talk on the CUE Haven project and our current activities and future plans.

Thomas then gave a safety briefing and outlined the work planned for the day.

The primary plan for the day was to continue to work on improving some old walking track sections. Because of the size of the group, we broke into three teams.

One team started off trimming vegetation that had grown over the tracks and clearing away small trees, leaves and twigs fallen on the tracks.

Cutting the thicker tree branches required teamwork and more than just loppers.

The team managed to clear a big loop of track and get it ready for summer visitors. Yeah!!  After a well- earned (very short) rest, the team split up to help out the other two teams.

The second team tackled an interesting challenge. 

A steep section of the CUE Haven walking track is ten years old and the steps were showing signs of wear.  They were also quite high and we felt that visitors would appreciate smaller steps after a long uphill walk.  We requested the team to determine if they could re-engineer them.  It was a big challenge because it required re-imagining how the steps could be redone.

The team took some time to study the situation and come up with some ideas.

They took some measurements and tested some different approaches and decided that adding a new step would enable them to make all of the other steps shorter.  They went to work digging out the affected steps and side board to make room for the new step.

We had to make a quick trip down to the nursery/workshop to cut board for the new steps.

The new step boards were installed along with new side boards where the old timber could not be reused.

The boards were checked for alignment before being nailed in place.

The new steps are a great improvement and future teams will continue to improve the remaining steps along this track using the approach developed by the Capability team! 

The team felt that the track leading to the steps could be improved, so then they set about working on that section. They determined that a side board was needed to prevent erosion and to improve the track appearance.

They checked the board for the proper size and position.

And dug out a channel for the board.

They then installed the side board, securing it with pegs and nailing it in place.

The last step was replacing the soil around the board and metaling it.

In just a few hours the team made major improvements to this section of the old walking track. Great job!!

The third team worked on fixing a long sloping section of track that wasn’t in bad shape but because the side boards were out of alignment it looked crooked.  We requested the team to come up with a solution.

The team studied the area to determine the proper alignment of the track and planned the work.

They used a string line to highlight the proper line of the track and see where the problem was and found that one of the original step boards was too long and was the main issue.  They decided to dig out enough of the track area around the side wall, shorten the step board and restore the old side boards.

The job required a lot of digging.

Cutting down the long step board was a challenge.

And once that was done, the next challenge was to determine the best way to relocate the side board and nail it back in place.

The last step was to fill in the soil that had been dug out and level everything out.

The team’s hard work really paid off and the track is looking better than ever. Yes!!

At the end of the day, all of the teams got together and put a layer of gravel on the newly improved track sections.

They filled buckets from the nearby gravel pile.

The buckets were carried to the track and the gravel dumped on and raked smooth.

By lunchtime the teams had made major improvements to the walking tracks and future visitors will definitely appreciate the effort! Well done everyone!!!

We then gathered up all the gear and headed back to the cottage for a relaxing lunch.

A big thank you to Rhiannon for championing CUE Haven at the Capability Group and for organising the day.

And a huge THANK YOU to everyone for all your hard work.  We really appreciate all of your good ideas and efforts.  We gave you some challenging tasks and you exceeded expectations and made a very valuable contribution to CUE Haven.  We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did. We really enjoyed meeting and working with you all and we especially enjoyed the many interesting conversations.

We very much look forward to having you all back for another volunteer day and also out for leisurely visits with your family and friends to explore more of your community nature reserve.

Thank You!! Thank You!!