Members : Steve Taylor, Bob Anderson, Iain McCallum, Phil Ramsbottom, Chris Thickett, Brian Taylor, Lester Payne, Frank Williams, Margaret Williams, Mark Garrod, Jim Gregson, Sandy Gregson, Alan Wylie, Dave Wylie.

Guests : Christine Beeston, Liz Taylor, Emma Richards, William Taylor.

The main tasks this weekend were finishing off the kitchen project and getting started on the upgrade of the Ladies washroom, ready for the installation of the second toilet.

Kitchen : Lots of finishing off here, plus some final touches, to see the project pretty much complete. It's taken over 18 months hard labour, and all of the £5000 that we were given by Mr and Mrs Marsh, to do a total refurbishment of the room.

Chris and Phil put up the new notice board in the "Snug" corner, while Dave marked up the position for the new gas fire ready for its subsequent installation by our tame Gas-Man. Lester provided and fitted the new steel splash-back behind the kitchen sinks and Mark sanded down the new food storage boxes before applying a second coat of varnish. Christine, on her first visit to the hut, cleaned and serviced the kitchen extract fans before joining Brian in putting the final coat of paint on the walls.

Ladies Washroom : A new doorway into the Ladies loo was needed in order to create space for a new toilet cubicle. Steve and Bob did the hard work here, using a tungsten carbide toothed block-saw to cut the new entrance. The existing door and frame were then removed from the old entrance and re-fitted in the new position.

Alan went caving under the floor to survey the pipe-work so that we could start to work out exactly how we are going to connect up the new toilet. Dave fiddled with the electric wiring to move the light switch for the Ladies to be next to the new doorway. The extract fan is now on the same switch, so it shouldn't get forgotten about.

On the Sunday, Iain filled in the old entrance: his insistence that we shouldn't put up a stud-partition made him the obvious volunteer to lay the concrete blocks and make a "proper job" of it. Steve constructed a "modesty screen" in the ladies, to block any direct sight line into the washroom when the new door is open.

Elsewhere : Phil chopped up the remains of the old water tank, and cleared the wreckage from the loft. The remains were stacked up outside the hut, and will be removed next time we have suitable transport available. Anybody who wants a souvenir piece of the old tank is welcome to take it!

Frank and Margaret replaced the broken bracket on the guttering at the front of the hut. Frank also attended to various latches and door closers, which need regular maintenance and periodic replacement due to the various forms of abuse that they suffer.

Alan bolted the safe down to the hall floor (this involved more caving). The safe had been unbolted when the new flooring was installed, and we'd not got round to fixing it down again.

Iain re-tiled under the urinals in the Gent's toilet, which means that the work in there is finally finished. He also finished off the trim to the new cork flooring in the Upper Left dorm.

Dave checked out the trace heating that stops the water pipes from freezing up: one fuse was found to have blown and it was replaced.

Outside, Jim and Sandy cleaned and serviced the filter beds for the sewage system. They also excavated the "Machu-Pichu-like" Septic Tank area from jungle. Some of the bracken in the field was trampled back by Emma (with some help from various others who have larger feet!). We'll have to keep an eye on this, as bracken spreads rapidly and has rather nasty spores.

On top of all of this, various general maintenance was carried out: replacing blown light bulbs, putting the kitchen fire extinguisher back onto the wall, etc.

It was a splendid working meet and we got a lot done. Thanks to everybody who came along, particularly if you did a job that didn't get mentioned!

There's still a while to go before this working party, so plans have not been finalised. The most likely things we'll be doing are cutting the new doorway through into the Ladies washroom (now that the new lintel is in place) and finishing off in the kitchen (more paint on the walls etc.). If there's time, we might even make a start putting the new loo into the Ladies.

There will be plenty of cleaning, painting and general maintenance jobs to occupy a number of people, so anybody who wants to contribute is most welcome to come along. See me in the pub on a Thursday beforehand, or phone me to check up on any last minute details.