For June we headed to Ravensbury Terrace in Earlsfield, Wandsworth.
At this event, Polly was accompanied by myself (Hannah) and Lucy. We will be taking over from Polly and running the cleanups from July 2018. This month was our chance to learn the ropes!
We kicked off the day in the usual style, with a Welcome Talk and Health & Safety briefing. It was a wonderful warm and sunny day, so it came as no surprise that everyone seemed keen to get wading shortly afterwards.
We had a great turnout, with around 50 volunteers working in and alongside the river. Whilst removing litter, some of the group concentrated on removing Himalayan balsam, an invasive plant species, from the river banks.
Here is the before and after!
Although we had recently visited this site back in January, the group quickly found our first big item – a Boris bike!
Followed by… another bike!
As the day went on, we found some other interesting items including a driver’s license, a teapot, a gold watch, coconuts, and a raccoon (don’t worry, not a real one), which Polly gave a new home.
Our break for lunch was a nice opportunity to cool off, drink some water and of course fill up on some cake.
The second half of the day was spent removing anything we had missed, and we found some wooden desks, and this teapot!
So what did we find? 1 VHS, 1 carpet, 1 speaker, 1 scooter, 1 Disney art box, 1 teapot, 1 raccoon, 1 bracelet, 1 watch, 1 driver’s license, 1 bucket on wheels, 1 trolley bag, 2 bikes, 2 footballs, 2 coconuts, 2 golf balls, 2 wooden desks, some silver piping and lots of glass and plastic bottles, food wrappers, plastic bags and bits of cloth – and bags and bags of other junk.
We also spotted a Cinnabar moth, which I had never seen before (thanks Dave)!
See you next month!
Hannah and Lucy
Huge thanks for the warm welcome, and to everyone who helped unpack and pack up the van during the event, Wally and Maddy for supervising the Event Tent, and Wandsworth Council for organising collection of all the rubbish the next day, Big Yellow Wandsworth for providing free storage space for our equipment and to our funders, Tesco!
Thank you to all our volunteers for coming: Aaron, Alison, Anne, Bridget, Charles, Chris, Dave, David C, David D, Derek, Ed, Eiryn, Ethan, Garth, Gemma, Gideon, Guy, Hugh, Ian, Jack, Jane, Jason, Jeffrey, Jo, Joanne, Joe, John, John, Luke, Madeline, Mark, Martin, Nick, Nicola, Paul, Per, Phil, Raphael, Robyn, Rory, Sally Ann, Sheila, Simon, Steve B, Steve N, Suzanne, Thomas, Wally and William.
