When we first heard about Business in the Community‘s national “Give & Gain Day“, it sounded too good to be true. As it turned out, it was both good and true: 30 volunteers from brand consultancy Flamingo London picked our project from BitC’s list and came to help transform our playground on Friday 16th May. And goodness, did they work! Contributing at least £1,000-worth of labour and expenses to the project as they did so, plus a whole heap of goodwill.
Plenty of Tufnell Park School families turned out too, helping for part or all of the day, and contributing loads of paint, equipment and an absolutely fantastic lunch. What a terrific way to finish up all those years of fundraising, consulting, designing and planning, and to give our infants a playground fit for their amazing imaginations.
- Remember the playground before works began?
- The first thing to tackle was that big, beige wall.
- Tufnell Park…
- …meet Flamingo.
- The Flamingo team exuded confidence.
- Our grounds management were just happy to have help at last.
- Once the first coat of paint was on, it was time to take a break.
- And distract some of the workers, too!
- It’s coming out in spots.
- If you donated a colour – we used it.
- Extra hands during afternoon break.
- How spotty can a wall get?
- Very.
- Meanwhile, in the garden, the plants had messages for the team
- Flamingo staff got right down to it.
- In minutes, that became a new raised bed.
- Cynus provided the commentary for our new playground games board.
- How long is the stride of a very British dinosaur?
- Our reviewer tried them out during lunch break.
- Speaking of lunch…
- …it was a Tufnell Park special. Thanks to all you GREAT cooks.
- London: the concrete jungle.
- Our lovely lunch co-ordinator knows how to work a theme.
- Have some!
- Flamingo take a well-earned break.
- Designer Jackie Herald soon had ’em back at the rock face.
- Someone has to shift all this!
- Every bamboo has been adopted by a team from Reception class.
- Once the stepping logs are in…
- …someone needs to test them.
- There were a lot of volunteers.
- Mid-afternoon, it still felt a long way from this…
- …to this.
- When school finished, the reinforcements arrived.
- Meanwhile, another Flamingo team worked on the numberline.
- As the sun sank lower, we had a totally new playground.
- And these are some of the people who did it.