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Cleaning up

March 19th, 2008 · Posted by Skuds in Life · 3 Comments · Life

On Saturday there was a “Let’s face it” event in Broadfield, organised by the Christ the Lord church.  These events are where groups of residents get together to do something like clear out a pond or tidy up bits of land and the council helps out by supplying the tools for the job, a van to take away the rubbish afterwards, and sometimes some manpower as well.

Manpower was not a problem in Broadfield though. Simon, the vicar, reckons there were about  60 volunteers who turned up.  More than enough to have lots of teams and groups tackling all the different aspects of clearing up the Barton and surrounding area.  In fact there were enough to cover not just the Barton but the car park, community centre and church grounds, play areas, and the service road, and to scrub all the shops’ door and window frames.

I have heard about these things but never been to one before.  The usual reason is that I usually hear about them after they have happened.  Either that or they are during the working day.   This time I only found out by chance when our MP  mentioned it to me the day before, and chatting to one of our Tory councillors beforehand it turned out that he only knew about it half an hour earlier.

In spite of that, the turnout was good.  Maybe its just as well that word didn’t get around more or we would have had too many people.

I did some litter-picking with Ian, who is our candidate in May’s elections – I just love those grabby things for picking up rubbish.  It was quite relaxing in a weird way, and I was getting some fresh air and exercise. I don’t know why we don’t do it more often. I didn’t even mind missing the start of  the football coverage on Setanta.

Having said that, I don’t think I was enjoying myself as much as Ian: I’ve never seen anybody look so happy fishing tin cans out of bushes.

I may not have any sort of religious leanings, but I’ve got a lot of time for the church in Broadfield for all the practical things it does.

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3 Comments so far ↓

  • ian irvine

    That is a seriously bad photo of me. I look a bit crazy, well, more than a bit. But it was enjoyable.
    Thanks for the photo, Andrew.

  • simon taylor

    Andrew is right, it was a great time – a pretty relaxed. What was great, as vicar, was that a whole load of people turned out – churchy types like people from Christ the Lord, councillors and prospective councillors – like Ian here, counil staff giving up their own weekends, local people, the police and pcsos- again, on their day off… maybe people need to realise that Broadfield has something very special: real community – something dying out elsewhere in the UK according to some recent reports. Best moment for me was when a stranger turned to me and said ‘don’t know why you’re doing it, but cheers…’ and then picked up his own fag end! We did it for three reasons: to thank the shopkeepers, to be Christians in more than just name only, and to say that The Barton matters to everyone locally. Thanks Andrew for coming along… and missing footy. Simon

  • Skuds

    Cheers Simon – I see you have also been having some serious renovation of your website: its looking good!
    One of the photos on there looks suspiciously like mine – but feel free to take any of the others from Flickr. I have some OK ones from the church’s 30th anniversary, like this..
    Singing

    I don’t know why you describe the church as “small and growing” though. Its always been packed whenever I have been there, mind you I only go for the special events.