Our two new Community Jobs Scotland Programme grounds staff, Daniel and Struan, have spent the past month settling in. They are gaining new skills all the time, from using leaf blowers to learning how to work the biomass heating system. Grounds co-ordinator Colin Aitken and his son Shaw, who has also joined our core team, have been working with Daniel and Struan, and these young men also had a taste of activities work while volunteering during our October holiday programme.
One of their first tasks was to help repurpose the oil tank store. Wiston Lodge is heated by our biomass woodchip burners and the tank store at the back of the house was no longer used. Colin and his team have turned it into a wood store, with space to hang kit to dry after pond activities.
Colin used traditional building techniques, joining posts together with wooden pegs in hand-drilled holes, while Daniel and Struan learned from Shaw how to hand-saw wood. Experience and skills shared with two new young members of the workforce, and a new woodstore for the house. What a result!
To find out more about the Community Jobs Scotland Programme, visit their website HERE.