This past weekend, four of us made it out to the club and were able to get a few things accomplished. There was a little drizzle in the morning so we focused on cleaning up and rearranging the club house. The floor was swept and we cleaned and organized the tables. An inventory of items for our matches was completed and we cleared a few things that were stored in the corner.
Here's the result:
The good news is that electricity has been restored to the club house. More good news is that the pump for the bathroom is working as well. The bad news however is that the winter froze and burst a pipe behind the urinal and there is a leak so we had to shut the pump off, and therefore the water to the bathroom. The owner is aware of the problem and is going to cut into the wall and fix the pipe.
After we tackled the club house, the rain had stopped so we decided to start moving and spreading wood chips on the trail. We discovered that the large amount of rain we received on Friday had turned the trails into a wet mess. We continued anyway after getting a lesson on working the front-end loader as we used it to load our wheelbarrows. We decided to cover all of the trail from its entry point near the parking area back to the worst areas because it was difficult to maneuver the wheelbarrows without having chips for support.
Here's a look at the trail we were able to cover:
What we have learned is that there is still a large amount of work left to cover the damaged areas of the trail. We also learned that its better to not even lay the chips down if there has been a large amount of rain the day before. It just makes moving the wheelbarrows too difficult.
The courses, other than the woods course trail, are in pretty good shape. So far we think we need only minor trimming in these areas. Due to the current wet trail conditions, we plan to hold the first May 5th match in the field.
The weather looks pretty favorable this week so we plan to have a second work party this Saturday April 27th at 10:00 am. The main focus of this work party will be to move and spread more wood chips. So, we are asking all who can attend to help out. If you have wheelbarrows and rakes please bring them. Moving this amount of chips is not easy for a crew of four. We need more people. We can use the front-end loader to fill the wheelbarrows but we cannot use it or ATV's on the trail as it would just cause too much damage.
Other tasks to do are to replace eight concrete blocks in the field course and clean the bathroom if the plumbing has been repaired.
On another note we still need more people to volunteer for lunch duties this season. Our first match is a few weeks away and we need a volunteer to provide for lunch.
If members could please email us if you can attend this Saturday's work party as well as if you can help out with lunches this season.