The day was also spent undertaking several team building and leadership activities, to help us realise our own strengths and abilities. The first of these challenges was climbing onto a barrel and falling backwards, trusting the rest of your team to catch you. I personally have never been good with any 'trust' games where you fall backwards and expect someone to catch you and I was therefore pretty nervous before we did it. However, I managed to overcome this slight fear and afterwards was able to identify how exactly I had been able to do that in the review sessions we held after every activity. I learnt that I was able to essentially block my thoughts of fear and 'talk myself into doing it'. The other exercises were to help us understand the importance of having the right energy to enable you to complete a job, and the importance of listening and communicating together as the team directed each other through a grid of squares in total silence.

As we completed each task we reviewed what had occurred and our reasoning behind what we had done. We eventually learnt that there are three main types of energy: Sloth, Swan and Tiger. Sloth energy is very slow and idle, Swan energy related to calmness and Tiger energy is very high, active energy. We came to realise that certain situations require using different energies and approaching that tasks with the 'correct' energy would give us the ability to do things effectively without too much hassle. At the end of the day the majority of us said that one of our targets would be to become more 'swanlike', i.e. approaching a situation more calmly and rationally to enable us to discover solutions.

After lunch we went to Stanmore Common where we helped the conservation staff by cleaning up litter from the car park, repairing a brushwood fence by cutting small branches and using them to build up the fence again, and also by planting heather seeds to generate a habitat that is very rare in southern England.

Anjali Karia
Junior CHYK, Northwood

A message from Prof Bolsover from Harrow Nature Conservation Forum:

This is to thank you and the team at the Chinmaya Mission for the wonderful work you did at Stanmore Common on Sunday 9th March.

The enthusiastic and hardworking volunteers did three significant jobs. In the car park area they picked up an enormous amount of litter, ranging from the expected crisp packets and juice containers to metal trays and a large piece of rusty machinery. Removing these
has greatly improved the look of this entrance to the Common and will we hope reduce the temptation to future visitors to litter. In the Bluebell Heath area the volunteers repaired a brushwood fence that protects an area of wet grassland beside the small stream called the
Heathbourn. In this grassland grow Heath Spotted Orchid, a plant that is rare in south England and which has been declared a 'priority species' in the Harrow biodiversity action plan. The volunteers actions will help ensure the survival of this beautiful flower in Harrow. Lastly the volunteers distributed and trod in heather seeds to create a new area of heather heathland northwest of Bluebell Heath. This project, funded by the London Heathland Heritage Project, aims to regenerate areas of heather heathland, a habitat that is increasingly rare in southern England. Prior to your visit, mechanical earthmoving equipment removed the topsoil from a remote area of the Common. Your volunteers carried heather seeds collected from nearby heaths all over this newly cleared area and trod them into improve their chances of successful germination.

The warden of the Common, Simon Braidman, is extremely pleased with the work that has been done, and I was impressed with the good spirits and helpful attitude of the young people. Thank you again.

Yours Stephen Bolsover