Getting dirty down on the Farm
Roughly a 4 minute read by Dave Wrightson
As you may have seen from our previous posts, we have a close affinity with a number of local charities, which we contribute to through the year. One of those is Lineham Farm.
For the past twenty years Lineham Farm have given disadvantaged, disabled and local school children a break in the glorious Leeds countryside.
You name it, Lineham offer it! From their high-ropes course and night walks, to orienteering and mini beast discovery, mountain biking and heart start – Lineham’s very own first aid course. Regardless of how they choose to spend their days, all the children leave the farm thoroughly content, happy and maybe just a little tired!
“Engage have shown the most fantastic support to Lineham Farm Children’s Charity whilst at the same time encouraging staff fitness through Elympics.”
As well as being a beneficiary through our Elympics efforts, we thought it was time to get away from our desks and (quite literally) get our hands dirty helping out in a more practical way. So, we all arrived at the farm at 9am in a selection of unfamiliar outdoor clothing, ready for a hard but rewarding day ahead. The morning started with a bacon sandwich and a safety briefing (apparently we weren’t getting our hands on any chainsaws) before splitting up into two main teams.
Team one was helping to clear the adventure playground. Digging out any weeds and raking the gravel back so it makes a softer landing for those that don’t quite manage the monkey bars.
Team two would be designing and building 100M of bike / bmx track. The track already had a name - the Serpent - which helped us formulate our plan to create the most exciting BMX track Lineham Farm had ever seen. The rest of the morning passed in blur of activity as shovels, pickaxes and rakes were put to use both in digging the track and trying to swat the horse flies that were gathering around Tom Horner’s hair product.
“We desperately needed a fleet of new bikes for our daily mountain biking programme and with the extremely generous donations from the company we were able to buy 10 brand new bikes.”
It was a super productive morning, followed by a lunch of epic proportions where we all ensured that we refuelled with far more calories than we’d expended.
Team one, weeding task complete, joined us in the afternoon to ensure that we completed the track, complete with berms, rollers and a tabletop before the end of the day. Our ambition, energy, and probably health and safety, ran out at the thought of a half pipe finale.
That just left time to run the course, have a few photos, a last cup of tea and then say our goodbyes.
We’d like to thank Lineham Farm for having us, for the fantastic work they do all year round, and also for that lunch!