Jephson volunteers revamp scout camp

Hundreds of young people across the Milton Keynes region will benefit from major refurbishment work on a scout camp activity centre, carried out by volunteers from Jephson Homes Housing Association and its contractors.

A team of 18 volunteers gave up their free time to carry out important repair work to The Quarries Camping and Activity Centre on 11 June, as part of ITV Daybreak’s Donate a Day initiative. The site, off Stratford Road, Cosgrove, dates back to the 1920s and is available for use by Scouts, Guides, schools and other youth organisations, catering for all types of training or special activity days.

The volunteers completed an access ramp to the indoor rifle range which will open up the facility to disabled youngsters. Other work they carried out included a kitchen refurbishment, replacing water taps and starting off the cladding of a climbing tower.

They also replaced the scout shop windows with sheet metal to improve security, replaced the guttering on two buildings and general refurbished the camp site, owned by Milton Keynes Scouting Association.

As well as joining the volunteers, Jephson contractors ADP Engineering and Maintenance, Semilong Services, Ella & White, Westbank and Bargad Electrical, together kindly donated thousands of pounds worth of materials that were needed to complete the works.
Jephson’s volunteers were led by maintenance officer James Devlin. He said: “The Scouting Association is over the moon with what was achieved. It was hard work, but a good fun day and everyone gelled together helping us to complete everything we set out to do.”

His colleague, gas services administrator Mark Tomlinson is a former scout leader and regular volunteer with the Scout Association. Together they had the idea to help after visiting the camp site and seeing just how much renovation work needed doing there and convinced their Jephson colleagues to join them for the Donate a Day initiative.

Tomlinson said: “It was a blinding result. We are more than pleased with what we achieved and both myself and James have our director William Philpot to thank for allowing us to put the event together. It is really nice to be able to support our local community.”

Campsite Warden Chris Bardell thanked the team for their efforts. He said: “Our site is used now by more and more young people from all youth groups in Milton Keynes and the surrounding areas.

“We are over the moon to get some outstanding projects completed and a great start on our new climbing tower cladding. This was a superb effort.”