Simon Poole (Managing Director, Splash Community Projects) and Lloyd Comer (Project Manager, Splash Community Projects) explain the work involved creating a new sensory garden alongside volunteers from Expleo and local schools at Roddensvale School in Larne.
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00:00My name is Simon Poole, I'm the MD of Splash Projects and today we're in Larne working at the
00:05Roddings Vale School for Children with Special Needs and our client today is
00:09XBO and what they've been challenged to do is build a bit of a creative
00:14sensory playground as you can see in the background and we've been going now a
00:18few hours and straight from the beginning with a brief from Rob and the
00:24team have got straight into it and they've been extremely effective and our
00:28volunteers are amazingly enthusiastic and they seem to be well on track at the moment.
00:33In terms of the overall project Simon, how do you feel it's going and what do you
00:37think it'll achieve for the Larne community? So far the project's going
00:41really well, I think we'll have a few bottlenecks as we get closer to the finish of that
00:45but what I can gather from the trustees and the headteacher that this is going
00:51to have a big impact on the children because they are losing more and more
00:55playground space and what they really need is a space where children can be imaginative and
01:00burn off a bit of energy and enjoy themselves as children should.
01:05In terms of the memorial wall, how important an aspect is that for the project?
01:11The memorial wall is really very emotive and emotional because we've heard of some of the stories and initially it was a
01:20space that needed a little bit of care so we brought it back to life,
01:26removed some old bricks and now the XPO team are putting in a nice quiet seating area for a bit of reflection so I think everybody's taking this to be a really important part of the playground again.
01:40Hi, I'm Lloyd, I'm one of the project managers for Splash Community Projects. I'm involved here with the community project and the big build from XPO and the
01:49Rotterdale School. We've spent some considerable time, several months in fact, preparing the designs for this particular project and the whole thing has evolved in collaboration between
02:01Rotterdale School and XPO to make sure that the end result is really useful for the children, providing them with some real interactive structures that they can gain a lot of
02:17leisure time and general coordination activities.
02:23In terms of the design then Lloyd, I mean I understand it was a project put together by XPO and by the school, so how much input would each have had and how are you seeing the design sort of coming to fruition today?
02:37So clearly the main objective was to look after the children here at Roddenspell School and the headmaster here, John Madden, was very keen and instrumental in including the designs that he felt he needed here within the school and then that's done in collaboration with XPO to make sure they were achieving their objectives at the same time and of course with the design team in Splash so that we can tie it all together and coordinate it into
03:07what's turning out to be the big build.
03:09And finally Lloyd, obviously you're trying to use as little material and stuff as possible, have as little waste. Have you a message of thanks for everybody who's donated or provided the materials for today's project?
03:23So timber management and sustainability is really important to us all, to Splash, to XPO and of course to the school so that we can maximise the amount of structures that we can build with the timber that we've got and JP Corrie have been really helpful in providing us with all the timber. Their administration and logistics has been exceptional so everything's been in the right place at the right time.