Jenny was a member when we first let women join the RVU. Gail joined a few years later, now it was the turn of Lisa. Like Dave she was the third sibling of a family to join the RVU.

New recruit Lisa set about showing the old hands how to dig out roots. Dave was adamant that all the necessary effort could be effected upon the aforementioned tree roots despite sitting on his back side!

Before too long master Denton (Middle) agreed to join with Dave's way of thinking. In the picture to the left the three Ventures can be seen trying to sever the roots of the final tree, without breaking the rodding eye set in concrete.

This was one of the many days on site where we seemed to put in hours of work for little return.

Lisa was very nearly murdered by Dave and Ross when Dave asked, "Lisa, can you chuck us the axe?" she literally threw it at them!

And the rope snapped, under the pressure that we applied to it. So we started again. More digging, re fixing of the rope and pulley system, more sitting on back sides etc.

It was also brought to our attention that although the foundation had been completed, the drainage hadn't. A sophisticated labyrinth of drainage pipes had been devised by the chief architects and the trench that we were severing roots in was to become part of this network.

In the picture to the left Dave is sitting on a Rodding Eye or access point to the rain water drainage system from the existing hall. This would later be linked to the new network of trenches and pipes.

So after the rope snapping exploits it was back to hacking at the roots with axes and pick axes.

The trench that can be seen in the foreground was designed to hold the rain water gutters from the down pipes from both the new and old halls. The fire escape path has now been built over this trench.

Also visible in this picture are the bolts strategically cememnted into the concrete base. Very painfull if you sat on them.