fungwahbus
Registered: November 2009
City/Town/Province: South Glastonbury
Posts: 2
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For my service project, I (Brendan O.) installed a self guided tree walk designed to educate people in the community on the various types of trees that exist in the woods of Glastonbury. This project required a team of scouts and adults led by me to identify and label 23 different trees.
Members of this team were also responsible for the creation of a pod cast highlighting the tree walk in the Great Pond Preserve area. This audio/visual presentation is downloadable onto iPods from the internet. I had another team of scouts assist with the creation of a brochure that highlights these trees and the associated trails they are located on within the Great Pond Preserve.
This project can be broken into two primary parts. One of which is the great pond section being the greater of the two parts and the other being the cotton hollow section. For the great pond portion of the project, there is the pod cast, brochure, and tree labeling as mentioned above. I labeled¬15 trees. However, for the cotton hollow part, I only replaced some plaques previously mounted on the trees that were unable to be read or were run down. I replaced 8 of these plaques. Unlike the great pond portion of the project, there will not be a pod cast or a brochure.
I required the help of approximately ten (10) Troop 540 scouts and six (6) adult leaders to accomplish the installation of the plaques on the trees. I required the help of three (3) additional scouts to assist with the design and creation of the brochure.
Finally, I required the help of approximately twelve (12) more scouts to research and prepare the commentary associated with trees in the Great Pond Area. I secured all of these people’s help by educating them on the importance of this project and its value to the community.
In order to help identify the different trees, I went on a hike with Ed along with two other members of troop 540; David and George through the proposed areas. During that hike, I took pictures of the various trees that were the subjects of this project.
Ed Richardson helped to identify the different trees as we went along and David Schneider tied ribbons around the trunks of the trees. The ribbons had a number on them that corresponded to a notepad with the common and scientific name of the tree.
The tree labeling aspect of this project was carried out using fifteen (15), 4” x 6” stainless steel plaques engraved with both the common and scientific name of the tree species. The plaques have corners of 90 degrees and have white type and a black background. The plaques were mounted 10’ up the tree using botanical fasteners. All plaques were printed and cut by Quality Name Plates of Glastonbury, CT.
The brochure that describes the project and includes some interesting facts about the trees was printed on a tri-fold brochure. These brochures are located in a weather proof case attached to a kiosk near the entrance of the Great Pond Preserve Trail.
I worked with a small team of scouts to design the general template for the brochure and I had two (2) volunteers to design the brochure. Once the design was complete, I sent in the electronic copy of the brochure via email to Kinko’s with a request that they publish 500 copies of the brochures.
The pod cast was created with the assistance of two (2) scouts. It was posted on the Troop 540 website for people to download it onto their iPods and then go on the tree walk in the Great Pond Preserve. The pod cast has a visual of each tree as well as an audio section that highlights the characteristics of the tree. Any one will be able to download the pod cast from Troop 540’s website then go on the pod cast guided tree walk.
The execution of my project was carried out by a group of twenty (20) volunteers from Troop 540. These volunteers were spanned out into four installation teams consisting of three scouts and two adult leaders. Each group was issued a ladder, a battery powered drill, measuring tape, and was assigned 5 - 6 trees. They worked together to properly attach the plaques to the trees by following the instructions and specifications they were provided during the orientation. I ensured the safety of those carrying out this part of the project by making sure everyone who participated in the project clearly understood the plan and is knowledgeable with procedures for using the various tools.
Realizing that funding plays a critical role in the success of my Project, I raised the capital required to purchase the plaques ($200), brochures ($86), the two wooden brochure holders ($30), the specialized installation springs and screws ($42), and refreshments for those participating in the work day ($120). I raised the estimated cost of $372 plus a 10% buffer amounting to a total of about $410 for the project.
The ways in which I raised the money needed was that i wrote to the Exchange Club, Rotary Club, South Glastonbury Fire Company, and other civic organizations for donations. I also asked Kinko’s and QNP to reduce the cost for the supplies that I will be sourcing.
The following is a table of events with the numbers of man hours based on the following calculation: Number of people X Number of hours per person.
Planning and outlining the project before actually executing helped as it acted as a guideline and timeline for each aspect of the project. Some aspects of the project went smoother than others. For example, the purchasing of the mounting hardware and Brochure Holder went very smoothly. However, the plaque production didn’t. When I received the plaques that had been printed and drilled, I realized that the holes on the top and bottom were too small for the screws. I addressed this situation by writing a note to QNP advising them of the problem. They promptly re-drilled the holes to order.
Throughout the execution of the project, a number of things changed and went slightly different than planned. One thing that changed was the fundraising. I ended up not having to hold a car wash as a fundraiser as I had the plaques from QNP donated, a $200 from the Exchange club and a $100 donation from the fire department and ultimately had a sum of money remaining.
Another variation from the original proposal was the number of people that assisted with the installation of the plaques. I had over-estimated the amount of people that would be needed originally to carry out the project. As a result, the actual hours are less than the estimated.
To help stay within budget, I had to do some negotiating with Kinko’s because the asking price was two times what I wanted to spend on the brochures. I talked to other companies such as staples to get quotes and their cost was higher. When I called Kinko's again to try to get a final, lower, quote, I had some luck. I ended up talking to him again and he said he could give me 50% off the original price (the price of getting it in black and white). I thanked him then finalized the brochures for printing. After they were printed and paid for, I called back in disappointment because they had not folded the brochures very neatly. They said they could print out a few for display but got frustrated that I hadn’t just accepted the brochures as they were.
To get the first part of the project approved, I had to go to Mr. Mocko at the town council. He was the environmental planner. He was very excited that I was going to do this project to improve the usability of great pond preserve and cotton hollow. He said all I needed to do to get it approved by the town was send it through the Great Pond Preserve Stewardship Committee which he happened to be a member of. It went through the committee and he signed off on it. When I went back to him to get his final signature stating that I completed the project, he noted that he was very pleased with the outcome of the project and he thanked me for doing this.
Once I put in the order for the plaques, QNP sent me a draft and it looked good. They printed all of the plaques and then re-drilled them as explained before. About two weeks before the estimated work day, Ed Richardson and I went on a walk in Cotton Hollow and in the Great Pond Preserve to make sure everything was set for the installation. We ran into a problem. Mr. Richardson had realized that some of the scientific names of the trees were wrong. This was just the case in cotton hollow. He said that I had the British scientific name for a couple of them instead of the American name. I went through different ideas in my head of how to settle this problem and figured that I had enough plaques and the best way to solve the problem was just to omit the few plaques from cotton hollow.
The morning of the installation went well despite a few complications. One problem that aroused was the four cub scouts that had signed up to come did not. Also, a few scouts that hadn’t signed up came. This caused me to have to redistribute all of the groups because I needed to have scouts that would work together well of all experiences as well as adults in each group. I did this and then we headed out to carry out the project. The weather was good. It was sunny and there were even a few flurries. After we finished up, we walked back to my house to have lunch and write up the “treesearch” papers. I had borrowed five of the same books that the scouts could share to look up their assigned tree. Each scout wrote about one or two trees. Following lunch, some scouts went home and the others joined me to go down to cotton hollow where we replaced some of the worn plaques, and installed a few new ones.
Once the brochures had been printed, the plaques installed, and the pod cast posted on the troops website, everything looked like it was finally beginning to wrap up. Until, that is, my dad realized that the title page of the pod cast that had been posted online was incorrect. The track index had been mixed up and was missing two trees. I contacted Eric to let him know of the problem and then he redid the title page. I then emailed this to Mr. Cousins and he posted it on the Website.
In preparing this project’s proposal, I spoke with Mr. Tom Mocko, an Environmental Planner with the Glastonbury Parks and Recreation Department as well as Mr. Gerhard Schade, the chairman of the Great Pond Preserve Stewardship Committee to confirm that this project is consistent with their policies and the needs of the community. They have both agreed that this project represents value to the community and have approved the project.
To me, however, this project was a major indicator to me that I could lead others successfully toward a common goal. In doing this project, I had an opportunity to apply all the leadership skills I had learned in years past in boy scouts.
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