Friday the 7th May 2010 welcomed the Annual return of Spitfire Flt’s Charity Project. This year aptly named Exercise Spitfire Chopper, it started with 9 Officer Cadets setting off for the peak district. With an initial phone call from the Peak District Volunteer Centre stating that the power was off at the barn, and that it could be anywhere between 2 and 6 hours before it was back on, OCdt Cooke was very happy that nothing else was going wrong! A quick dinner and an early night were in store, as the next days task was announced. Spitfire Flight (plus ringers) would be constructing a path from hardcore, but no one knew where or how far.

Upon arrival at Ladybower Reservoir, the flight instantly set into action. The task involved filling wheelbarrows with hardcore, and pushing it out the spots that most needed it on the path, mostly the boggy bits. Initial enthusiasm was high, and everyone was overloading their barrows. By morning break, we were two wheelbarrows down, the tyres having seen better days. With less gravel being put into wheelbarrows more trips were being made. By the end of the day, everyone was shattered, and a trip out to get some curry and a few beers went down well.

Sunday brought much trepidation. Everyone had worked so hard on the Saturday, and we now knew that the task had changed slightly, and rather than resurfacing just the bad bits, the whole path now needed surfacing. We also knew that we were starting at the far end, around 500m away from the hardcore pile. OCdt Starling had a pedometer built into his phone, and over the day, we clocked just shy of 20km covered per person, with 50% of the distance including a full wheelbarrow, and 50% including an empty wheelbarrow. This meant a grand total of somewhere in the region of 40km covered per person in the weekend, in what most were thinking would be a relaxing weekend in the Peaks. The supervisors were highly grateful for the amount of work we achieved, and would not stop talking about how much we had done.

Fun was had by all, even though the work was relatively physical, and we hope to return next year to get another task done.