KaBOOM! Forums

Our build day was this past Saturday. The weather was beautiful and we had a fantastic turnout for volunteers.

Here's what worked and what didn't

1. Delivery of playground equipment, concrete and lumber from Home Depot and surfacing materials all delivered on the same day around the same time was great. We had everything delivered one day before the build.

2. We had a group of 6 guys unloading equipment and auguring the first holes and setting the main platform the day before the build--this saved time.

3.  We grouped volunteers according to heavy/medium/light or no lifting. This worked great, but we found that their were more women than men, which meant more medium and light lifters than heavy. The assembly of products for medium and light lifters went by quickly, consequently, there were some gaps of time when volunteers were standing around waiting for "what's next".

4. Our really cool "twisty" slide posed some problems in that we couldn't get the angles right. This delayed the project and we had to schedule a Day 2 to cement the slide and lay the wood chips.

5. I neglected to make "dinner" plans for the volunteers (breakfast and lunch were covered). Fortunately, a Board Member was present and was willing to purchase pizzas for everyone. We assummed the build would go as planned and we'd be done by 5:00pm. I highly recommend a Plan B in the event the build goes longer and you have to make food arrangements for volunteers who stay late.

6. I also recommend scheduling a group of volunteers to come later in the build or towards the end to help with "clean-up". Most of the volunteers are spent and tired and the last thing they want to do is help pick up lumber, bricks, cement bags.

7. We had a lot of side projects planned and this was great because we had many unexpected volunteers show up.

Overall, it was a tremendous success and a wonderful experience.

That's great that all of your orders showed up without problem the day before the build. I would advise that everyone schedule deliveries for TWO days before the build day just in case a truck breaks down, or the delivery is missing something. There have been MANY times when I have received a call from the truck driver letting me know they are on the side of the road waiting for repairs and it definitely helps to have that extra day.

In order to get around the problem of having people wondering what to do next, we'll usually end up having volunteers who finish putting together components work on getting as much of the engineered wood fiber (mulch) as possible on to the site, while at the same time leaving small paths for the concrete team to work with. Just have them keep piling the mulch up high in spots where you can. It's much easier to rake down mulch than it is to move it.

Another great job to give those who are left wondering what to do is to have them begin to clean up as best they can. You can even have a team leader who leads this group of people looking for work later on in the day as garbage piles up and people begin looking for work!