Cooks Lane, Sittingbourne

Thank you to Milton Creek Park Ranger Kris Staples and other local volunteers Graham, Jeff, Richard, John, Dawn and Jonathan, for allowing the ENGIE team to join again this month. The team had a constructive and enjoyable morning helping to remove plastic tree protection from a large number of trees within the park.

With the Country Park being local to our construction site, we have committed to volunteer at the park once a month to support projects and activities that will enhance and help maintain this wonderful green space.

Pictured are our Engie Volunteers:

Vicky Bangay – Site Secretary

Ricky Coates – Site Labourer

ENGIE attended Milton Court Primary Academy and carried out a Health & Safety Assembly to the whole school, explaining that building sites are dangerous to play in, and that they should not ever go onto one, even if a ball were to get kicked over the fence, we instrumented that they should speak to a teacher who could then speak to the site team as they must never enter a construction site.

4 young students dressed in PPE as the other students said what they thought our workers would wear on site and why.

After the assemlies, ENGIE carried out 4 of ENGIE's Building Challanges with years 3, 4, 5 & 6. This interactive session teaches pupils how to work as a team, but also encouranges core skills such as mathematics, observation, timekeeping, planning and organisation. They also learn about some of the roles within construction, supporting careers education and raising aspirations.

During October ENGIE ran 3 mentoring sessions over a course of 3 days with a group of 17 young people aged between 18-24, at the Sittingbourne Job Centre Plus.

The first session covered topics such as potential barriers into work, discussing how their previous interviews had gone, what they felt they needed help with, looking at their confidence, and psychometric testing, what they wanted to get out the sessions.

The second session as about creating CV's, what you should and shouldn't put into a CV and how to create a covering letter.

The third and final session focused on interview techniques coupled with a mock interview session.

ENGIE also ran 2 information sessions with 10 JCP customers, one at Sittingbourne and one at Sheerness Job Centre given them information about ENGIE and the different types of job roles there are within the construction industry, how to apply for a job role, and offering them training courses at our Cooks Lane project.

It’s a shame to let all those carved pumpkins from Halloween go to waste. You could re-use yours as a bird feeder. This is a great little project you can do with your kids and grandkids in the back garden.

What you need

· A pumpkin.

· If you cannot place it somewhere, hang it up using some string.

· Some good quality bird seed.

Making a Pumpkin Bird Feeder

Making a pumpkin bird feeder is quite simple.

· Remove the top of your pumpkin. If yours is looking a bit worn around the carvings, slice that off, leaving a bowl shape.

· Make sure the pumpkin is clean and not rotten.

· Run some twine underneath the pumpkin, cradling it, and suspend somewhere in your garden.

· Fill with good birdseed.

It won’t last forever

Remember that as soon as the pumpkin starts to look a little old and rotten, it’s time to throw it away, or better still, compost it.

Don’t feed the birds food that has gone rotten or mouldy.

You never know…. your pumpkin feeder may invite other fury friends to visit your garden such as squirrels.

What to do with pumpkin seeds

Birds love all kinds of seeds, pumpkin included, so you could save the seeds and put them in your feeder. Dry them out first by putting them in the oven at 180C/gas 4 for about ten minutes (get a grown up to help you with this). Once they’re cool, you could break them up a bit so it’s easier for little birds to get their beaks round them.

Give minibeasts a pumpkin feast

Pumpkin flesh is full of water and breaks down quickly in the soil so you could just chop your pumpkin into bits and bury it in your garden. The worms and insects will love it!

Just dig a hole about 25cm deep and pop it in. Remove the seeds first or you may be in for some surprise pumpkins in the spring! The minibeasts will chomp on it and then poo it out, making the soil more fertile for growing things next year.

https://naturedetectives.woodlandtrust.org.uk/naturedetectives/blogs/nature-detectives-blog/2017/11/what-to-do-with-pumpkins/

ENGIE are carrying out a number of training courses over the coming months at the Cook Lane project, and we were delighted to be able to invite 12 construction students from Sheppey College to attend a Fire Marshall course with our ENGIE Trainer Mick Doyle.

Mick has a great knowledge of experience coming from a building background within the construction industry, and is now a part time Fireman and our ENGIE Trainer, carrying out courses all around London and the South East.

It was great to receive positive feedback from Sheppey College, and we were pleased to hear that the students enjoyed their time on the course.

Hello Vicky,

I just wanted to send you a little email to say a HUGE thank you for arranging today.

We had some very positive feedback from our students (and the staff member who was in attendance). The students had a great time, they especially enjoyed the demo with the fire extinguisher.

They all said the trainer was brilliant and they were very impressed with his builder/firefighter background!

I have no negative comments! I hope you feel the same!

Again, thank you very much for this opportunity and we hope for many more to come!

Kind regards

Lauren Carpenter

Work Experience Officer/Careers Advisory

Sheppey College

We will now be working weekends where required to catch up with time we have lost in the week due to the lovely English weather.

Working hours on Saturdays will commence between 8.00am – 13.00pm, with no work on Sundays.

On Friday 27^th September ENGIE hosted a MacMillan Coffee Morning for its staff, visitors and subcontractors.

Everyone involved put a lot of effort in to making a delicious selection of homemade cakes. The event was a great success, raising a total of -

£131.15 which will go towards helping more people with cancer live life as fully as they can.

Engie sites are taking the lead in installing Electric Vehicle Charging Points to all of their construction sites.

We are committed to innovation and reduction of carbon waste, in all access of our daily life, from driving to work, carrying out our jobs and driving home again.

Thank you to Milton Creek Park Ranger Kris Staples and other local volunteers for allowing the ENGIE team to join this month. The team had a constructive and enjoyable morning helping to clear one of the newt ponds ready for the newts to return next year.

With the Country Park being local to our construction site, we have committed to volunteer at the park once a month to support projects and activities that will enhance and help maintain this wonderful green space.

Pictured are our Engie Volunteers:

Francessa Wild – Assistant Quantity Surveyor

Stuart Falconer – Senior Quantity Surveyor

Mark Hodges – Design Manager

Vicky Bangay – Site Secretary

Mak Doe – Health & Safety Advisor

Ricky Coates – Site Labourer

ENGIE are providing a Free Refill Water Station on site to allow local residents, pedestrians and delivery drivers the opportunity to fill up their water bottles.

If you are passing by and need stay hydrated, please feel free to visit the ENGIE site in Cooks Lane for a free refill rather than buy a new bottle of water.

Please access the ENGIE construction site via the pedestrian gate and tell the Gate Man you require a "Free Tap Water Refill", and he will fill up your water bottle in our downstairs canteen.

Here we can provide both drinking water from a tap, and from a water cooling tank.

Please bring your own reusable water bottle as plastic cups will not be provided.

Introducing Refill – a free tap water initiative! Refill is designed to reduce plastic pollution, making refilling your water bottle easy, attractive and rewarding!

If all the Refill Stations are used just TWICE a week we’d save more than 14 million bottles a year. Refill aim to have free Refill Stations on every high street, and in every city, making carrying a refillable bottle a social norm.

REDUCE the single-use plastic in your life,

REUSE the plastics you have already,

RECYCLE plastics and other materials.