Tree O'Clock

Back in December, our YAT teamed up with a group called "Give Love, Find Love" to take part in the BBC's Breathing Places tree-planting world record attempt with the help of the Woodland Trust at Hainault Forest.

The challenge was to set a new Guinness World Record for the most trees planted in a single location in one hour. After being briefed on how the event was organised, we were given our saplings, and a few minutes with which to get to our team's planting location and to come up with our strategy. We divided the team into two halves: one half would be responsible for placing the baby trees on the ground, for fetching and carrying extra trees and extra shovels and for shouting general encouragement, and the other half made up our group's designated planters. I was a planter, so I spent most of the day bent-over at the waist!

When the clock started, it became a frantic race to dig, plant, stamp-down and repeat. We were competing with teams in St Albans and Northern Ireland, and we were given regular updates over the tannoy system so that we had an idea of how well we were doing compared to them.

The hour went by surprisingly quickly, but it was definitely a relief to hear the final hooter sounding.

As it turned out, we'd smashed the existing record by about 200 trees, planting 20,312. Sadly, though, we came third out of the three locations taking part, with St Albans just beating us with 20,326 and Northern Ireland way out in front with 26,422! (We reckoned they must have had a very different strategy - probably cheating!) Still, it was fun and the real aim of the day was to do our bit to improve the UK's lack of green spaces.

As well as us, there were groups representing the Scouts and Cadets and other organisations, and we all left in the knowledge that we can go back in 20 years' time and visit our own little piece of Hainault Forest.

But before that, we all trudged back home through the mud for some well-deserved rest!

Read about and watch the event on BBC London News

Tree O'Clock at BBC Breathing Places

"Million", and Why it Was Awesome

Hello, there! I'm George, and I joined the Redbridge Youth Action Team in September 2009 after being blown away while helping out at a couple of events earlier on that year. The first of those was called “Million”.

Held at Ilford Town Hall, Million was a free entertainment and awareness-raising event that aimed to be, and succeeded in being, universal in its truest sense; organised completely by the Redbridge Youth Action Team and executed with the assistance of about 60 extra young volunteers (I was one of them). Ilford's multiculturalism was well-represented, as were people of all ages – there were parents with young children, groups of teenagers, adults and senior citizens all curious to see what was going on inside, where we had an amazing variety of local talent on display throughout the afternoon as well as various stalls promoting Redbridge's volunteering and public information groups and some local businesses.

But it wasn't just inside. The event started out in the town centre, with music, dhol players and street dancers to warm up the crowd and get people asking what was going on. Some of my fellow volunteers acted as promoters, pulling people away from their shopping to spend some time with us. I spent most of the day outside, manning the PA system, so I got to witness first-hand the brilliant crowd-gathering, crowd-stirring and crowd-pleasing acts out on the High Road, even if I did get a couple of dance tracks in the wrong order!

At the day's peak, the Town Hall was a bustling entertainment venue. Everyone there was genuinely impressed with what we and the team had pulled off, and it was humbling to see such high-quality performers giving up their time for free. The volunteers on the doors, with their clickers, reported just over 1000 visitors by the end of the day; a real achievement!

After seeing what the Youth Action Team was capable of on that day, I signed up there and then. Now, we're in the early stages of organising a similar (but hopefully even bigger and better) event to take place later this year. Continuing the big-number theme, we're thinking of calling it “Billion” or “Million Squared”, or something along those lines! I'd love for this to become an annual event in Ilford, and I'd be proud to say that I was there at the beginning. It showed that a group of committed people willing to give up some of their free time can achieve something successful and brilliant, and it was truly inspiring.

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