Voluntary Work

There is a lack of pictures in this section, as the ones that I have mostly include other people, often children, so it is not appropriate to share them. I have also redacted some names for privacy reasons and omitted a few incidents, that are best kept private.

I have been doing voluntary work, of one form or another, constantly since I was fourteen. There have been two main strands to this, one child-related and the other concerning history or family history. There have also been a few miscellaneous voluntary efforts thrown in.

Child-related Voluntary Work

My first foray as a volunteer came after I broke my wrist and ankle in January 1971 and was unable to manage the two-bus journey home from school, or the stairs once I got there. There was a nursery school that met in the hall at the end of my road and I helped out there during my term off school. I don’t remember much about this experience except that the school was run by a Mrs * and another girl called *, who was younger than me, occasionally volunteered. I think that this was long before staff:child ratios were in force. As my school was ostensibly a private school, we had longer holidays than the nursery school, so I continued to volunteer at the beginning and end of terms when the nursery school was in session but my school wasn’t.

More voluntary work was organised by my school as part of the sixth form ‘liberal studies’ programme. This involved helping out at a children’s home each Friday. In my head, this was at Croham Hurst, South Croydon but I can’t positively identify it now. All the children that I encountered were under five, so that may have been the only age group that they catered for. It was a depressing and formidable place with a very distinctive yeasty smell that I can still recall. I can picture a large room where we bathed small children in a butler sink.

In the summer of 1972, I volunteered at a summer playgroup for children in Waddon. I believe this was organised by TocH, who supported a variety of projects by co-ordinating volunteers. I think it was a follow up from this experience, that led to a summer camp being organised for the following year. I spent two weeks at Dibgate army camp in Folkestone, providing a holiday for children who had been identified by social services as being in need. The children all came from a vast council estate in Waddon and the driving force was the local vicar, Reverend *. This was where, on the 2nd of August 1973, I met my future husband, John, who was a fellow volunteer. I remember that, initially, I was sleeping in a large marquee with all the boys.

There were three incidents concerning the children that stand out in my memory, although, as we went again in 1974, I can’t remember which year they date from. One was spending hours trying to untangle the incredibly matted hair of a child called *. Then there was *. When we took him home it was discovered that his family had moved and hadn’t bothered to say where they were now living. Finally, there was *. At a time when very few children were overweight, * was huge. To cut a long story short, we lost *. On reporting this to the local police, they put out a description that described * as ‘stout’. Politically correct it may have been but no one would have identified * from that description. In the end, * turned up of his own accord.

In 1976, the holiday moved to Maesteg, where we slept in a church hall. This time, I also took * and * from the Reading playgroup. They had just recovered from chicken pox but fortunately I didn’t catch it. I collected them from Reading and took them to my house on the train before we met up with the rest of the party to travel to South Wales. I distinctly remember the railings outside the chapel and trying laverbread for the first and last time.

After the first camp, the vicar set up a weekly ‘Tuesday Club’ for these children and John and I volunteered until I left for college. The children were divided into groups and there were two volunteers allocated to each group. I can remember doing a litter pick in the local park, playing games and doing craft activities.

Another child-related TocH project was two weeks in Southend, in 1975, looking after children with additional learning needs. Volunteers took turns to stay awake all night to ensure that all was well.

More volunteering included being on the committee of the ‘Meet-a-Mum’ toddler group when I was in Aston Clinton and two spells as a school governor. The first of these was at *, which I loved and I really felt involved. I was the minutes secretary for much of the time. Then, the role included plenty of hands-on interaction with pupils and staff. I resigned from this post in 1996. By the time that I became a governor at *, the role was very different and mostly involved reading endless paperwork. I did enjoy interviewing for staff, which I did regularly at * and a couple of times in *.

In the 1990s, when * was a Brownie at Godshill, I became Tawny Owl. In 2007, shortly after I moved to Buckland Brewer, I started helping at the youth club that met in the Methodist Church next door. It mostly involved playing pool and supervising craft activities and was a good way to meet younger members of the community.

History and Family History-related Voluntary Work

My first voluntary role for a family history society was when I took over the pedigree index for Cornwall Family History Society in 1983. This consisted of indexing family trees that had been sent in by members and then answering enquiries. When I moved to the island and joined the newly formed Isle of Wight Family History Society, I soon took on the role of society librarian and bookstall holder. I used to lug boxes of books up the road from Ryde St. John’s Station to Athena House where we met. I also organised the annual one-day conferences, using my contacts with mainland family historians to bring top class speakers to the island.

I became involved in family history nationally, attending day training sessions for family history teachers run by the then Federation of Family History Societies, in conjunction with the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies. I then joined the executive committee of the Federation, at that time, the youngest person ever to do so. My role was Education Liaison Officer, co-ordinating the training of family history teachers amongst other things. In 2021, I was invited to become the President of what was by then called the Family History Federation.

I was a founder member of the Braund Society and in 1993, I took over co-ordinating the research and editing the journal. I also helped to organise many Braund reunions and events, including two Victorian pageants, when we repopulated the streets of Bucks Mills with its Victorian occupants.

2013 was a busy year as I was on the steering committee for the Society for One-Place Studies. I remained on the committee for some years, including serving as chairman. The same year saw the formation of Buckland Brewer History Group. I became chair, editing the newsletter and helping with research. Highlights included organising a parish event to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I and publishing a multi-authored book.

2013 was also the year that I went neo-building. This was an English Heritage project, under the supervision of the Ancient Technology Centre. The plan was to build replica neolithic houses near Stonehenge. What we were doing was trying out different methods of construction that were consistent with the scant archaeological evidence. I really loved the experimental nature of this, especially when we used period tools, which we didn’t all the time. I kept a detailed diary of this experience, so have included it here.

Neobuild day 1 dawns. It actually dawns warm and sunny, maybe I won‘t need the hat, gloves and three fleecy layers. We head off to the Neolithic era. Needless to say none of the essential safety boots are small enough for my feet – some will be ordered. Having checked with HQ it appears that they probably don’t make them in my size – how may pairs of socks will I need? Most of the thirty or so volunteers have been before, many are here for the whole project. The half a dozen newbies feel very much just that. First, the health and safety induction, billed as ‘the most boring hour of your life’. All the essential stuff, like where to run to if the bull in the adjoining field breaks down the fence and be sure to wash your hands after wallowing in pig poo. The project so far is then explained. Anyone hoping for easy jobs like making curtains or rag rolling walls may be disappointed!

We are relieved to find that we are not the only people of more mature years on site and our co-workers have some interesting and varied life stories. We are set to work thumbing over cracks that have appeared in the ‘pig mud’ daub. We are awaiting a delivery of more pig mud. Pig mud is not actually poo but the mud that the pigs have been churning up, usefully mixed with straw. Previous days’ work on site have discovered that pig mud is much less labour intensive than crushed chalk and water daub. We have a go at daubing with crushed chalk too and the pig mud method certainly seems more effective.

I was expecting to have problems keeping up with a full day’s manual labour but life in the seventeenth century is obviously harder than I realised, as I have no difficulty at all, primarily because there are plenty of breaks and discussions about how things might have been achieved in Neolithic houses. One of the houses (or possibly not a house but an ancillary building) is tepee shaped. I spend the afternoon assisting with the thatching of a third of this. Three different methods are being attempted to help to decide which is the most efficient/likely. I think I’m safe in saying, not our way, on so many levels. It is important to try this in order to come to that conclusion though.

Our section is closely woven with hazel at the bottom and willow at the top. This would be close enough for wattle and daub so has taken a great deal of materials and person hours to achieve. We are then yealming (possibly spelt wrong), which involves straightening out a bundle of hay. This is then doubled over and the uncut ends are shoved in a gap in the woven hazel wands. We are having trouble as our hay is much shorter than Neolithic hay would have been. Contrary to expectations, this doesn’t blow away instantly and is more efficient than you might think. We all decide that this is an unlikely method however – bearing in mind that this thatch reaches ground level, any passing sheep would eat your house. In addition hay would be too valuable as feed to use in this way as it takes an awful lot of hay. The counter argument to this is that the archaeological evidence suggests that the predominant animal in the lives of the former inhabitants of our houses was the pig and pigs would not need winter feeding but would forage for themselves.

Yealming April 2013

By the time I arrive on the yealming/hay thatching team they have just about stuffed all the woven hazel that can be reached from the ground. We try several ways of reaching the higher parts. It seems we should perhaps have left a section in the middle to climb up and done that last. Bit late for that now and anyway the weaving is too tight to get steel capped safety boots in – Neolithic bare toes perhaps – or would they have had footwear? – another debate. We try creating a ladder from hazel wands and securing it to the weaving – this works fairly well. I think shoving single pieces of wood through the hay to stand on is the best method although these do of course leave gaps when removed. Would they have been left in for repairs? We decide probably not as they would let water in. Experience suggests that there would have been some sort of conveyor belt system for passing up bundles of hay, although some of our team have created a sort of platform to rest a bundle of hay on, by inserting smallish sticks through the weave.

By day two I am suffering from being exposed to the sun, for the first time this year and am a delicate shade of lobster. Normally I don’t burn but my skin doesn’t remember when it last saw sunshine and is decidedly rosy in places.

Back on site and more yealming (it seems no one knows how to spell it). Some people are trying to weave mats. The rush ones are successful but straw much less so. As the descendant of a straw plaiter I am interested in whether the straw would have been split first. I can’t find a way of manually splitting straw – although I have non-Neolithic straw here. My dim and distance memories of college suggest Neolithic straw would have been spelter or emma. The straw is very brittle and not really workable.

*, our resident survival expert, has brought in his bow drill so we can try making fire without the aid of boy scouts’ legs to rub together. I tried this once as a girl guide (bow drilling not the boys scouts’ legs thing); I am sure it was comparatively easy. * has demonstrated – no trouble. Either bow drilling is less effort when one is a teenager or it is not comparatively easy. With * doing pretty much all of the work I create an ember but fail to get this to ignite the bundle of tinder in my hands. This does involve a great deal of steady blowing. If I am ever breathalised I shall now know what to do. Conscious that I should be back on site, I don’t try again but others are more successful. The best wood for the drill bit is hazel and lime is easiest to drill into. The cross piece on top of the bit should be holly, with some fat, a limpet shell, or maybe a holly leaf in the top to reduce the friction so you don’t start smoking at the wrong end. To get smoke and embers at the business end you need to create enough friction to generate a temperature of 800 degrees. *’s tinder included hay, honeysuckle, clematis and silver birch bark. He then used his ember to ignite a fungi known as King Alfred’s cakes, which looks a bit like a piece of coal. Apparently this can be kept glowing for up to forty minutes. * suggests that the effort required to bow drill a fire means that three times a day would be enough – he’s not wrong. There’s probably a knack to it – not one that I mastered.

Bow Drilling April 2013

Our hay roof is complete and looks more like it might withstand something. Today’s discussions centre round how labour might have been divided up and the role of women, who would presumably be pregnant or have small children most of the time. At the ages many of us are we would be almost certainly dead in Neolithic times, or if not dead, so ancient that we would be revered for our great wisdom and experience – I am still waiting for the reverence! People are starting to talk about ‘phase two’ when the houses are to be rebuilt at Stonehenge, in the light of our experience and using the best of the techniques that we have tried.[1]

Day three. As I am still fairly puce coloured and it may be sunny again and I don’t want to keep scrounging sun cream, we dodge rush hour traffic on a mercy dash to T****’s. I haven’t bought sun cream for thirty years, although I do confess to having had some that was free with something or other in the interim. Time is short and to avoid a Supermarket Sweep scenario I ask where the sun cream is located; that was the easy bit. There are advantages to the rubbish-up-to-now weather – sun cream is all half price, although there is a bewildering choice. Needless to say I opt for the cheapest. I really shouldn’t be let out alone – I don’t normally supermarket shop and I decide, with only one item, to try the self-service thingy. Scanning is simple, I do this on my shifts in the community shop. The machine keeps asking me if I have my own bag. I don’t. Then it says ‘insert your money’. I try shoving a crumpled £5 note in to every available orifice to no avail. Why is there not a handy arrow pointing to where it should go? I finally locate the correct slot, a considerable distance to the right of the instruction screen and I even manage to retrieve my change. Sun cream purchased, so that’s the kiss of death for ‘summer’ then.

Our team on 547 (I think we are 547 – the three houses have numbers) have finished hay thatching so are at a bit of a loose end. We set to work clearing up the site – not the most interesting task but necessary none the less. I hope for something that is a bit more experimental. With that in mind, I try chalk crushing – we are aiming for coarser grained lumps for flooring and a dust like consistency for paint. Both are fairly time consuming and we wonder if Neolithic people would have gone to so much trouble. It took half an hour to produce a small bucket full of paint chalk dust. The stereotypical round (or in our case not really round at all) house is white but why? Is this putting medieval ideas into Neolithic people’s heads? Of course when you get to lime wash that was considered to be protection from infection but that seems unlikely in Neolithic times. Chalk washing inside the pig mud house seems sensible as this makes a significant difference to the light but outside? A mud house is cool and doesn’t need to reflect the sun in our climate – I should know I live in one. Would a white outside not just reveal your whereabouts to your enemies? Why not mix the chalk wash with pigs’ blood as is traditional for walls in Medieval Essex? Would red have been seen as protection from evil spirits so long ago?

This is all about trying things in order to assess their practicality, so we tamper and sieve chalk with gusto. We are using modern shovels, metals tampers and what looks like a wire basket from a freezer to sieve our chalk. I am determined that we should at least work out how these tasks could be done using Neolithic materials. Added to this, there is only so much chalk crushing a person can stand before seeking respite. I enlist an accomplice and we justify our skiving by deciding that we must create a Neolithic sieve. Neither of us have much idea how we are going to do this but it is a welcome diversion from crushing. Fortunately, amongst our number is * the former basket maker, so we seek advice. We are weaving a hurdle-like panel from willow, leaving suitable sized gaps for the chalk to come through – the technical term is fitching – like I knew that before!

The inexperienced among us would have tried this with our hazel panel frame lying flat but no, * says stick your uprights in the ground and it soon becomes clear that it would have been next to impossible with it flat. I am quite pleased that, unlike bow drilling, my girl guide acquired square lashing skills have not deserted me. We only use this for the hazel corners as Neolithic string making apparently takes ages so it would have been used sparingly. After two of us (and it did need two to stop the panel getting thinner at the top – rather as woollen weaving tends to) working for a couple of hours we have a panel. We debate whether it needs sides to stop the chalk rolling off but decide to take it for a test drive first and add sides if they prove necessary.

No one was more surprised than us to find that it actually worked quite well. Given our time again, we might have allowed extra pieces of hazel for the frame to act as handles. Providing you didn’t put much chalk on at a time, there wasn’t a lot of difference between our sieved chalk and that done with modern tools. We have been trying a three man method – two to shake the panel (up and down works better than side to side) and one to load with not too much chalk. I proudly show our achievements off to Chris and he points out that you could wedge our panel up at an angle and one person could throw chalk at it, resulting in a pile of fine chalk one side of the panel and a pile of larger pieces the other. This works, although, ideally, the panel needs to be larger for this method, or the person wielding the spade needs a good aim. We also tried tamping with the end of a small log. This was more successful than the metals tampers. It seems this was tried by other volunteers earlier in the project (although the logs soon split) but we are all newbies so didn’t know this. So now all we need is a Neolithic spade – that’s on tomorrow’s to do list.

Making the Chalk Sieve April 2013

Good news on the safety boots front. They have only managed to acquire one pair of the size 4s that three of us asked for (well I asked for size 3 but that was too much to hope for). Would I mind going without as I am unlikely to do much damage to myself dropping a wisp of hay or a willow twig on my foot? I was hoping to get out of the safety boot wearing, so I am greatly relieved and I promise not to sue anyone. I am wearing quite sturdy boots of my own and it would actually be more dangerous going up a ladder in boots that were too big anyway.

I admire some more rush weaving a lend a bit of a hand. Weaving in five rush bands seems to create a suitably dense weave. We discuss using a needle of some kind and decide we perhaps need a shuttle. *, who just happens to have a handy deer bone about his person – well about his landrover anyway – kindly offers to produce one. Incidentally his landrover also contains four red deer skins and a wild boar skin complete with nose and feet – definitely best not to ask.

The interesting thing about trying to work out how things might have been in the Neolithic era is that the thought processes are the same as those for trying to understand the seventeenth century or indeed any other era. Tomorrow it is all hands on floor creation.

There is a Harvester yards from our site. We have been saving a two Harvester takeaways for £10 voucher for an occasion such as this. We do feel a bit conspicuous as we look as if we have spent the day crushing chalk and reed thatching – that would be because we have spent the day crushing chalk and reed thatching but we aren’t thrown out. We’ve never had Harvester take away before and it comes with its own free salad. I try to work out the optimum order in which to load my salad punnet in order to fill every available space within it and thus maximise my salad quantity – worked pretty well!

Well I must say day four did actually feel like hard work. We needed to crush chalk for the floors in two of the houses. I am excited to discover that not only does our Neolithic materials chalk sieve work but that modern equivalents have been abandoned in its favour and it is attracting a lot of attention. There’s been rain over night and today is a little cooler with a brief shower. Wet chalk is not fun, instantly we are a couple of inches taller and considerably heavier as the chalk sticks to our boots. So jolly sticky is it, that it is difficult to lift our feet from the ground. We are using shovels that are, at their best and driest, heavy. Add to this what seems like several tons of soggy, wet chalk and then the chalk that we are trying to shovel and you have something that even my arm muscles, hardened from hefting armour, find difficult – goodbye bingo wings. I have a sneaking suspicion that both * and *, in a similar age bracket to myself, are considerably fitter than I, or maybe it is just that they’ve been in the Neolithic era for longer. But chalk pound we must so it is a hard day at the chalk face. We commission a second sieve and * gets to work. Even our less expert sieve holds up for a whole day of basically having rock thrown at it. Together with * and *, I chalk crush all day, others joining us for shifts at various stages. This is such a rubbish job that we wonder if it would be reserved for lesser mortals in Neolithic society and if there was some kind of hierarchy – we guess yes, because those of religious significance would be at the top. Or maybe this was meted out as some form of punishment. A society that could construct Stonehenge must have had rules and by extension, transgressors.

We are joined by a film crew making clips for the English Heritage website and in theory You-tube. We debate how well it would go down if we adopted cave-man speak al la Armstrong and Miller. Pretty much everything in a wide range is getting covered with chalk dust, including the camera equipment. Our feet are filmed as we tamper away. This means we have to sign clearance forms as our feet may be ‘published’. Our chalky hands are not a good combination with the producer’s posh pen. Neolithic persons’ hands must be jolly dry if they ever did this amount of crushing, sieving and tamping.

Down in the compound, floors are going in and chalk-wash is being put on the walls. I’d still like red walls and there is no archaeological evidence at all for white but there is a theory that white held some religious significance – not too sure upon what this is based. We discuss how Neolithic paint brushes might be made – some kind of porcine bristles seems likely but we are less sure if they would be fixed into something or kept on the skin and maybe wound round their hands like some kind of early paint pad. There is a debate as to whether there should be some kind of fixative added to the chalk paint. Personally I’d vote for urine which pretty much seems to do anything but solution one is washing-up liquid. It won’t have escaped your notice that washing-up liquid is scarcely Neolithic so an alternative has to be found and tried. If you ever want to chalk wash your walls (and my advice is don’t) just add an egg.

All this chalk crushing has made me slightly hysterical and I make the mistake of challenging Chris to a wheelbarrow race up the hill from the houses to the chalk pile. I think I may have won but I did have a slight head start. In case you are wondering, we were pushing the wheelbarrows not holding people’s legs while they walked on their hands as we did at school sports days.

By day five, our final day, summer is over and there is a biting wind howling round the site. That’s fine, I have my seventeenth century spun/knitted hat, or at least I have had every other day. Today of course it is in the caravan nine miles away. It is a community day so we have visitors and are encouraged to wear English Heritage Volunteer tee-shirts. Most opt to go for this on the grounds that it provides us with an additional layer, although it isn’t long before these disappear under any other garments we can find. Community day also means that there is a mobile canteen on site with warming soup and drinks in non-Neolithic polystyrene cups but there are only so many hot drinks one can have, especially with the consequent problem of negotiating many layers. We are reduced to more chalk pounding to keep warm, even though we have sufficient chalk for the floor that is being laid in 848.

I am pleased that my muscles don’t seem to be suffering from all the shovelling, riddling and pounding yesterday. My hands however are a different matter and have turned genuinely Neolithic. Despite liberal applications of not very Neolithic hand cream our hands are really affected from all the chalk, even though we’ve been wearing gloves. Best I can manage is a seventeenth century hand cream recipe: To make the hands white, take the flower of Beans, of Lupines, of Cornstarch and Rice, of each six ounces. Mix them and make a powder, with which wash your hands in water.

Chris is, with permission, raiding the on-site skip. Not only does he acquire useful materials for the build in this way but he also appropriates a slightly dilapidated model cannon. Chilly members of the public are trying chopping with flint axes, weaving hazel and helping to flatten our chalk floor. There are many favourable comments about the project.

As the community day draws to a close we are thawing out in our portacabin when someone remarks, ‘there’s a hurricane outside’. They are not wrong. I have never experienced a weather event like this, as Neolithic land is engulfed in the eye of a storm. As we leave the safety of the portacabin we are covered in fine chalk dust that has been raised in the storm. Hair washing will be interesting, as adding water to chalk just makes it solidify. Will we be able to patent a new form of hair gel? We rush to cover our chalk pile and struggle to stay on our feet as rain begins to lash and we battle with tarpaulins in the wind, searching frantically for anything of sufficient weight to stop them blowing away. Then we notice that the fairly substantial English Heritage gazebo is about to take off. We have been watching parachutists over the site all week and it takes several people on the end of the gazebo poles to prevent us joining them. We are attempting to remove the cover from the metal uprights so that it no longer acts as a sail. The weighty two foot tent pegs have long since ceased to secure the uprights. I wonder if I am going to end up with only my ruby slippers (suitably health and safety approved) showing under the remnants of the gazebo, in imitation of the wicked witch of the west, or if I am to be whisked back to Kansas. The ruined gazebo disposed of, we hope our rescue efforts have earned us Brownie points in the bid to be chosen to take part in phase two. The tornado does provide useful evidence about the durability of our buildings. They are all still there, although there was a mad dash with a ladder to secure the thatched roll that protects the smoke hole of 851.

One of the Neolithic Houses April 2013

I had been leading the North Devon Group of Devon Family History Society since 2012 and when COVID lockdown hit, I was largely responsible for taking their meetings on to Zoom. With committee meetings now virtual, it became practical for me to agree to take on the role of Chairman. After four years, as the society prepared to change its status to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, I decided that governance was not my thing and I would stick with what I knew, so I stepped aside in 2024 to concentrate on chairing the education sub-committee and organising the 50th anniversary conference. This last despite having said ‘never again’ to conference organising on more than one occasion. I also spent a few years as the regional representative for Cornwall for the Guild of One-Name Studies. I organised three weekend conferences for them; the first, in 2008, in conjunction with the Braund Society.

During lockdown I set up some Zoom talks and people came to listen, including some who had been on Pharos courses that I had run. A dozen of us carried on meeting to offer mutual encouragement for family history projects. We called ourselves ‘A Few Good Women’. At the end of 2022, we set up the A Few Forgotten Women project and website, telling the stories of marginalised or forgotten women, who might otherwise have been lost to history. We became a very tight-knit group of close friends, meeting regularly online and occasionally in real life.

Miscellaneous Voluntary Work

TocH projects provided me with two other volunteering opportunities. In 1973, I spent a weekend helping to decorate a home for people with cerebral palsy. We were allowed to use the centre’s physiotherapy pool, which was much warmer than a conventional swimming pool.

The following year, John and I went to Camberwell to help build an adventure playground. This basically involved a group of late teenagers bashing bits of rough wood together in a way that would be totally impossible in today’s health and safety orientated world. John and I travelled to the weekend independently, perhaps because he was going straight from work. On the way through the back streets of Camberwell to the location, I passed through a square full of feral cats, which has stuck in my memory.

There followed a couple of committee roles. At college, I was briefly the secretary for the Student Community Action Group (SCAG). Once on the island, I did a stint as the publicity officer for the local branch of the Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSPB).

When the shop in Buckland Brewer closed, in 2009, a group formed to set up a community shop. I was involved in the early stages and once the shop was established, three years later, in what had been the vestry of the Methodist Church, I remained on the committee and did regular shifts in the shop until COVID hit. I often went in early to sort newspapers and Chris and I regularly did the Christmas Eve shift, which involved handing out pre-orders from the butcher who supplied the shop. I prided myself at being able to cash up and close in under fifteen minutes.

[1] In the end, we didn’t apply for phase two partly because it took place in January but mainly because that was to be a build to a pre-decided plan and would lack the experimental nature of phase one, which is what I particularly enjoyed.