For nearly 50 years, Marble Hill Play Centres has provided local children and their families with a unique and exciting outdoor environment to play, create and interact – all in the heart of beautiful Marble Hill Park in Twickenham.

The Adventure Playground was visited by nearly 5,000 5-15 year olds over the last 12 months.  It is a parent-free environment with huge wooden structures, large open spaces and “loose parts” such as tyres, planks and nets for children to enjoy the freedom of unstructured, parent-free play.

The WM of the Middlesex Shooting Sports Lodge No 1702 (W Bro Jim Mitchell) chose the Centre for his charity as the Lodge Charity Steward, W Bro Don Campbell, had visited the centre to see how the Lodge might help.

Like many charities they have a wish list of things they’d like to do if only they had the funding. One of the projects that Claire Chapman, the Centre Manager, has been wanting to do for many years is to have more covered space in which to house youngsters whilst they under take activities.

The plan would see the installation of a wooden framed awning running along two sides of the adventure playground building which would significantly increase weather-proof capacity. A fixed awning would replace the much smaller temporary gazebo currently in use. With the cost being just over £5,000 and Lodge promising £1,000 some work was needed to reach the goal.

The first point of call was to put together an application to the Middlesex Masonic Charity to see if they would assist. The process was simple and after they’d reviewed the application, agreed to our request to give £1,500 towards the cost of the project.

With the “Province of Middlesex” now having committed to £2,500 a request was made to the MCF for “Matched Funding” as part of the support they give annually to each province. They equally agreed and so the £5,000 target was reached.