In his 'day job' Oxfordshire Branch Secretary Brian James works for Cisco's EUEM Commercial Contracts Team (CCT) at Cisco's Reading offices.  Cisco has a strong community ethic for its workforce, and all employees are encouraged to donate time towards national and local charity or community projects.  Members of the CCT decided to donate a day's work time towards the Oxfordshire Branch and Willow Farm - for which we thank them very much.

A much-needed project at Willow Farm was to enhance our six rabbit hutches to make them safe for our rabbits - our bunnies have been most adept at tunnelling over recent months! 
The Cisco CCT - Robyne, Zeien, Shaz, Goya, Isa, Krishna, Beatrice, and Brian himself - visited Willow Farm on Thursday 2 July to work on the project.

The project was to move the hutches, lay some welded mesh sheets (purchased and donated by the CCT) and replace the hutches; this is not as easy as it sounds as the RSPCA-design hutches are not intended for easy handling and moving!  This was of course during the week of the heat wave, so the work was hot and tiring under a cloudless sky (indeed the max temperature on the day of 33.8C may prove to be the hottest day of the year) - thanks are due to Willow Farm Assistant Manager Elaine Hopes for the idea of buckets of cold water and towels to help us keep cool throughout the day

The CCT worked very hard in the hot and humid conditions, and completed the first four hutches during the morning; the remaining two hutches were completed after a much-needed lunchtime break.  Other than a few panels that needing refitting, our only unexpected problem proved to be literally unearthing a nest of red-tailed bumblebees when working on the last hutch - thankfully these bumblebees are fairly harmless!