So while the contractors were on site feverishly completing the main roads around the site, we asked them also to include accompanying drains. These too must be properly laid with concrete on a compacted base. In this part of Southern Thailand where there is a long rainy season, drainage is so important. Of course it does not rain all the time but when it does it can be very heavy and roads can be washed away!
We are on schedule to start work on the Veterinary Centre soon and now the roads are down we will be able to get to the building site easily and continue working throughout the rainy season. We’ll keep you posted.
Our next target is to raise £4000 for the bore hole so if you know anyone who might help us raise the money for this important piece of the development, please do let us know. You can contact us simply by clicking here.
With the rains due to start in the next couple of weeks we are so pleased that our builders have pulled out all stops and we are confident they will complete the roadway and tracks at the site right on schedule. One very important aspect was drainage – and this was a serious part of the cost of the work – as the rain can be so heavy 
there would have been a real danger of parts of the newly laid concrete being washed away. Also, the layers of concrete could only be laid on carefully prepared with crushed stone and sand to achieve the desired load-bearing capacity and absorb loads that will include trucks carrying one or two elephants, as well as lorries full of builders’ materials for the 
next stages of development.
please let us know by 
With the rainy season fast approaching, our workforce are flat out getting the tracks laid so we can continue building in the rain. There is quite a slope up to the Veterinary Centre so lorries and trucks could not get to the building site without a strong road. This means solid foundations, 
reinforced concrete and excellent drainage – you can imagine what the rains in Thailand are like in the wet season!
Planning permission came through last month and we are progressing as fast as funds will allow. We need more money to complete the much-needed clinic so if you can help us to fund raise please let us know. Just click on the 
When the monks advised it was an auspicious day, we arranged a special blessing at the new site of our elephant Veterinary Centre near Ban Ton Sae. We invited a deeply respected and venerable monk, Phra Sirindhorn, to visit and offer prayers that the constructions works now underway would be completed successfully.
Such an age-old ceremony leads to a spiritual boost for the construction team and provides great confidence in their workmanship. The date for the ceremony, the location of the central pillar and the items to be used in the ceremony are all 
carefully chosen and reflect centuries of tradition. We include sacred woods, gold leaf, gold, silver and bronze coins and a holy thread, all with very special meanings. The offerings were buried alongside flowers and sealed in concrete, as tradition dictates.
With the rainy season arriving in only a few weeks’ time STEF Thailand has had to move fast to finalise planning permission and to get to work on the road on the new site. This is not a small job! About 270 metres of track, 4 m wide, will be laid from the entrance to the site, along the bottom of the valley and up the hill to the Veterinary Centre.
there has to be efficient and very effective drainage so the road is not washed away. In addition, the track surface has to be reinforced and strong enough to take trucks carrying 5-ton elephants.
and our expert advisers, STEF Thailand has this week instructed the contractor to start work. Here you can see Jake deep in discussions just a few days’ ago before the work got underway. Time is against us, however, because if the road is not completed 
before the rains come, building works on the Centre itself will have to be delayed until after the rainy season ends in October.
regular News updates of progress.
Our President, Sir Richard Armstrong paid a visit to Ban Ton Sae last week and spent two days reviewing progress with STEF trustee 
plantation of rubber trees, removing palm oil trees, dredging the ponds, planting new eco-friendly, sustainable trees and shrubs, grasses and aquatic plants including the sacred lotus.
We are currently actively fundraising for the funds needed to complete the work.
The location at Ban Ton Sae is quite beautiful and now the ponds are being cleared, the grasses are growing well and the trees have established themselves we can begin to see what the haven will look like and
how peaceful it will be for old, unwanted, lame or needy elephants.
We have just finalised the design for the new STEF Veterinary Centre at Ban Ton Sae. We have kept the design
very simple – it is a covered barn, but needs a reinforced concrete floor to take the weight of one or more elephants and we have used the technical advice of the designer of the Government’s Elephant Hospital. Based on this advice, our own architect has produced these excellent concept design pictures so you can get an idea of our plans for 2019.
the barn and include stocks, barriers and a recessed vertical step (called a haha) for off-loading and loading elephant patients (you can see it to the right of the main picture). We will then complete the simple office and lab which can be used by local veterinarians and our own veterinary 
technicians.
to serve hundreds of domesticated elephants in this part of Southern Thailand. We will care here for elephants that are sick or unable to work through age, illness or are otherwise needy. It is a Community Support Project.
The Trustees of STEF have approved a proposal to prioritise the building of an Elephant Veterinary Centre at Ban Ton Sae in 2019. 
There is an urgent health and welfare need in this part of Southern Thailand where there is no alternative veterinary facility to serve some 600 domesticated elephants, and the nearest elephant hospital is over four hours’ drive away. STEF plans to create a safe, well-managed veterinary centre for elephants that need veterinary care, or are no longer able to work through age or illness, 
or that have become a burden to their owners.
You can see us here measuring out the land.
We will also lay a suitable access track, include an isolation unit and build a small office, storeroom and laboratory.
Why raise money for electricity supply lines or diesel-powered generators when we have the sun?
and clean and produces minimal harm to the environment.
Actually, rain is quite helpful with solar panels as it washes away dirt and debris such as bird droppings, leaves and pollen that otherwise would cover the panels and reduce efficiency.
on the natural wildlife and their use will help us to minimise our carbon footprint. Producing our own energy in-house will also reduce reliance on third parties, helping us to be sustainably self-sufficient. In any case, the grid can be rather unreliable in the monsoon rain with frequent power cuts!
All of the work on the new site over the past couple of months has somewhat overshadowed the progress of the new trees that we have planted
. We’ve so far had great support for our Ban Ton Sae Tree Sponsorship scheme, enabling us to plant a further three more kampu trees (known as “Raintrees”), close to the planned area for the elephant hospital. Promisingly, since we’ve had more extensive irrigation installed up the banks, reaching a greater area of the site, each of these trees has leafed really well, even though the monsoon rains are not yet in full swing.
Jinda’s wise guidance has been influential in helping us choose where to plant the yellow peanut plant (Arachis pintoi), a legume commonly used in pastures for soil improvement and conservation, that will furnish the banks of the entrance to the site with lush, natural greenery, reinforcing our aim of creating an ecologically-sensitive park, both in look and structure. The cuttings were hand-harvested by Jake at a local farm near Phang Nga town (see the photo top left).
