Friends of Marple Memorial Park Task Days
The Friends hold regular task days in the park on the last Saturday of each month in the winter and the middle and last Saturday from March to November. Everyone is welcome to join in for as long or as short they wish during the specified times. Please note that children and young people under 18 must be accompanied by a responsible adult.
If you are interested becoming a volunteer with us please get in touch and we will add you to our Task Day notifications.
We like to keep a record of what we get up and here are details of past task days.
It was good to be out in the welcome sunshine on Saturday!
Quite a few of our volunteers are away at this time of year but we still had a good turnout and got through a lot of work. We weeded and tidied up the flower beds which are looking nicely colourful now. We also did some watering! In April!
This is a good time of year to sow grass seed so we have seeded the two large bare patches in the old football pitch - we filed them up with soil last year. The areas are covered by tape at present mainly to keep off the birds. We also did some tidying up at the Band Room. Always a litter pick too! We went round all the older planted trees which are outgrowing their supports, replacing the ties where necessary and getting rid of the stakes where they are no longer helping support. Yesterday was also the start of our annual Little Growers event where we give our younger (or young at heart!) gardeners a pot and seed to start growing a flower at home, and eventually bring it back to us for planting in the beds.
People might like to note that a dozen trees have been planted temporarily in the corner between the Bowling Green and the football pitch. These will eventually be replanted around the new Hub building but can't be put in yet due to the construction work.
Lastly, a huge thanks for the donations placed in our collection bucket. These contributions are really appreciated and people were especially generous this time - thanks so much!
A fine, sunny morning on the last Saturday in March saw an intrepid band of fifteen volunteers cheerfully helping to maintain our park as the splendid place it is.
The flower beds are looking especially attractive at this time of year with spring flowers in full bloom. We continued weeding and generally tidying them up. The snowdrops have now finished flowering so bunches of them were split and replanted, ensuring that there will be twice as many spread around the park next spring.
Other tasks included pruning the roses and hawthorn around the band-room garden, cutting back brambles on the woodland walk, removing docks from the wildflower patch, examining and loosening the ties around saplings that were planted three years ago and trimming the shoots from the bases of mature trees. And, of course, the on-going litter-pick which doesn't seem to be so needed at the moment.
Thanks go out to all members of the public who support us in various ways and especially to the two young couples on a passing canal boat who insisted on giving us biscuits to enjoy with our tea and coffee at break time.
We enjoyed a lovely morning on the park; warm and sunny
There were lots of people, children and dogs enjoying the park and the newly emerging spring flowers, despite the wet and muddy conditions. The team cleaned up the growth round the trees in Garth Road and the large lime tree behind the bowling green pavilion. As ever there was lots of weeding to do and tidying in the main flowerbeds. We also managed to tackle more of the fallen dead tree, taking the large branch away.
Many thanks to the 17 intrepid volunteers who turned out for the first Task Day of 2025, a cold but brilliantly sunny morning in the park.
One of the main jobs this time of year is tidying up the flower beds, especially those around the War Memorial. We're now seeing snowdrops flowering in the beds bringing some welcome brightness and there are even some bulbs already starting to shoot. We also removed branches which had been blown off during the recent storms. This included cutting off as much as we could from the dead tree that had fallen near the Sundial. Lots of smaller branches were also collected from around the park, and we did our usual litter pick.
Other tasks included making a start on weeding and tidying up underneath the benches - we've asked the Council to stop weed-killing around the benches, trees and edges which is environmentally unfriendly and looks unsightly. Preliminary investigations were also carried out concerning the feasibility of the group replacing the timbers which frame the Boules Court and are rotting away.
We left the park looking considerably more respectable than when we arrived, doing our best to work round all the changes in the park as part of the construction of the new Community Hub.
Working off the mince pies!
Our last task day of the year was carried out in this persistent mist we've been experiencing. It didn't stop us or a good number of visitors to the park enjoying ourselves!
We focused on leaf clearing - in some places it can start to kill off the grass - and planting some primroses to brighten up the winter beds. There was also some clearing of dead material to do, the usual litter pick and some repair to a bed that had unfortunately been trampled over.
Our thanks for all the support we've had from members of the public in 2024, especially the kind donations into our collection bucket throughout the year - it is hugely appreciated and vital to help us fund all that we want to do.
A fine St. Andrew's day in the park with the union flag flying!
A good turn-out for a morning of weeding, clearing leaves and retrieving fallen branches. Also graffiti cleaned from the waste bins. Early sunshine, no wind and surprisingly pleasant for late November. While working we enjoyed listening to the sounds of drumming coming from the Marple Fest Market event ahead of the Christmas Lights Switch-On.
