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.
Great progress on the flowerbeds in all areas of the park during today's Task Day. Although the daffodils are now fading, everything else is springing back into life. We were also pleased to be joined by volunteers from Marple Co-Op again.
We also had a good tidy-up of the bandroom garden, strimming the grass and weeds and pruning wild and ornamental roses.
Once again our collection bucket was a great boon, raising over £56 in plant sales and donations.
A few days of wonderful weather allowed us to get onto the flowerbeds for the first time this year and have a good tidy-up. Aren't the daffodils looking fantastic in the sunshine. As well as tidying up the beds we also planted 500 Snowdrops in the green that were purchased with money recently awarded to us by Stockport Hydro for Bee Friendly plants and shrubs.
We were delighted to be joined on the day by volunteers from Marple Co-Op, who threw themselves enthusiastically into helping us as part of their efforts to get more involved in the community. They were certainly a welcome addition to our team and we hope they enjoyed it enough to come back again. They also brought cakes, biscuits and enough tea bags to keep us going for another 10 years! Thank you Marple Co-Op!
With the great weather park users were out in force and donated a record breaking £48 in our collection bucket. We must be doing something right!
Another very damp task day but at least "Doris" Day was behind us and it brightened up for a while!
We focused on clearing some very stubborn ivy from the Bandroom Cottage walls, transplanted another 7 Photinia (Little Red Robin) shrubs and a climbing rose donated by volunteers.
Other activities included another soggy litter-pick and a great deal more work to tidy up the Reading Circle behind the library, where the crocuses are putting on a great show, soon to be followed by the daffodils.
A very damp Saturday morning saw a hardcore of heroic volunteers brave soaking wet weather to kick-start the 2017 task day year!
Tasks included the planting of 8 Photinia (Little Red Robin) shrubs donated by volunteers, removal of the wreaths from the war memorial and fixing of the latest addition to the WWI Timeline of the railings to Hollins House. Other activities included a soggy litter-pick, a tidy up of the Reading Circle behind the library and fitting of a new wheel to one of our wheelbarrows.
The last task day of 2016 was a chance for fresh air at the end of a festive week and it was great that so many volunteers made the time, especially while there seems to be a lot of colds and flu doing the rounds. We hope those under the weather will be better soon and we'd like to say a very big thanks to everyone who has helped in the park in 2016 - it's been a good year!
On this New Year's Eve task day we focused mainly on planting the last of the bulbs we were given by the council, which included bluebells and snowdrops planted in the woodland areas and 500 hyacinths planted in various beds. We also planted some whips donated by a local resident to fill some gaps in one of the shrub bed borders, carried out maintenance along the canal-side walk and picked up four bags of litter from all corners of the park. Instead of our normal refreshments in the park, at lunchtime we headed to Samuel Oldknow's for an early start to New Year's Eve celebrations and received a warm welcome and free soft drinks. We could certainly get used to this!
Park users placed over £20 in our donation bucket, which means more than £385 has been raised this way in 2016. This money goes into our general park maintenance pot and is a most welcome boost, thank you all!
On a beautiful bright sunny morning, our volunteers planted 5,000 crocuses provided by Stockport Council to commemorate those from Stockport who lost their lives in the service of this country (all conflicts). This was part of a mass bulb planting across the borough at seven sites to represent each of Stockport's regions. It was kicked off by Cllr Sheila Bailey, Executive Member for Communities and Housing, with children from Alexandra Park Primary School, who paid their respects by planting bulbs in Alexandra Park on Armistice Day, Friday 11th November.
The 5,000 crocuses donated to Memorial Park were planted in scrolls on one side of the path, all the way from the park entrance to the main flowerbeds near to the War Memorial. This compliments the 4,000 bulbs donated by Marple and Goyt Valley Rotary to remind us about the fight against Polio that were planted in scrolls on the other side of the path last year.
Some work was also done on pruning of the shrub beds and management of the woodland walk area.
Park visitors left almost £27 in our donations bucket and we received many positive comments. For the second year running a lady also donated £50 that she insisted is spent on our volunteers, not the park itself. As last year, we will spend this on tea, coffee, cakes and snacks for our volunteers during our task day tea breaks - it should last us nearly all year!
