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.
Main task of the day was to take advantage of the weather and get a fresh coat of paint on the fence surrounding the Infants Play Area swings. We managed to keep the swings open and in use by only blocking one entrance but we'll have to come back and do that next time. We also treated the new picnic bench and did some repairs to a bench near to the entrance.
In addition, other volunteers worked on the shrub bed in front of the Senior Citizens' Hall and continued weeding to keep the ornamental flowerbeds looking their best.
We also had the added luxury of Cllr Shan Alexander coming along to make tea for our thirsty volunteers.
Flying the Flag to Commemorate 10 Years in the Park!
The park is now getting to its best and the flowerbeds are reaping the benefit of all the hard work put into them by the Friends of the Park. Several of our volunteers continued this effort by weeding and pruning the ornamental beds, the war memorial beds and the sensory garden, whilst others worked on the borders of the pathway into the woodland behind the library. Marple Allotment Association were also out in full force and their bed is looking a credit to them.
Earlier this week we installed a plaque on behalf of a lady called Selma Fielding, who has sponsored the flowerbeds with a generous donation that allows us to continue buying, growing-on, feeding, fertilizing and planting more plants in all the flowerbeds. This is a great way to commemorate a loved one or to make a contribution towards the upkeep of the park if you are not in a position to be a hands-on volunteer.
We also installed a second new picnic bench in the Infants Play Area - this was made and delivered to us by local charity David Lewis, who made the other one for us too. We know that the play area is hugely popular and can often be so busy that there is nowhere to sit, so we hope this will be appreciated by the families using it.
We were pleased to be joined in the park by five of Marple's local councillors (with apologies from the sixth) to raise our new flag to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the formation of Friends of Marple Memorial Park. Most of them were there when we first started in 2004 and when we achieved our first Green Flag in 2005. Since the council stopped entering their parks for the Green Flag Award several years ago we thought we'd create our own flag to make use of the pole. Thank you to Arthur Procter for helping with the design of the flag and coming along to take the photos.
We were also pleased that The Marple Plumber came along to fit a new outside tap for us free of charge. This is something we've needed for a while and it was great to get it installed by a qualified plumber at no cost!
Another busy task day for the Friends of the Park. The main task was more planting out and maintenance of the flowerbeds, which are really taking off in the great weather. The Allotment Society and the Beavers tended their bends earlier in the week and theirs are looking good too.
We also helped out The Brass Bands of Marple tidy up around the new Bandroom ready for its official launch with a "Brass in the Park" concert tomorrow. In addition, we treated the majority of benches in the park with a coat of preservative, cleared litter, emptied bins and even carried out some emergency repairs on a drain cover.
It looked like it was going to rain to early on but the sun decided to shine on the righteous and we had another great day of volunteering in the park. Flowerbeds were weeded, hoed and edges trimmed, sculptures treated, litter picked and some more management work in the woodland wildlife area carried out too.
We took delivery of two new works vehicles (green bins), a new commemorative bench was installed in the Infants Play Area and the surface under the bench between the play areas was at last sorted out by a council contractor (after copious nagging).
A great deal of work was achieved by a small band of volunteers on our first routine mid-month task day of 2014. Jobs included a full litter-pick of the park, access road and around the community buildings, repairs to the War Memorial display panel frame, repairs to the door on our tool store and removal of graffiti from the backless bench on the driveway into the park.
Numerous park benches were treated with preservative and Midnight the Owl was given a coating of "Green-Away" to remove algae ready for treating with preservative next time. The biggest job of the day was the thinning-out of an abundance of Cowslip and nettles from the woodland wildlife area behind the library and the planting of a variety of more desirable subjects including Borridge, which is loved by the bees. The photo below captures a busy day in a park that is blooming!
Bob Wilson's last "working day" in Memorial Park
The weather was very kind on Park Keeper Bob Wilson's last official working day in the park. Bob has taken redundancy / early retirement as part of the council cuts. Bob has spent the last 9 years of his 40 years of employment with Stockport Council, and latterly Solutions SK, in Marple Memorial Park and he is one of the key reasons that it has been so well looked after.
It was pleasing that Bob spent his last day working closely with the Friends Group that he has supported so well during virtually our entire existence, and we were delighted to present him with a canvas landscape of the park to remind him of it at home. The really good news though is that Bob plans to return to the park he loves as a volunteer with Friends of the Park.
As far as work in the park, we got a huge amount done including reinstalling the Apple and Pear sculptures and the last of the Acorns removed by vandals. The ornamental beds and war memorial beds were worked on, and also the cinema bed at the front of the park, the sensory garden and shrub beds further into the park, and benches were treated too.
Thank you to Arthur Procter for recording Bob's presentation and the end of an era. As a result of the budget cuts there will no longer be a permanent Park Keeper in Memorial Park and nobody is likely to provide the dedication and care that Bob has given to looking after it over the last 9 years. The need for volunteers to help look after the park it is going to be greater than ever, so if you'd like to help the Friends of the Park rise to the challenges that face us please to come and join in!