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.
Task Day 25 February 2012
Kind weather and a really good turnout of volunteers resulted in an exceptionally productive day! Successes included transformation of the bed in front of the Toilets to celebrate the success of our campaign to stop them from closing. The straggly Hebes were mostly removed with a few being replanted at the back of the bed or elsewhere in the park. Polyanthus from the future Diamond Jubilee Bed were removed and transplanted to the Toilet Bed and other locations in the park.
The square bed next to the library and the Reading Circle behind it were re-weeded, forked and hoed in preparation for planting of wildflowers in the spring. One of the shrub beds bordering Hollins House and the car park was also weeded and tidied.
In addition, as part of our on-going project to care for the park's benches, the Sensory Garden Bench was dismantled, sanded, treated with preservative and reassembled. Also, the refurbishment of the notice board on the library wall was completed so that we can now start telling library users about our new Diamond Jubilee Project.
Task Day 28 January 2012
We were lucky with the weather on our first task day of 2012 - it could have been like yesterday's hail and thunderstorms but the winter sunshine was very pleasant. We installed new perspex in the display case outside the library in preparation for the start of our new Diamond Jubilee Project, more about that will appear on the site soon.
We cut some paving slabs ready for a new base that will be laid for a commemorative bench recently purchased by a local family. More about that will appear on our Caring for Park Benches page when it is installed.
We also carried out extensive pruning to the shrub bed alongside the path approaching the Park Cottage and that is now looking much tidier and will soon be full of new growth. Spring is just around the corner and the park is coming back to life!
Task Day 31 December 2011
An amazingly productive New Year's Eve task day! Although it was mostly wet and miserable and not very good for taking photographs we got a huge amount done. Achievements including clearing a bed near to the library ready for sowing wildflower seeds, reducing the gravel in the strip near the library and transplanting it to the Sensory Garden, a big sweep-up of the area in front of the library and refurbishment of the broken notice board on the library wall.
We also cleared the border around the Reading Circle behind the library ready for sowing wildflowers and transplanted the shrubs and plants from there to a number of other places in the park. Finally, we replaced the refurbished slats on the bench (Mac's Bench) that we stripped down last month and it looks absolutely brilliant - as good as new even. Well done everyone!
Task Day 26 November 2011
A quieter turn-out for our last task day of 2011 but we still got a fair bit done. Earlier in the week one of our volunteers had removed all the weeds from the border of the car park near to the library and today we removed the top layer of soil and replaced it with gravel, which we hope will suppress the weeds and keep it looking tidier. We also weeded the pathway to the Sensory Garden and added more gravel and put what we had left around the small memorial in the park where people like to place wooden crosses in memory of their lost relatives. After that we tidied the shrub border near to the Council Offices too.
We also removed the wooden slats from one of the commemorative seats near to the Bowling Green and jet-washed the upstands and paving. The slats will be refurbished in a workshop, treated and replaced as part of our ongoing project to replace or refurbish all of the benches in the park. There will be more about this long term project on the web site in the near future.
Task Day 12 November 2011
We decided to hold a special Remembrance weekend Task Day to make sure that the area around the War Memorial was looking its best for the service on Sunday 13th and it's a good job we did as we discovered that the handrails on the memorial had been vandalised overnight. It's hard to find the words to express our contempt for this kind of act but at least we were in a position to do something about it and were able to carry out a temporary repair.
We had another great response from our volunteers at short notice and people attending the Remembrance Service should be able to see the results. As well as removing leaves and hoeing the flower beds we painted a litter bin that had been desperate for a coat of paint and cleared the leaves all the way down the main drive into the park. It was particularly good to have families with children helping out on a beautiful sunny autumn day.
Thank you everyone for your help!
Task Day 29 October 2011
A very good turnout by our local volunteers made for another busy day in Memorial Park.
The ornamental flowerbeds were weeded, trimmed and spring bulbs planted - we've been receiving lots of compliments from park visitors about the ornamental beds, which is very encouraging. The large shrub bed near to the tree sculpture was also given a good tidy-up and and an old concrete bench near to the bowling green was removed in readiness for the installation of a new one that is being donated by a local family.
It was good to see Micaela enjoying the sunshine and fresh air in the park despite her recent accident but Howie will be sad to learn that I broke my camera this month!