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 29 January 2011
The weather for our first task day of 2011 was very kind, with a cold frost early on but brilliant sunshine soon warmed things up. We were very pleased to welcome two new volunteers, John and Lorraine, who quickly got stuck in to tidying up around the Park Keepers Cottage and round the composting area near to the boundary alongside the canal. There was also time for a general tidy up of the War Memorial beds and a survey of all the park benches was carried out - there's going to be lots to keep us busy in 2011!
Task Day 27 November 2010
A bitterly cold day kept the numbers down but it was amazing how quickly we warmed up after grafting away at clearing leaves from under the hedges along Station Road and Garth Road. That was our last task day of 2010 and we can look back on a busy year with some satisfaction and hope for more of the same in 2011.
Task Day 30 October 2010
We were joined by 1st Marple Beavers and parents on a glorious autumn day to plant 2,000 purple crocus bulbs around the apple and pear sculptures near to the library. 1,000 of the crocuses were provided by New Mills, Marple and District Rotary Club as part of their nationwide campaign to promote awareness about vaccination of children in India against Polio. Children are are marked with a purple spot to show that they have been vaccinated and we planted the crocuses in circles to represent this. A plaque will be provided by the Rotary Club to explain this in the spring, when the bulbs are in flower.
We also continued painting the Bowling Green buildings and had a bit of a tidy-up of the grass verges in the infants play area.
Task Day 18 September 2010
At last the weather allowed us to make a start on painting of the Bowling Green buildings - but will it let us finish this year? We also managed, thanks to Patrick, to get a coat of wood treatment on the stocks, Midnight and all the ground sculptures. A special thank you to Ken from the Bowling Club, who also joined us today to help with the painting. With not enough tins of paint to go around we also gave the Bowling Green itself a good tidy-up - a most productive day.
Task Day 28 August 2010
A miserably wet morning didn't bode well for our French Boules Tournament in the afternoon and all we managed was a bit of weeding around the ornamental flowerbeds in between the showers before getting set up for that. By 12.30 pm we had gazebos up but it was lashing down and looking very bleak. Typical August weather! Thankfully as people started to arrive things started to look a bit better and as it turned out it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. To read more about the tournament visit the French Boules Court Project page.
Task Day 31 July 2010
A damp summer day but thankfully it didn't chuck it down until after we'd finished. The Pear sculpture was returned to its rightful place next to the apple at the back of the library. The ornamental beds are looking lush and bright after plenty of rain and now look even better following weeding and dead-heading. We also managed to do some more lopping and pruning in a couple of the shrub beds. A productive day!
