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.
We were delighted to be joined by pupils from Marple Hall School this month, who worked hard on tidying up and re-planting the sensory garden. They seemed to enjoy it and we hope that they will want to come again. The Friends of the Park tackled the first shrub bed nearest the entrance to the park and gave that a good pruning and cleared it of litter. The old log bench near the entrance has long been past its best and we had arranged for it to be chopped up into sections so that it could be transported to the Breathing Places area behind the library, where it will create happy homes for hundreds of creepy-crawlies! Whilst in the Breathing Places Area we also conducted a limited amount of pruning to encourage new growth. Sadly Bill and Ben are no more, but they were fun while they lasted and they too will now rot down for the insects.
Once again the weather was fairly kind to us and the rain held off until we'd finished. We put those brand new tools to good use as work began on the large shrub bed along by the cinema with a good clear out of the undergrowth, which was masking numerous bottles, cans and food packaging! The BBC Breathing Places plaque / bird box on the library was given a coat of preservative and a check-over. No occupants yet but fingers crossed for this year.
We were all amused to spot the new occupants of our Breathing Places Circle - Bill and Ben seem to have moved in and they look very cute indeed in their best wellies. Whoever put them here, well done! A great fun contribution to the park that beats discovering new graffiti hands down!
A cold but unexpectedly bright and sunny Saturday morning kicked off our task day season for 2010. With several regulars still in hibernation it was a low turnout but a good to start the year in sunshine. It was certainly a pleasure to be in the park and see fresh shoots starting to appear everywhere but of course this was counter-balanced by fresh graffiti on our new boules display, a bench and one of the entrance signs. What do they get out of it we wonder?
Tasks included a review with Parks Area East Manager Jonathan Long on plans for the large shrub beds by the cinema and alongside the main path into the park. Well done to Patrick for coming along for this despite his broken ribs! In addition, we cleared the old rose bed, which was long past its best, gave the memorial beds a tidy up and Jim Heald's brass plates a polish. We also replaced the 2008/9 Green Flag with a fresh bright new one for 2009/10.
The weather was very kind and contributed to a very busy and productive task day. The Beaver Scouts came along to help us by clearing one of the flowerbeds and taking the plants home for their own gardens. They also planted bluebells and snowdrops in the woodland area behind the library and some small plants in the war memorial beds. Thank you Beavers! While they were doing this we installed our new interpretation panel for the French Boules Court and also rubbed down and treated the three seats near the court and Jim Heald's bench near the library. In addition, we treated apple, pear, acorn and beechnut ground sculptures and gave "Midnight" the owl a coat too. So busy there was little time to take photos but we did manage a few..........
A day of mixed feelings - it was inspiring to see the magnificent new granite bench installed by the family of Cpl Danny Winter in his memory in the sunshine and distressing to discover that one of the recently installed memorial benches near to the Boules Court and our interpretation panel for the Breathing Place behind the library have been vandalised. We were able to fix the interpretation panel and have removed a section of the bench for repair. Apart from these unexpected activities we stripped the sunflowers from the main circular ornamental bed and had a good tidy-up around the council offices.
More weeding of the Memorial beds was the main task this month. It's amazing how quick those weeds grow and we wanted the beds to look good for the Merchant Navy Day Service next weekend. We hoisted the "Red Duster" Merchant Navy flag and it will fly in the park all week in remembrance of the merchant sailors who lost their lives during the war. There was also time to do a bit of weeding and pruning in the rose bed near to the bowling green.
