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 27 October 2007
The park was looking spectacular in its autumn colours for our Tree Planting Event sponsored by £100 from the Woodland Trust's "Tree for All" scheme. We were pleased to welcome a small band of guests to the park to plant 121 trees provided by the Trust and a collection of Horse Chestnut trees provided by schools as far away as Scunthorpe! The Chestnut trees were planted in the north of the park alongside Garth Road. The trees purchased with the money provided by the Woodland Trust were a mixture of Mountain Ash, Silver Birch, Bird Cherry, Hawthorn, Field Maple, Ash, English Oak and Hornbeam. These were planted in the wildlife areas running down from the back of the cinema towards the canal and on past the skate park and teen area.
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Task Day 29 September 2007
A great turn out by Marple Locks Heritage Society, the Friends of the Park and Churches Together saw short work made of planting approximately 3,000 pansies in the new "Lock 17" flower bed display at the entrance to Marple from Strines. The display is based on the council's 2006 Gold Award winning Tatton Show entry and was recreated in partnership by the Friends, the Locks Society and the Parks & Recreation Department. It will be dedicated to the late Gordon Mills and was funded by Parks & Rec, The Marple Website and Marple Area Committee. For more photographs visit the Lock 17 Project page.
Whilst we were all having fun with the relatively easy work of planting pansies in Oldknow Gardens the Probation Service were working harder on our behalf to remove the bark chippings from the former boating pool in the infants play area in preparation for installation of new equipment and safe surface in the very near future.
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Task Day 25 August 2007
A quiet Bank Holiday task day with several of our regulars away on holiday saw us hoeing and weeding the main flowerbeds, the War Memorial beds and the path edges to make sure the park looks its best for the Merchant Navy Day ceremony on 2nd September. Our numbers were bolstered for a while by several of our local councillors, who joined us to celebrate the fourth successive Green Flag Award by hoisting the 2007/8 flag for the first time. The flag was raised in tandem by Cllr. Shan Alexander and Cllr. Sue Ingham whilst Adrian supervised. Note how he has perfected the art of leaning without a spade.
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Task Day 27 July 2007
Although the photos make it look like a brilliant summer's day it still managed rain more than once during today's tasks. These included more weeding of the War Memorial beds as we finished soiling up ready for planting. The weeds are becoming quite a serious problem here actually and we may need to tackle these in a different way before adding new plants. A small contingent from the Stockport Youth Offending Team also joined in to help trim the shrubs around the Infants Play Area. Adrian and Mark had a tidy up around the Tree Sculpture and it was fantastic to see how many people stopped to look at this and talk about it or take photographs.
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Task Day 30 June 2007
No action photographs this month due to the horrendous weather but despite all the rain the Friends of the Park did manage to do some litter picking and tidying up of the park ready for the Locks Festival the following day. In addition, the Youth Offending Team braved the wet weather and joined us to plant up the flowerbed nearest to the library. We'll perhaps add a photograph of this if it ever stops raining for long enough to take one!
Task Day 26 May 2007
The Friends continued work to improve the War Memorial flower beds by adding new topsoil around the rocks placed during the last couple of task days. The site where the locks display had been was also soiled over and the old plants removed from the main flower beds around the stone bird bath in front of the Council Offices.
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