Friends of Memorial Park Task Days in 2022

Here are details of our task days in 2022.

Task Day 29 August 2022

Lock 17 on Oldknow Gardens

Friends of Marple Memorial Park have strayed outside the park today and had a good tidy-up of Lock 17 on Oldknow Gardens. Did you know that Friends of the Park have looked after Lock 17 since it was created in 2007. It's been such a busy summer that we let things go a bit but all caught up now. Here are some before and after photos. Isn't that better!

 

Task Day 27 August 2022

A catch-up with chores in the Infants Play Area

Today we focused on the Infants Play Area, with a good tidy-up of shrubs and more fence painting. Of course there was work done on the main flowerbeds too, and also at the toilet block, the Reading Circle, on the shrubs around Hollins House and litter picking. We also had a special treat at tea break, with an amazing pork pie and fruit tart from the wonderful Archer's Bakery.

Thank you to park users who donated almost £12 in our bucket!

A catch-up from July 2022

We did also have a task day on Saturday 30 July, when volunteers did a lot of work on the Allotment beds. These are returning to our care after being looked after by Marple Allotment Association since 2011. In addition, we've been beavering away on bench maintenance throughout the park too.

Task Day 16 July 2022

All hands on the flowerbeds to get ready for a Picnic in the Park!

An early start today due to the forecast heatwave saw most of our volunteers pile onto the main flowerbeds in order that they will look their best next Sunday 24th July, when the Brass Bands of Marple will be playing their Picnic in the Park concert to commemorate the park's 100th birthday.

Other tasks included bench maintenance, Band Room garden maintenance, watering of the new School Gardens, hedge trimming in the Infants Play area and clearing stray brambles along the woodland path in advance of the Family Treasure Hunt next Saturday.

Thank you to park visitors who deposited over £21 in our collection bucket!

 

Task Day 25 June 2022

A wide variety of jobs tackled in the park today

Our volunteers were all over the place today, with mowing and strimming in the Band Room garden, treating benches, trimming hedge and grass borders, weeding flowerbeds, watering new plants, clearing shrubs obstructing the handrails in front of Hollins House, picking litter and even painting the Infants Play Area fence ready for our School Gardens Project.

The park is looking amazing, thank you to the park visitors who popped almost £18 in our collection bucket and obviously agree.

Task Day 11 June 2022

Task Day 11 June 2022Vandals cause disappointing start to today's task day

We arrived at the park today to discover vandalism to the roof of the former Bowling Pavilion and to the Infants Play Area fence yet again. This is the fourth time vandals have deliberately and systematically damaged the fencing around the play area, resulting in costs to the council and Friends of the Park that could have been spent on making improvements.

We reported the roof damage to the council and hope it will be dealt with quickly. Fortunately we had come armed with the right tools for another job and were able to replace all the slats that had been kicked off by the time we left. If you see anyone doing damage like this again please report to the police.

Please stop stealing plants from the park!

More disappointing news is that someone has been stealing plants from the park flowerbeds.

We know this because a family recently added a small plant to the War Memorial beds in memory of a loved-one who had passed away. A few days later the plant had been dug up and taken. When this was discovered a close friend of the deceased person replaced it with another plant but a few days later this was also stolen too. It has been very distressing for family and friends, who will be replacing the plant again soon. Friends of the park have added a small sign appealing for it to be left alone.

To make it clear to unscrupulous people who think they can help themselves to plants from the park - you are not stealing from the council (not that it's OK if you were) you are stealing from Friends of the Park volunteers and the local community who have paid for or donated all the plants and shrubs in the park flowerbeds. Please leave our plants alone!

If visitors to the park witness anyone removing plants from the beds not wearing a Friends' hi-vis vest, please challenge them as they are stealing from all of us!

Thankfully we did get some positive work done today 

Better news is that our other volunteers mainly focused on tidying the second half of the War Memorial flowerbeds and we're pleased to complete this before Marple Carnival next weekend. We also straightened the edges of the flowerbed recently adopted by Marple Scouts. They've been doing lots of work on it recently and we're looking forward to seeing it develop.

Thank you to park visitors who popped over £14 in our collection bucket.

Sunday 12 June 2022

Quick visit to the park this morning to do a job that would have been done yesterday if we hadn't had to re-fix vandalised fence slats!

Task Day 28 May 2022

Task Day 28 May 2022A very productive day for Friends of the Park!

We fell lucky with the weather and got a huge amount done in the park today. Tasks included a concerted effort to weed and tidy the War Memorial Beds. The low hedge was trimmed and the border redefined on one side too. We also did a bit of tidying in the Reading Circle, as it is going to be used for Story Time by the library on Monday.

We tried out our new cordless battery powered lawnmower in the Band Room garden and the new strimmer too. These have been purchased along with standard and long reach hedge-cutters with an award we received from the Stockport CAN Fund that has allowed us to remove our dependency on petrol powered tools. We were delighted with the results.

We also put a final coat of paint on the Coronation Bench (after another volunteer did the first coat of the seat last week) and it is now ready for the tree to be decorated as part of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Marple Tree Trail. Two of our volunteers also removed the remains of the 3 trees broken by vandals and the stakes that were driven a long way down.

Earlier this week one of our volunteers also finished painting the library steps and repaired a bench that had lost a slat.

Park visitors donated over £22 in our bucket too, thank you!

Task Day 14 May 2022

Great welcome to Marple Memorial Park for Coffee Bean Dream!

We were pleased to arrive in time to welcome Sarah from Coffee Bean Dream to the park for the first time on our task day today. Coffee Bean Dream will be in the park selling coffee, cakes and many other kinds of refreshments most Saturdays and Sundays going forward. Friends of the Park are hugely supportive of Sarah bringing her business to the park and we can see already that Reddish Vale's loss is Memorial Park's gain. In the photo below Cllr. Malcolm Allan and Angie cut the ribbons on Coffee Bean Dream's first day in the park.

A wonderful day to be working in the park

This was our first mid-month Task Day of 2022 and despite a smaller turnout than our end of month ones we got a great deal of work done. Flowerbeds were weeded, lots of work was done in the Band Room Garden and progress was made on maintaining steps and benches. In particular, the back of the Coronation Bench was given a much needed clean-up and repaint. We also planted our recent purchases from Marple Scouts in the Sensory Bed opposite the Scout Hut for them to enjoy.

We were saddened that vandals have seen fit to destroy 3 new trees near to the Infants Play Area. These were planted by the council at our request and we were watering them regularly to ensure they survived the dry weather. It's hard to understand what motivates anyone to attack our efforts to improve and maintain the park.

Better news is that we remembered to put our collection bucket out this time and park visitors rewarded us by depositing almost £22!

Task Day 30 April 2022

Task Day 30 April 2022Another busy day in the sun for Friends of the Park

Today's tasks included preparing and seeding the circular bed with wildflowers and doing the same in the borders leading to the Reading Circle behind the library. This is the first time we've done this and we're looking forward to the results. We also worked on the Band Room garden, planted some donated Gunnera, began painting under the former Bowling Pavilion canopy, cleaned up the Toddler's Play Area sign, removed a fallen tree from one of the shrub beds and did lots of watering.

While working on the Reading Circle we were delighted when one of the library staff came out and told us they are planning to use the area for story time as part of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. We were also pleased to see that replacement of the broken windows on Hollins House is finally underway - it looks so much better!

We forgot to put out our collection bucket this time but you can donate via Localgiving or join our 50-50 Club if you'd like to support us.

Task Day 26 March 2022

Park springs back to life during glorious weather

Task Day 26 March 2022This is probably the earliest we've ever needed to consider applying sunscreen before a task day!

A really busy and productive day saw our volunteers cleaning under the former Bowling Pavilion canopy ready for painting before we install our centenary artwork later in the year. We also chopped up a huge tree branch that had been brought down by high winds earlier in the year and created a small wildlife haven from the arisings. Many other volunteers got stuck into flowerbed maintenance behind the library, in the Jubilee bed in front of the library, the toilet block bed, and of course the main flowerbeds and memorial beds.

We also got started on annual maintenance such as painting the edges of the steps at the Bowling Green the exact same colour as the fabulous display of daffodils throughout the park.

You may notice that we now have a new flag flying from our second flagpole as a display of our support for the people of Ukraine.

Last but not least, thank you to park visitors, who kindly popped over £17 in our collection bucket.

Task Day 26 February 2022

Task Day 26 February 2022Reading Circle make-over and Frog planting

During today's task day most of our volunteers focused on a good tidy-up of the Reading Circle behind the library, including planting-up of the trough in our new Canal Frog Rose. We hope that visitors will enjoy this new addition to the park but please refrain from climbing on it and trampling the plants.

Other activities included a big clear-up of broken branches and twigs from recent storms, extensive litter-picking and glass clearing thanks to our overnight park visitors, a tidy-up of the annoying mud puddle at the park entrance and installation of the boards for our new Pavilion Art Project Phase II - look out for more on that soon.

Great support from the community

A very big thank you to the lady who donated £100 to Friends of the Park and the kind gentleman who presented us with a cake from Archer's for our tea break. It was very nice indeed!

Task Day 29 January 2022

First formal task day of 2022!

Task Day 29 January 2021It was great to get our volunteers back into the park for the first time this year, despite nearly getting blown away by high winds.

Today's efforts were focused on a general tidy of of the main flowerbeds. We spread some new top soil on the Sensory Garden opposite the Scout Hut as part of our tidy-up there and replanted Danny Winter's pots too. We also spread some top soil along the top edge of the skatepark to fill the gap between the concrete and grass that had been developing.