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 13 October 2018
After a very windy night thanks to Storm Callum, we spent much of the day clearing up fallen branches from the park, including one that had damaged a fence down near the canal. We'll repair the fence soon. It was still pretty windy in the park so, so we also focused on pruning in the Bandroom Garden, where it was a bit more sheltered. We also managed to strip some nettles behind the library and install the last set of paving slabs in front of the skatepark benches.
Task Day 29 September 2018
A glorious Indian summer day saw Friends of the Park focusing mainly on the beds alongside the offices and the car park, which were long overdue a good tidy-up.
We also added paving slabs to another of the skatepark benches to create a hard-standing to keep the mud off peoples' feet. We ventured outside of the park again to complete the painting of Lock 17 and while we had the paint out it seemed a good idea to do a bit of touching up in the park too.
Task Day 15 September 2018
A sad task today was to remove part of our Midnight tree sculpture that was becoming unsafe.
We created this wonderful addition to the park in 2007, when the tree from which it is carved was declared unsafe. It was great to bring something positive from the demise of this mature Copper Beech that has lasted more than 10 years but unfortunately as the carving was still rooted in the ground in the long-term its decay was inevitable. We have asked Myers Tree Care to remove the rest of it as soon as they can and we hope to find a way to replace it with something new in the future.
Other tasks included lots of work on the park's flowerbeds, the addition of paving slabs in front of one of the skatepark seats to create a hard-standing and work in the Bandroom garden. We also ventured outside of the park today to begin repainting the Lock 17 gates. This is another local feature that we helped to create in 2007 and is now maintained by our volunteers.
Back in the park, visitors dropped just over £15 into our collection bucket to in appreciation of our efforts.
It was great to see kids playing on our latest addition to the park - the new Ocean See-Saw in the Infants Play Area.
Read more about the creation of Midnight the Tree Sculpture.
Task Day 25 August 2018
Too damp for painting the Infants Play Area fence this time, so most of our volunteers got stuck into a tidy-up of the Breathing Places Reading Circle behind the library.
There was also some hedge trimming done at the Bandroom cottage and maintenance of park benches continued. Later on we also managed to get a coat of gloss on the Bowling Pavilion doors. Looks like we had the best of the Bank Holiday weather for our efforts!
Thank you to generous park visitors, who popped just over £17 into our collection bucket.
Task Day 11 August 2018
Today the weather was just about perfect and we had a much more successful painting day and managed to make a decent amount of progress on the Infants Play Area fence.
Still a long way to go though! Other volunteers worked on the main flowerbeds, litter picking and the treatment and maintenance of park benches continued too.
Park visitors popped just over £13 into our collection bucket to say thank you for our efforts to keep the park looking its best.
Task Day 28 July 2018
Today's planned "big task" was to get stuck into painting the Infants Play Area fence but although we made a nominal start the wind forced us to stop and do something else.
More successful tasks included planting and maintenance in the Sensory Garden and the Scout Hut bed, strimming in the Bandroom garden and ongoing treatment of benches. The benches that have had the metalwork repainted are looking particularly good.
Thank you to park visitors, who showed support for our efforts by placing almost £8 in our donation bucket!