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 26 August 2017
Glorious weather and a great turn-out for a Bank Holiday weekend! It was lovely to see the Breathing Places Reading Circle we created 10 years ago, and still maintain, being used by young families with children enjoying a sing-song. There was lots of hard work in flowerbeds and shrub beds and the Allotment Association were out in force too. There was also lots of hard work on park benches as we've been catching up now that the weather has improved.
Lots of litter-picking too, with our chief litter-picker bringing a couple of apprentices with him to train-up.
Plenty of generous park users were out and about as well, with almost £24 placed in our donations bucket.
Task Day 12 August 2017
Another quite but productive task day with work done on main flowerbeds, Jubilee bed in front of the library, woodland area behind the library and the shrub bed near to the bandroom. Park users donated just over £11 in our bucket too!
Task Day 29 July 2017
The holiday season made for a low turn-out but very productive task day tackling litter, flowerbeds, benches, the bandroom garden, the Infants Play area, the cinema bed and the back of the toilet block. Park users were out in force though, and placed just over £49 in our donations bucket.
Task Day 15 July 2017
Mixed weather didn't stop our volunteers turning out in force today and getting stuck into the Sensory Garden, trimming of borders, maintenance of shrub beds, litter picking, and work to the Bandroom garden. We rounded the day off with a visit to The Samuel Oldknow Bar on Market Street to help them celebration winning the High Peak Camra Pub of the Season award. Tough work but somebody has to do it!
Plenty of generous park users out too, with almost £20 placed in our donations bucket.
Task Day 24 June 2017
A much quieter turnout than usual saw lots of planting in the flowerbeds and shrub beds and lots of watering in of new plants. We also completed the refurbishment of three park benches sponsored by local families and erected some temporary protection for a commemorative plaque where a tree was recently lost.
The park itself was quieter too but we still had just over £10 donated by park users during the day.
Task Day 13 May 2017
Our volunteers have been really busy in the park this week, culminating in today's task day. We've had a big push on the Bee Friendly Project, which is funded by donation of £200 from Stockport Hydro and £300 from Anchorpoint Stockport.
Tasks have included planting of a Bee Friendly hedge around the War Memorial beds with 100 bare-rooted Hawthorn and a dozen Berberis. This took a great deal of work to extend the border and prepare the soil. We also planted 1,000 Snowdrop bulbs in the flowerbeds ready for next spring. Snowdrops are really import for bees, as they are pretty much the first bee friendly thing to show after a long winter. We also planted several new shrubs that are bee friendly too.
Other tasks this week included preparing 3 steel benches rescued from the teen area during construction of the skatepark. These have been blast-cleaned, primed and under-coated for us free of charge by Marple Blasting Service at Wood Farm and are now being painted and stencilled before return to the park for installation. We also cleaned up a set of surplus goalposts donated by the council ready for installation too. These will be fitted in the field behind the Infants and Junior Play areas in the near future.
Work was also done in the Bandroom garden and the shrub beds near the council offices and a park-wide litter-pick done to round things off. Once again park users showed their support for what we do by popping over £42 in our bucket!
