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 14 May 2016
An extremely busy weekend for Friends of the Park volunteers, with a task day on Saturday, Skatepark Music Festival on Saturday night and then Hawk Green Maypole event raising funds for the park on Sunday. In the park we started our programme of bench treatment to keep them all in tip-top condition, weeded flowebeds, weeded and planted seeds in the woodland wildlife area and had a good tidy up of the beds close to the council offices. We replaced the worn commemorative flags with new ones and litter-picked the park too.
Sadly, we also found that the tree sculpture "Midnight" has rotted from inside quite badly and is now starting to loose the outer surface too. We did some experimental repairs to see if we can hold back the effects of this for a bit longer but they weren't very successful and currently look messy. We'll have another look at this but despite consolidating the base with resin a couple of years ago it now looks like the sculpture has started a rapid decline. We will try to extend its life for as long as we can but at some point in the not too distant future it will need to be removed.
Once again visitors to the park showed their support for what we do by donating over £21 in our collection bucket.
Task Day 30 April 2016
A fine effort from local volunteers saw completion of weeding and digging over the War Memorial Flowerbeds, and also the large shrub bed next to the council offices. There was some heavy pruning to the Garth Road shrub bed and some planting in the Jubilee and Toilet beds too. Another full litter pick of the park was also completed by volunteers.
Despite the park being quiet due to mixed weather generous visitors still donated nearly £18 in our collection bucket. Thank you!
Task Day 16 April 2016
With weather much better than forecast it was another productive day in the park. Our volunteers worked hard on the War Memorial beds to clear weeds and dig over, while others gave a very hard prune to the shrubs by the offices. These had become very "leggy" and the harsh treatment should see them recover with vigour over the next year or two. Shrubs were also pruned back to clear the handrails on the ramps to the Office / Citizen's Advice entrance.
Elsewhere in the park, a good tidy-up of the woodland behind the library was completed, trees growing in the canal wall were removed and more good work done in our tool store by adding more brackets for storage: it's never looked so tidy!
Once again generous park users responded to our efforts by dropping over £27 in to our donations bucket!
Task Day 19 March 2016
After the first real dry week of 2016 it was good to be able to get back onto the main flowerbeds and start a spring tidy up. Lots of work was done on the toilet bed, the scout bed and in the infants play area too. In addition, we installed a new notice board for the Veteran's Bowling Club ready for the start of their new season.
The park is looking great with daffodils and crocuses putting on a great display, so a few extra photos are included to show this.
We put our collection bucket out for the first time this year too and generous park users responded by donating just over £21 to help us keep the park looking great. Thank you!
Task Day 27 February 2016
A very busy day with lots of great volunteers saw us finish a heavy pruning of the shrub beds between the library woodland and the Bandroom started last month. It was also time for a spring clean and our tool shed was emptied, new brackets and hooks fitted and everything put back tidily. We also installed new brackets in the main store for safe storage of our new power tools.
In addition, we installed six new bird boxes donated by Marple Naturalists in the shrub beds throughout the park.
Nest boxes donated by Marple Naturalists
Task Day 30 January 2016
Our first task day of 2016 had better weather than expected but as the grassed areas were still very wet we targeted shrub beds that we could reach from the pathways. With a good turnout of volunteers, including four new faces, we made big inroads into tidying the shrubs alongside the path to the Bandroom. We also cleared two bags of litter from the park and bushes.
We had planned to remove the wreaths from the War Memorial today too but they still look so good wired into place that we decided to leave them for another month.
Check out this promotional video recently completed to encourage more people to help in the park. It was created for us by regular volunteer Anne Frazer. Isn't it brilliant!