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 30 August 2014
Unfortunately everything was too wet for painting, so today's efforts focused on work to shrub beds and flowerbeds. There was also some crown lifting to trees in the park, a tidy-up of the wall bordering the canal towpath, cutting back of ivy on the toilet block and a litter-pick throughout the park. It was also good to chat with folk from Compstall who are thinking of setting up a new Friends Group for a small park in their area.
Task Day 18 August 2014
Painting the Infants Play Area fence with NCS Challenge!
Today 13 young people from NCS with The Challenge and their supervisor Lisa joined Friends of the Park to paint the Infants Play Area fence. Thankfully the weather was kind to us, with just a brief shower, and the young people even finished our challenge early allowing them to relax with a few games of French Boules before setting off home.
We'd like to extend a big thank you to the young people who helped us out today with in the region of 42 hours of free labour in the park. We'd also like to thank Sara at The Challenge for contacting us about this and for the £100 contribution towards the painting materials too. Thanks also to park users, who donated just over £11 in our collection bucket while we were there.
Task Day 16 August 2014
A busy day with treatment of benches and preservative applied to Midnight the Tree Sculpture, weeding and clearing of paths, pruning of hedges, litter picking and weeding and pruning to the ornamental flowerbeds too. Marple Allotment Association were also in attendance keeping their bed in good order and engaging with the public.
Thank you to park users, who donated nearly £11 in our collection bucket.
Task Day 26 July 2014
More wonderful weather and great effort from our volunteers ensured lots of work was done in the park today. This included litter picking, treating of benches, continuation of painting to the Infants Play Area, wire-brushing, sanding and painting of the circular Coronation Bench and of course the ongoing battle with the weeds to keep the flowerbeds looking their best.
Thank you to park users, who donated over £21 in our collection bucket.
Thanks to Terry Wood and Gavin Eyquem for the photographs.
Task Day 12 July 2014
Better weather this week allowed us to continue painting the Infants Play Area but due to holidays we had a much smaller number of volunteers than usual. Despite this, as well as painting there was lots of work done on the flowerbeds, which are very demanding this time of year, and lots of park benches given a coat of Summer Tan preservative. Unfortunately hands with paint on and cameras are not a good mix, so not many photos taken this time!
A quick thank you to Play Area users who donated over £12 in our collection bucket.
Task Day 28 June 2014
Unfortunately it was too wet to continue painting the Infants Play Area today, so it was all hands to the flowerbeds in the park. We planted numerous new plants and small shrubs, many of which had been donated by members of the public.
Both our volunteers and Marple Allotment Association were regularly thanked by park users for our efforts and people obviously appreciate what we are doing as we collected over £30 of donations in our bucket!
