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 18 September 2021
Lovely to see so many families enjoying a glorious day in the park!
As well as the usual hard work to keep on top of the main flowerbeds as they start to turn, a long overdue session on the second car park shrub bed was tackled. There's a lot more work here for us this winter it seems! A great job was also done on dressing the edges of the pathway between the war memorial and Hollins House.
Our man with a paint brush was on the prowl too, and anything needing a black paint touch-up was dealt with efficiently.
Just over £12 was added to our collection box by park users - thank you!
Task Day 28 August 2021
A busy day in the sunshine for Friends of the Park!
A beautiful day to be working in the park saw a focus on hedges and shrubs, with work around Hollins House, the war memorial beds and the Bandroom garden. Other jobs tackled included cleaning display boards, touch-up painting of the railings in front of the house, much needed watering of Danny Winter's pots and the endless task of keeping the flowerbeds at their best.
We also met with a local lady who has some exciting ideas for a new project in the park and visitors rewarded us with donations totalling over £13 in our collection bucket.
Task Day 7 August 2021
Big effort before the rain set in!
The forecast August downpours were fairly kind to us today, allowing us a couple of hours grace before a good soaking. This enabled us to make good progress on a tidy-up of the main flowerbeds and the war memorial beds. Other tasks included litter-picking, mowing of the band room garden and the 5-a-side goals and treatment of a couple of benches.
Thank you to park visitors for dropping over £22 in our collection bucket.
Task Day 17 July 2021
Mustn't grumble but it really was too hot to work in the park today!
A shortened task day today due to the heat but our volunteers still managed a long list of tasks by midday including: litter-picking; grass-cutting in the bandroom garden; tidying of the Scout Hut bed; planting in the Sensory Garden; edging of flowerbeds; sanding and treating benches; strimming around the 5-a-side goalposts and planting foxgloves in the woodland areas, where we at least found some shade. The allotment team were also in action keeping on top of weeds and edging their plot.
Thank you to park visitors who popped over £8 in our collection bucket.
Have you lost a bicycle?
A local resident found an abandoned bike in bushes (see last photo below) and left it with us for safe keeping. If it is yours please get in touch.
If we don't hear from the owner in a week or two we will recycle it.
Task Day 30 June 2021
Two more benches treated on the Hollins and Market Street
We're getting through our Town Centre bench maintenance programme slowly but surely and two more were sanded and treated today.
Thank you to the gent who bought us a cuppa from Gregs and to Danny Winter's mother Caroline, who spotted us and donated £100 for taking care of Danny's bench in the park.
Pavilion Art Project Installation
Monday 28 June 2021: Pavilion Art Project Roundels Installation
It was wonderful for Friends of the Park to work with Tracy, Pete and Rhian from Art Stop today to install the roundel artwork painted by Marple people of all ages during the 2020 lockdown.
We are delighted with the outcome of this project and especially thankful to Tracy McGuinness-Kelly for her hard work, enthusiasm and ability to work in innovative ways to overcome the difficulties imposed by the Covid19 pandemic while complying with government guidelines at all times.
Thanks to everyone who contributed artwork - they are all wonderful but when displayed together become more than the sum of their parts.
Thanks also to the Macnair Trust and Marple Area Committee for your contributions toward the funding for this project, and to all our volunteers who have helped in different ways.
We have a few small jobs to finish things off, then it's hopefully onwards and upwards for Phase II of this project.
