Friends of Memorial Park Task Days in 2023
Here are details of our task days in 2023.
Task Day 24 June 2023
Park visitors were generous with their comments and pockets
Tasks today involved finishing work on the section of shrubbery alongside Hollins House that we started last time, the regular maintenance work on the Bandroom Garden and continuing the endless maintenance work on the main flowerbeds. This included edging the beds, tidying the paths, weeding and planting new additions.
We also fitted an edging frame to the artwork on the gable end of the Bowlers Hut that we hope will stop the winter weather from getting into them for a while.
It was a very good day for the park bucket with visitors making many positive comments and depositing over £40, thank you!
Task Day 10 June 2023
These sunny days are wonderful but the park is desperate for rain!
Watering is a time-consuming job even though we try to limit this as much as possible. We normally only do things freshly planted, the allotment beds, Danny's pots and, more recently, our new wildflower bed. Unfortunately the hot weather is now stressing a lot of the new trees in the park, so we did as many of these as we could too in the hope that we don't loose them.
Other tasks today included the never-ending weeding of the flowerbeds, mowing of the band room garden and triangle, tidying around Hollins House and some weeding in the library woodland, where we did manage to find a little shade. We also had our hottest team on the annual make-over of the French Boules Court, which was a challenging task in this weather.
It was good to see Helen Middleton braving the heat to work on the final stages of the Skatepark Art Project too.
Task Day 3 June 2023
We squeezed in a special Task Day to finish our experimental wildflower bed
A small group of volunteers were at the park today to complete the wildflower bed started during the Treasure Hunt Task Day last weekend.
As many people will know, our first attempt at a large wildflower meadow in the park a couple of years ago wasn't very successful.
So this time we've down-scaled to a more manageable size so that we can experiment to find out what works best before trying to do something so big again.
The bed has been cleared and planted with Yellow Rattle plugs grown at home by our volunteers. We've also sown seed today, including some that was supplied to us by Cheshire Wildlife Trust, who have also given us the Pollinator Patch stickers too. We've staked and roped it off in the hope that visitors to the park will stay off the bed and keep their dogs off too please.
Task Day / Treasure Hunt 27 May 2023
A wonderful day for a Family Treasure Hunt!
We were focused mainly on our Treasure Hunt today but volunteers still found time to mow the Band Room garden, the long-grass triangle and do a litter-pick. However, the main task of the day for those who weren't handing out programmes and chocolates, or selling raffle tickets and sowing seeds with Little Growers, was clearing of the bed just next to our stall. This was adopted by the Scouts last year but by mutual agreement we've taken it back and plan to use it as an experimental wildflower bed. It was back-breaking work but they did it!
The Treasure Hunt was a great success financially and everyone seemed to enjoy it and gave great feedback too.
We're still waiting for some of the money to come in, so we'll give a full update on the Treasure Hunt Page when the dust settles. We do know that we raised £382 on the raffle, £64.50 thanks to Marple Youth Project's Cake Sale, £20 selling cards, £25 selling jewellery and £161 in donations. So with the £2,516 of sponsorship received so far we've achieved a wonderful £3,169!
Task Day 13 May 2023
A glorious day in the park!
We couldn't ask for better weather for a task day and it was great to see Helen transferring the children's artwork to the skatepark ramps in the sunshine.
It was an arty day all round as we also installed the centenary artwork created by All Saints' and St Mary's Schools last year for the School Gardens Project. They've been fitted to the Bowlers' Hut gable end and we're really pleased to have found a way to brighten up this area following a suggestion made to us by PC Matthew Mayers.
We continued work on the main flowerbeds and memorial beds, did a litter-pick, cleaned the war memorial and maintained the Band Room garden. We also fitted a "hazard bar" to the chain across the entrance barrier to the park. This is to make it more visible after a recent accident involving a mobility scooter when, thankfully, nobody was hurt.
Last but not least, park visitors may notice that the softwood timbers from the stocks made for us way back in 2004 by Tony Heginbotham have gone missing. There's no need to worry, these have lasted nearly 20 years but are now rotten and one of our volunteers is making new hardwood replicas that should outlast most of us.
Thank you to park users who donated just over £21 in our collection bucket.
Task Day 29 April 2023
A beautiful morning for a task day
Amazing how much the grass has grown in the 2 weeks since we were last in the park.
Today we painted the skatepark ramps in preparation for application of the collages created during the skatepark art workshops last year by Helen Middleton Studio. We completed pulling out and cutting back the self-seeded saplings along our border with the canal and we put the first coat of varnish on the recycled schools' artwork to go on the gable end of the Bowlers' Hut.
We also mowed the Bandroom Garden and the strips around the wildlife triangle, edged and weeded all the main beds and planted seed potatoes in the raised allotment beds.
We met with Zoë from Marple Mutual Aid and Cllr. Malcolm Allan to discuss the design and inscription for the Covid Flag Pole Memorial too.
Once again we are grateful to members of the public who donated over £22 in our collection bucket, thank you.
Task Day 15 April 2023
The sun shines on our first mid-month task day of 2023
Once again kind weather and a great turnout saw our volunteers completing lots of work in the park.
After carefully checking for bird nests we completed trimming shrubs in the long bed between the library woodland and the Station Road entrance near to the band room. You may notice one bush sticking high above the others because Robins are building a nest, so we left that one undisturbed.
This year we've agreed with TLC that in several areas of the park the grass will be left to grow long for the benefit of wildlife and nature. They've also agreed to reduce their use of weedkiller significantly around object like lampposts, bins and benches and we will keep them tidy instead. One prominent area where the grass will be left to grow all year is the triangle next to the Band Room cottage. In order to make it clear this is intentional, rather than neglect, we will be keeping the border of this area tidy and we got started on that today.
We also planted onion sets and fruit bushes in the Allotment beds and weeded and tidied the main flowerbeds, which are looking wonderful this spring - so full of colour.
Thank you to park visitors who left over £25 in our collection bucket!
Task Day 25 March 2023
A productive spring day for volunteers in Marple Memorial Park
A couple of early-bird starters did some tidying work around the library and on the Jubilee Flowerbed before heading off for other commitments. Those able to stay got stuck into clearing ash saplings along the canal-side woodland perimeter, worked on the allotment beds we've recently taken over, split and replanted Snowdrops all around the park, picked litter and began a spring clean-up of park benches and fixtures and fittings like signs and noticeboards. We rounded off with a clear-up of the Sensory Garden and a tidy of the Scout Hut bed.
Thank you to our supporters who popped a total of £29.50 into our collection bucket!
Task Day 25 February 2023
Spring is in the air with Snowdrops and Crocuses putting on a great display!
Today we worked on clearing the flowerbeds ready for new growth plus some hard pruning of shrub beds before nesting season begins. We also replanted behind the Toilet Block after receiving replacement plants from the council because one of their contractors trashed the planting we established back in 2015 while they were clearing out the gutter last year.
Thank you to park visitors who placed over £10 in our collection bucket.
Task Day 28 January 2023
Great to get our volunteers back in the park after such a long break!
We were last in the park on 12 November, that's the longest break we've had for many years and it was great to get back and get stuck in!
We got an early start to install our new sign at the skatepark while the majority of our volunteers piled onto the War Memorial beds. Others started tidying the woodland and creating wildlife habitats where we've had a few large branches come down. We did some work on the shrubs around the back of the Play Area and planted bulbs around the hard-standing of the Roundels Art Project too. Last but not least, we also got started on our project to overhaul the allotment beds now that we've accepted them back from Marple Allotment Association.
Thank you to members of the public who placed over £21 in our collection bucket during the day.
Task Day 6 January 2023
Time to take the decorations down!
Installing and removing the Nativity Sculptures on Market Street has become our traditional task for the end of each year and start of the new.
This morning we had to chuckle at the aviator sunglasses Mary was wearing when we turned up to take them back into storage.
