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.
Great to get "Little Growers" up and running for 2020!
Returning to our normal schedule of task days meant we were back in the park again today and also launching this year's "Little Growers" events for 2020. The weather was much better and allowed us to set-up outside the library and engage with families using the play areas. We planted pots of seeds with 22 Little Growers, which was a great start to the season.
Out in the park, the main task was planting several 100 native whips - these are small bare-rooted tree saplings - mostly in the area where the Lock 11 compound caused the removal of trees and ground cover. We planted whips in several other areas of the park too and sowed some wildflower seed mix around the new trees planted in February.
We had a much-needed spring clean of our tool store and found lots of missing hand-tools! We also had a good tidy-up of the flowerbed in the Infants Play area and this is where we will be planting anything the Little Growers bring back this year.
The Bandroom garden is looking great!
The Bands make a regular donation to park funds in return for maintenance of their garden and hedges. March is one of the best times for this small garden, when the groups of daffodils we planted burst through to let us know that spring is here.
Considering only 24 hours notice we had a brilliant turnout
Our Task Day last weekend was cancelled due to the dreadful weather, so when we heard the forecast for today on Friday we decided to squeeze a replacement session in.
It was great to be able to get back on the the Memorial Flowerbeds at last, everything has been so wet, so this was our main focus for the day. Work in other areas included repairs to fencing down by the canal and continuing removal of self-seeded saplings in the canal-side woodland. We also picked litter and swept up glass at the park entrance and the skatepark.
Planting of trees on Tuesday 18 February
Back in February we also grabbed the opportunity to plant nine new trees in the gap in the woodland left by the works to repair Lock 11. The trees were paid for by CRT and our volunteers were helped by the Council's Neighbourhood Team.
Off to a great start with our task day programme for 2020 with a turnout of 22 volunteers!
We tackled a number of activities including redistribution of topsoil, maintenance of the Hollins House shrub beds, clearance of undergrowth to gain access for fence repairs, pulling of self-seeded saplings, tidying up around the library, creation of a wild-life habitat in the woodland behind the library and litter-picking throughout the park. We also organised collection of an old filing cabinet and a steel locker that was surplus after a recent kitchen refit to our Mess Room in the park.
Over the winter period we have also installed 6 new woodcrete bird boxes in the park. We'll soon be installing 6 more and we've submitted a grant application to the Stockport Hydro Environmental Challenge for a further 6 bird boxes and 6 bat boxes.
Visitors to the park must have been pleased to see us back as they popped over £27 in our donations bucket!
Can you support Friends of Marple Memorial Park via their 50-50 Club?
To generate a regular income to help fund projects in the park, this year we set-up a new 50-50 Club. This enables Friends of the Park supporters to make a regular monthly donation of £5 or more and be in with a chance of winning a cash prize each month too. So far, after only 4 draws, we've given away £656 in prizes and raised a similar amount for the park. If you'd like to support the park in this way, please sign-up to the Friends of Marple Memorial Park's 50-50 Club!
Removal of Nativity Sculptures from Market Street
In December we helped Churches Together install the steel Nativity Sculptures created by Wayne Chaisty on the usual bench in Market Street. Having learned how difficult it was to access the storage location in the All Saints' Church basement, we have agreed to store the sculptures at the park and take the lead on installing and removing them at the appropriate times in future.
We were blessed with a beautiful day to blow out the Christmas cobwebs on our last task day of the year.
In 2019 we have worked over 1,000 volunteer hours in the park! Today we cut-back overgrown shrubs behind the Infants Play Area, tidied the War Memorial Beds, continued crown-lifting of low branches on trees and cleared leaves around the Bowling Green too.
It was great to see our request to replace the missing drum sticks on the Pirate Ship has been fulfilled by the council too.
Despite a frosty start it turned into a beautiful day just right for planting over 2,000 bulbs with the help of four Duke of Edinburgh Award students. This kept the photographer busy too, so there are not as many pictures of other activities as usual.
Those other activities included filling ruts with soil in the new wildflower meadow area of the park, clearing and tidying the main flowerbeds and the war memorial beds, crown-lifting of trees to remove branches at eye-level, litter-picking throughout the park and lots of work on the Reading Circle behind the library following completion of the hard-standing resurfacing that we paid for.
Planting of bulbs with the students included Bluebells around the new pine trees near to the Skatepark, a Bee-Mix selection in the canalside wildlife area and daffodils planted behind the three old wooden benches along the main path. Of course that included the obligatory conga to tread down the soil and turf on top of the newly planted bulbs. Bee-Mix bulbs were also planting in the Reading Circle woodland and miniature daffodils and crocuses in the war memorial beds by our volunteers too.
While all this was going on the public in the park kindly donated over £17 in our collection bucket to show their appreciation.