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 10 September 2016

Today's activities included trimming hedges around the Bandroom, cutting back of shrubs around the council offices and the scout hut, edging of flowerbeds with our new shears, tidying up and new planting in the Memorial Beds and weeding of flowerbeds. We also had another mini plant-sale and raised just over £22 from generous visitors to the park.

Task Day 27 August 2016

Flowerbeds and borders were the main focus of this Bank Holiday task day and despite some of our regular volunteers being away, lots of good work was completed.

Activities included putting up some wire supports for our new plants behind the toilet block, removal of Ash saplings that had self-seeded in the shrub beds, removal of bracken that had done the same and litter-picking throughout the park. We also made some more progress on our project to refurbish the Town Centre benches.

As well as our usual collection bucket we sold some plants and baby Christmas trees, raising £26 from visitors to the park.

Task Day 13 August 2016

A very productive day for our volunteers, with work on the Library Jubilee Bed, the Woodland Reading Circle, Infants Play Area Bed, Sensory Bed, Office Bed and the Bandroom Garden. We also prepared an area of one flowerbed for something new and rather special we've been working on. Watch this space for more news!

More work on benches in the park too, and also work on reburbishment of another Town Centre bench as well.

Visitors to Marple Library left £6 in our collection bucket too, not as good as the flowerbed area we usually put it but it all counts!

Task Day 30 July 2016

A tough job to start the day was digging out the roots of the ivy at the back of the toilet block and then planting a climbing hydrangea and two clematis donated by volunteers.

The flowerbeds are looking fabulous but continue to demand attention to keep weeds at bay and borders neat. Lots of work done on the cinema bed at the front of the park, around the Council Offices and at the front to keep the entrance ramp handrails clear. Lots of painting and treatment of benches in the park and our next one on Market Street was also started too.

Once again visitors to the park were very generous, popping just over £27 in our collection bucket.

Task Day 16 July 2016

We're not sure what's happen to the summer but thankfully our volunteers still turn out in the rain!

We removed the ivy from the Toilet Block - we've trimmed this back several times but it soon regrows and starts to invade the fabric of the building again, so this time we decide to try to eradicate it completely and hope to plant something less invasive in the future. We did some more work in the Bandroom garden and met with a representative to discuss maintaining it long term. We did more work on the shrub beds alongside the path to the bandroom and had a good tidy up in the Cinema bed too. We did some light weeding to the main Flowerbeds but it was too wet to do more.

We also extended the First World War Timeline backing on the railings ready for more men to be commemorated in the future as their 100th anniversaries are reached.

Task Day 25 June 2016

We were delighted to welcome two new volunteers today to boost our ranks depleted by the holiday season!

The never ending chore of weeding and edging the flowerbeds continued, with some new plants left over from our sale at Marple Carnival added too. As mentioned last time, we also added a new feature of two former hanging baskets donated to us by Friends of Rose Hill Station to either side of Danny Winter's bench. We are in the hands of park users here and we hope that they will be treated with respect and not interfered with or damaged.

Other tasks included replacing the Perspex in the Skatepark and library notice boards, the former being impossible to see through and the latter having been broken by someone. We also removed two trees from the Bandroom garden and started on a bit of a tidy-up for them that we'll hopefully finish next time.

Once again visitors to the park showed their appreciation by telling us how wonderful the flowerbeds are looking and chucking nearly £14 into our donation bucket. Thank you!