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 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!

Task Day 14 June 2014

Main task of the day was to take advantage of the weather and get a fresh coat of paint on the fence surrounding the Infants Play Area swings. We managed to keep the swings open and in use by only blocking one entrance but we'll have to come back and do that next time. We also treated the new picnic bench and did some repairs to a bench near to the entrance.

In addition, other volunteers worked on the shrub bed in front of the Senior Citizens' Hall and continued weeding to keep the ornamental flowerbeds looking their best.

We also had the added luxury of Cllr Shan Alexander coming along to make tea for our thirsty volunteers.

Task Day 31 May 2014

Flying the Flag to Commemorate 10 Years in the Park!

The park is now getting to its best and the flowerbeds are reaping the benefit of all the hard work put into them by the Friends of the Park. Several of our volunteers continued this effort by weeding and pruning the ornamental beds, the war memorial beds and the sensory garden, whilst others worked on the borders of the pathway into the woodland behind the library. Marple Allotment Association were also out in full force and their bed is looking a credit to them.

Earlier this week we installed a plaque on behalf of a lady called Selma Fielding, who has sponsored the flowerbeds with a generous donation that allows us to continue buying, growing-on, feeding, fertilizing and planting more plants in all the flowerbeds. This is a great way to commemorate a loved one or to make a contribution towards the upkeep of the park if you are not in a position to be a hands-on volunteer.

We also installed a second new picnic bench in the Infants Play Area - this was made and delivered to us by local charity David Lewis, who made the other one for us too. We know that the play area is hugely popular and can often be so busy that there is nowhere to sit, so we hope this will be appreciated by the families using it.

We were pleased to be joined in the park by five of Marple's local councillors (with apologies from the sixth) to raise our new flag to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the formation of Friends of Marple Memorial Park. Most of them were there when we first started in 2004 and when we achieved our first Green Flag in 2005. Since the council stopped entering their parks for the Green Flag Award several years ago we thought we'd create our own flag to make use of the pole. Thank you to Arthur Procter for helping with the design of the flag and coming along to take the photos.

We were also pleased that The Marple Plumber came along to fit a new outside tap for us free of charge. This is something we've needed for a while and it was great to get it installed by a qualified plumber at no cost!