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.
Another apple tree was planted today to replace the one snapped off by vandals, lots of new plants were added to the main flowerbeds, the infants play area bed, the sensory garden and the "Sweet Relief" bed (also known as the Bog Garden). Lots of weeding and tidying of flowerbeds and we were really pleased to be joined by a new volunteer who brought her baby along too.
Other tasks included a start to our annual programme of treatment to the wooden features in the park, a really good tidy-up of our tool store and a dose of litter picking.
Generous visitors to the park placed just over £18 in our collection bucket, even though we forgot to put it out until after 11am.
After clearing up loads of broken beer bottles left by those who think the park is there purely for their own convenience and have no regard for others, it was all hands to the flowerbeds for this end of April task Day. Other tasks included staking a couple of the fruit trees we planted last time, planting of a donated cobnut bush and a litter-pick around the park to remove Friday night's detritus. We also sold some used plant pots and had our donations bucket out again.
Generous park users who appreciate what we do popped almost £33 in the bucket but a special thank you is needed for the lady who purchased drinks and chocolate treats and gave them to our busy volunteers. Restores your faith in humanity!
Decent weather at last saw volunteers start the task day by digging out hundreds more ash saplings in the woods and planting 10 fruit trees along the canal-side woodland walk, while others tidied up the Reading Circle behind the library.
Following that it was all hands to the flowerbeds to start catching up on their maintenance and a thorough litter-pick of all areas of the park too. Park users donated nearly £7 in our bucket during the short time we were working on the beds too.
Not many photos this time due to heavy rain for most of the morning but a handful of volunteers donned waterproofs to brave the weather and a fair bit of work was achieved.
It wasn't one of our most rewarding days in the park to be honest. As well as the rain, we discovered that our WWI timeline display had been subjected to obscene graffiti, there was graffiti all over the benches near the bowling green and disgusting dog mess all around the flowerbeds. A litter-pick around the perimeter of the park also revealed numerous full dog poo bags thrown in the bushes. All this abuse of the park by people who use it is rather depressing.
We even found a new Asda sign that had been graffiti-ed and ripped off the wall. We've recently objected to this sign in our comments on Asda's planning application but do not condone its removal by vandals. We reported it to contractors in the Asda car park, however, we do hope that they will not refit it until after their planning application has been processed because we believe that the planners will take note of our comments on this particular sign and reject it.
On the positive side, shrub beds were maintained and several new plants put in, fence posts installed, a start was made bashing the huge amount of self-seeded saplings in the canal woodland and we had some fabulous cakes. We always have cakes during our tea breaks but today's were a special homemade treat by one of our volunteers and were definitely the highlight of the day!
Volunteers were so enthusiastic to get back into the park that we decided to squeeze in an extra task day for March.
A really good tidy-up of the shrub bed at the top of the park near where our second silhouette will soon be installed was the first thing tackled. Management of the woodland walk alongside the canal was completed, more bulbs planted and more work to the flowerbeds and the Sensory Garden were also carried out.
Two large gaps were filled in the Beech hedge bordering Station Road and Willow whips were planted with the longer term intention of creating a bird hide along the woodland walk too.
With our January task day being snowed off it seems like an long time since we've been in the park and it was great to get back and do some work. The park is springing back into life with a great display of crocuses and snowdrops.
A real good tidy-up of the shrub beds alongside the driveway into the park was followed by similar treatment for the beds in front of the Scout Hut and alongside the Senior Citizens Hall. The Jubilee Bed in front of the library, the toilet bed and the shrub bed towards the top end of the park were also tackled, as was the wildlife area behind the library.
While this was going on another small team was carrying out some management work to the woodland alongside the canal and another was preparing the goal-post frame at the top end of the park ready for its new silhouette artwork. This will be the same as the one we recently installed at the main entrance. We've been getting great comments from the public about this and we're delighted with the results. We'll be adding a new project page about this in the near future.
Marple Allotment Association were also in attendance tidying up their beds and like us they're looking forward to spring!
