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.
The first task day of 2014 was a fairly quiet start to the year but we were pretty lucky with the weather and got a fair bit done. The park was very wet so we concentrated on areas that we could reach from the paths. The Infants Play Area has a good tidy up, the shrubs and beds around the Council Offices and along the path heading towards the Charles Ingham Bandroom were also given a good prune back. There are lots of bulbs appearing already and we're looking forward to a park in bloom again!
We also had a photo-call with Councillor Iain Roberts, who presented us with a cheque for £200 from the Council's WWI Small Grant Scheme. This grant covers the cost of the red roses that we planted around the War Memorial flowerbeds last year and is the first award of its kind in Stockport for projects that commemorate the 2014-2018 WWI Centenaries. We are very proud to be the first group in the borough top be awarded one of these grants and we are looking forward to the roses that we have planted developing into a Red "Rose Wall" hedge over the next few years that will bloom between June and November.
A special task day was held in the park on Wednesday 22 January when some lads from David Lewis came along with Terry, one of our volunteers who works there. The lads came to help fit bars to several of our ground sculptures that had been pulled out by vandals so that they can be reinstalled in the park and also to fit some brackets to the legs of one of our picnic tables that was vandalised too. They did a great job and left the place much tidier than it was before they came, so thank you lads!
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Fantastic weather for probably the last formal task day of 2013 - and what a busy year we've had!
Today the Diamond Jubilee Bed was fully replanted with perennials that we hope will put on a great show of colour outside the library next year and for many years to come. Earlier this week the skateboard wax was blasted off the coping with the Jet Washer that we won in the Karcher Cleans Britain competition in June this year and in the near future we will be installing skate-stops to prevent it from being abused in this way again.
Leaves were cleared from the car park, around the library, the Breathing Places Area and the Infants Play Area. The Play Area flowerbed and the toilet bed were given a good tidy-up and more perennials planted in these beds and at the War Memorial.
In the meantime, others were re-installing some of the ground sculptures that had been pulled out by vandals and several others have been removed so that they can have new rods inserted before they are found in the canal too. We've also removed one of the picnic benches because it has been damaged by drug-users. This will be re-installed after we've repaired it.
Marple Allotment Association members were very busy today installing a paved pathway alongside their adopted bed using surplus slabs that we obtained for free from Etherow Park. This is in preparation for the extremely popular Allotment bed, which has been one of 2013's great successes, to be doubled in size for next year.
Today's special task was to ensure that the War Memorial and Ornamental Flowerbeds looked their best for the Remembrance Service tomorrow. We also planted 20 additional rose bushes around the rear borders of the Memorial beds. These are part of our "Rose Wall" hedge and were replacements for those that didn't take when planted in the spring / early summer.
Marple Allotment Association were in attendance and tidied up their Allotment bed too. The Ian Rice Bench down by the canal entrance was also sanded and treated and this means that every single wooden bench in the park has now been refurbished, replaced or maintained by Friends of the the Park.
At one point this morning it rained so heavily that we thought we might have to abandon the task day but thankfully it was short-lived. We had a very good turn-out despite the wet start and focused on tidying up the War Memorial and Ornamental beds so that they will hopefully look the best that they can for the Remembrance Service in November. We have a special task day on 9 November to give it a final once-over and hope it will be dryer!
We also had a photo-shoot with Marple in Action representatives Di Jackson and Mick Mcphee, who presented us with a share of the group's surplus funds following a public vote on how they should be distributed. We received 36% of the vote, which earned us £161 and would like to thank MiA for their support - the money will go towards the Marple Skatepark Development Project.
Our main task this month was to transplant most of the 800 Polyanthus we planted in the Jubilee Bed in February to other locations within the park, including the toilet block, the sensory garden, the small bed at the side of the library, the bed in from of the offices and also in between the Senior Citizens' Hall and the Scout Hut.
The Polies have been removed to allowed us to plant hundreds of bulbs including Daffodils and Tulips in the Jubilee Bed for next spring. This is the first step in our planned permanent display for the Jubilee Bed and in the near future we will also be planting a large collection of perennial plants too.
The picnic benches inside and outside the Infants Play Area were given another coat of preservative and we also treated the swings to get rid of the green algae. The last of the three Boules Court Benches were sanded and treated too.
Arthur Procter came along to take some photographs, including a nice group shot of most of the volunteers who attended.
