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.
We fell lucky with the weather again, as the thunderstorms were just starting to kick-off as we packed up to go home.
Another very successful task day saw the two old concrete benches near to the library being refurbished using timber that we had rescued from a couple of similar benches that had been replaced by new ones. We were also able to make some more progress on the painting of the Infants Play Area. Repairs were done to the inner fence around the swings and red paint to three of the four sides in the same area was finished before the downpours began.
A whole lot of work was also done on the War Memorial beds and these really are starting to look good now.
Thank you everyone who helped today!
Great weather again allowed us to make excellent progress on painting the red inner sections of the Infants Play Area fence. Another bench was refurbished and several others given a fresh coat of preservative, some hacking back done in the shrub bed near to the bowling green and hacking back and weeding was done in the ornamental flowerbeds that we adopted last year too.
Several of the volunteers have been receiving positive comments from members of the public while they are working in the park about how good it's looking. It's very encouraging to receive compliments like this so please do take the time to stop and chat when you see us working in the park and tell us what you think.
After teasing us early on the weather turned glorious and we had a very productive day. We were delighted that Bramhall Paving Services, our contractor for the hard landscaping works on the Diamond Jubilee Bed, was at last able to start work after prolonged delays waiting for Planning Permission.
While they were busy in front of the library a small number of volunteers tackled refurbishment of one of the Co-Op benches near to the entrance; weeding of the Sensory Garden bed; treatment of the Sensory Garden bench and the Stocks; maintenance in the Breathing Places wildlife area and more planting in the War Memorial beds. After things dried up a bit we were even able to continue painting the Infants Play Area fence!
More of a task weekend than a task day! On Saturday we made the most of the good weather by treating benches, clearing the library bed ready for landscape works, weeding ornamental and Memorial beds and treating algae on the War Memorial. On Sunday we then transported to the park and installed the first of two benches near the bowling green whose refurbishment has been sponsored by Marple Senior Citizens and carried out by Friends of the Park. The second bench was then dismantled ready for refurbishment too. A third similar bench was sponsored by Marple Business Forum earlier this year.
Thank goodness for better weather that allowed us to make some more progress on the project to paint the Infants Play Area fence. Still a way to go though! We are doing extremely well with our programme to refurbish the park's benches and three of the oldest ones along the main path through the park were sanded and treated in-situ. The newly refurbished bowling green bench was also treated to another coat of preservative too. Lots of work was done in the woodland area behind the library and more new plants donated by Les and Jean White were planted in the War Memorial beds.
Unfortunately it rained so much today that the camera never came out of its case. Quite a few volunteers still turned up and we were able to prune in the shrub beds and crown lift several trees whose branches were getting very low over the main footpath but sadly no photos this time. We also continued management and planting in the woodland area behind the library and everybody got very WET indeed! What a wonderful summer.