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.
Lock 17 on Oldknow Gardens
Friends of Marple Memorial Park have strayed outside the park today and had a good tidy-up of Lock 17 on Oldknow Gardens. Did you know that Friends of the Park have looked after Lock 17 since it was created in 2007. It's been such a busy summer that we let things go a bit but all caught up now. Here are some before and after photos. Isn't that better!
A catch-up with chores in the Infants Play Area
Today we focused on the Infants Play Area, with a good tidy-up of shrubs and more fence painting. Of course there was work done on the main flowerbeds too, and also at the toilet block, the Reading Circle, on the shrubs around Hollins House and litter picking. We also had a special treat at tea break, with an amazing pork pie and fruit tart from the wonderful Archer's Bakery.
Thank you to park users who donated almost £12 in our bucket!
A catch-up from July 2022
We did also have a task day on Saturday 30 July, when volunteers did a lot of work on the Allotment beds. These are returning to our care after being looked after by Marple Allotment Association since 2011. In addition, we've been beavering away on bench maintenance throughout the park too.
All hands on the flowerbeds to get ready for a Picnic in the Park!
An early start today due to the forecast heatwave saw most of our volunteers pile onto the main flowerbeds in order that they will look their best next Sunday 24th July, when the Brass Bands of Marple will be playing their Picnic in the Park concert to commemorate the park's 100th birthday.
Other tasks included bench maintenance, Band Room garden maintenance, watering of the new School Gardens, hedge trimming in the Infants Play area and clearing stray brambles along the woodland path in advance of the Family Treasure Hunt next Saturday.
Thank you to park visitors who deposited over £21 in our collection bucket!
A wide variety of jobs tackled in the park today
Our volunteers were all over the place today, with mowing and strimming in the Band Room garden, treating benches, trimming hedge and grass borders, weeding flowerbeds, watering new plants, clearing shrubs obstructing the handrails in front of Hollins House, picking litter and even painting the Infants Play Area fence ready for our School Gardens Project.
The park is looking amazing, thank you to the park visitors who popped almost £18 in our collection bucket and obviously agree.
Vandals cause disappointing start to today's task day
We arrived at the park today to discover vandalism to the roof of the former Bowling Pavilion and to the Infants Play Area fence yet again. This is the fourth time vandals have deliberately and systematically damaged the fencing around the play area, resulting in costs to the council and Friends of the Park that could have been spent on making improvements.
We reported the roof damage to the council and hope it will be dealt with quickly. Fortunately we had come armed with the right tools for another job and were able to replace all the slats that had been kicked off by the time we left. If you see anyone doing damage like this again please report to the police.
Please stop stealing plants from the park!
More disappointing news is that someone has been stealing plants from the park flowerbeds.
We know this because a family recently added a small plant to the War Memorial beds in memory of a loved-one who had passed away. A few days later the plant had been dug up and taken. When this was discovered a close friend of the deceased person replaced it with another plant but a few days later this was also stolen too. It has been very distressing for family and friends, who will be replacing the plant again soon. Friends of the park have added a small sign appealing for it to be left alone.
To make it clear to unscrupulous people who think they can help themselves to plants from the park - you are not stealing from the council (not that it's OK if you were) you are stealing from Friends of the Park volunteers and the local community who have paid for or donated all the plants and shrubs in the park flowerbeds. Please leave our plants alone!
If visitors to the park witness anyone removing plants from the beds not wearing a Friends' hi-vis vest, please challenge them as they are stealing from all of us!
Thankfully we did get some positive work done today
Better news is that our other volunteers mainly focused on tidying the second half of the War Memorial flowerbeds and we're pleased to complete this before Marple Carnival next weekend. We also straightened the edges of the flowerbed recently adopted by Marple Scouts. They've been doing lots of work on it recently and we're looking forward to seeing it develop.
Thank you to park visitors who popped over £14 in our collection bucket.
Sunday 12 June 2022
Quick visit to the park this morning to do a job that would have been done yesterday if we hadn't had to re-fix vandalised fence slats!
A very productive day for Friends of the Park!
We fell lucky with the weather and got a huge amount done in the park today. Tasks included a concerted effort to weed and tidy the War Memorial Beds. The low hedge was trimmed and the border redefined on one side too. We also did a bit of tidying in the Reading Circle, as it is going to be used for Story Time by the library on Monday.
We tried out our new cordless battery powered lawnmower in the Band Room garden and the new strimmer too. These have been purchased along with standard and long reach hedge-cutters with an award we received from the Stockport CAN Fund that has allowed us to remove our dependency on petrol powered tools. We were delighted with the results.
We also put a final coat of paint on the Coronation Bench (after another volunteer did the first coat of the seat last week) and it is now ready for the tree to be decorated as part of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Marple Tree Trail. Two of our volunteers also removed the remains of the 3 trees broken by vandals and the stakes that were driven a long way down.
Earlier this week one of our volunteers also finished painting the library steps and repaired a bench that had lost a slat.
Park visitors donated over £22 in our bucket too, thank you!
