Friends of Memorial Park Task Days in 2008

The main event today was a special session with Marple's Beaver Scouts joining us to plant a variety of wildflowers in the BBC Breathing Places behind the library. After the Beavers had retired to the library for hot chocolate and cookies the rest of us carried on planting more wildflowers in the boggy area near where the canal arm to Hollins Mill used to run. For more photos see the Breathing Places project page.

September's Task Day was more of the usual routine, with ground sculptures and tree sculpture given another coat of oil. There was also more weeding and tidying of the ornamental beds, which looked so good after they were finished it prompted Arthur Procter to say "I though the Friends of Marple Memorial Park made such a good job yesterday after the tidy up, I took a photograph. Keep up the great work." Arthur's photo is featured below:

For our August Task Day we weeded the ornamental flowerbeds once again - it's like a never ending battle at the moment! We also sanded down the new acorn and beechnut ground sculptures and gave them their first coat of decking oil to combat the weather.

We also rolled the new French Boules court in preparation for the fun tournament in the afternoon. See the Boules Court page for more information about this.

This month the Youth Offending Team joined us for the last time, as they now have new commitments every Saturday that will prevent them from attending in future. We would like to thank them for the help they have given us in the park during a good number of task days over the last eighteen months or so. We hope that they got something out of it too and it helped at least a little in their rehabilitation.

This month we tackled the fungus on the tree sculpture again. It's been frustrating us that it grew back so quickly so we attacked half of it with an anti-fungal wash and sanded down the other half to see see what is most effective. It certainly looked good again when we'd finished but how long will it last? We also tackled weeding behind the library and around the ornamental beds and paths. The Youth Offending Team were also out in force and helped to trim the hedges around the bowling green and also to weed the paths.

Next month we are planning something a little different - a French Boules tournament on the new court that has recently been completed. We haven't fixed a time for kick-off yet but will let everyone know a couple of weeks before the event.

A smaller team of volunteers concentrated on planting up the ornamental beds today with a full truck-load of begonias being added to the borders between the council offices and the war memorial. There's room for at least another truck-load too and a few volunteers who can make it will be returning to plant more on Wednesday 2nd July at 10am.

There was a good turnout from the Stockport Youth Offending Team and they helped out with a lot of weeding in the rose beds and around the library. There are a few of them visible in the background of the photos below but unfortunately we are not allowed to take pictures of them where they can be recognised. We thank them for their efforts all the same and hope they enjoyed the chocolate mini-rolls!