Flying the Flag to Commemorate 10 Years in the Park!
The park is now getting to its best and the flowerbeds are reaping the benefit of all the hard work put into them by the Friends of the Park. Several of our volunteers continued this effort by weeding and pruning the ornamental beds, the war memorial beds and the sensory garden, whilst others worked on the borders of the pathway into the woodland behind the library. Marple Allotment Association were also out in full force and their bed is looking a credit to them.
Earlier this week we installed a plaque on behalf of a lady called Selma Fielding, who has sponsored the flowerbeds with a generous donation that allows us to continue buying, growing-on, feeding, fertilizing and planting more plants in all the flowerbeds. This is a great way to commemorate a loved one or to make a contribution towards the upkeep of the park if you are not in a position to be a hands-on volunteer.
We also installed a second new picnic bench in the Infants Play Area - this was made and delivered to us by local charity David Lewis, who made the other one for us too. We know that the play area is hugely popular and can often be so busy that there is nowhere to sit, so we hope this will be appreciated by the families using it.
We were pleased to be joined in the park by five of Marple's local councillors (with apologies from the sixth) to raise our new flag to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the formation of Friends of Marple Memorial Park. Most of them were there when we first started in 2004 and when we achieved our first Green Flag in 2005. Since the council stopped entering their parks for the Green Flag Award several years ago we thought we'd create our own flag to make use of the pole. Thank you to Arthur Procter for helping with the design of the flag and coming along to take the photos.
We were also pleased that The Marple Plumber came along to fit a new outside tap for us free of charge. This is something we've needed for a while and it was great to get it installed by a qualified plumber at no cost!
