Friends of Memorial Park Task Days in 2021
Here are details of our task days in 2021.
A busy day in the sunshine for Friends of the Park!
A beautiful day to be working in the park saw a focus on hedges and shrubs, with work around Hollins House, the war memorial beds and the Bandroom garden. Other jobs tackled included cleaning display boards, touch-up painting of the railings in front of the house, much needed watering of Danny Winter's pots and the endless task of keeping the flowerbeds at their best.
We also met with a local lady who has some exciting ideas for a new project in the park and visitors rewarded us with donations totalling over £13 in our collection bucket.
Big effort before the rain set in!
The forecast August downpours were fairly kind to us today, allowing us a couple of hours grace before a good soaking. This enabled us to make good progress on a tidy-up of the main flowerbeds and the war memorial beds. Other tasks included litter-picking, mowing of the band room garden and the 5-a-side goals and treatment of a couple of benches.
Thank you to park visitors for dropping over £22 in our collection bucket.
Mustn't grumble but it really was too hot to work in the park today!
A shortened task day today due to the heat but our volunteers still managed a long list of tasks by midday including: litter-picking; grass-cutting in the bandroom garden; tidying of the Scout Hut bed; planting in the Sensory Garden; edging of flowerbeds; sanding and treating benches; strimming around the 5-a-side goalposts and planting foxgloves in the woodland areas, where we at least found some shade. The allotment team were also in action keeping on top of weeds and edging their plot.
Thank you to park visitors who popped over £8 in our collection bucket.
Have you lost a bicycle?
A local resident found an abandoned bike in bushes (see last photo below) and left it with us for safe keeping. If it is yours please get in touch.
If we don't hear from the owner in a week or two we will recycle it.
Two more benches treated on the Hollins and Market Street
We're getting through our Town Centre bench maintenance programme slowly but surely and two more were sanded and treated today.
Thank you to the gent who bought us a cuppa from Gregs and to Danny Winter's mother Caroline, who spotted us and donated £100 for taking care of Danny's bench in the park.
Monday 28 June 2021: Pavilion Art Project Roundels Installation
It was wonderful for Friends of the Park to work with Tracy, Pete and Rhian from Art Stop today to install the roundel artwork painted by Marple people of all ages during the 2020 lockdown.
We are delighted with the outcome of this project and especially thankful to Tracy McGuinness-Kelly for her hard work, enthusiasm and ability to work in innovative ways to overcome the difficulties imposed by the Covid19 pandemic while complying with government guidelines at all times.
Thanks to everyone who contributed artwork - they are all wonderful but when displayed together become more than the sum of their parts.
Thanks also to the Macnair Trust and Marple Area Committee for your contributions toward the funding for this project, and to all our volunteers who have helped in different ways.
We have a few small jobs to finish things off, then it's hopefully onwards and upwards for Phase II of this project.
An early start for the Pavilion Art Project
We made an early start in the park today for the installation of the Pavilion Art Project boards. This had been waiting for council approval of our special task day to install the roundels with Art Stop CIC, which was approved last week. Look out for more exciting news on this brilliant project very soon!
A little later in the morning we were joined by our regular volunteers, who, after checking for bird nests, completed hedge-trimming at the Bandroom garden, the War Memorial beds and the ramps in front of Hollins House. Other volunteers did maintenance work on the Jubilee bed in front of the library and cleaned and weeded the whole library area, while others litter-picked in the park and treated park benches too. Another busy day for Friends of Marple Memorial Park!
Thank you to park visitors who donated over £19 in our collection bucket.
Wildflower meadow starting to show promise at last
As many will know, creation of our wildflower meadow on the site of the Lock 11 compound was delayed by the Covid19 pandemic. We were all set to sow seed in March 2020 but it didn't happen until the autumn in less than ideal conditions. This year we've been waiting patiently for it to spring into life but it has been very slow to take hold, apart from the self seeded Dock.
Today we decided to get a small team on it at short notice to give the Dock a good bashing before it dispersed seed again. It has made quite a difference and it is actually starting to look like a wildflower meadow at last. Although results of the seed we sowed in autumn still seems to be quite sparse, wildflowers are now starting to show and there are encouraging patches in bloom.
We did sow a huge amount of seed in autumn, including Yellow Rattle of which the is no sign at all. Today we also sowed a load more seed in anticipation of some rain to get them going.
Chipping away at Town Centre bench maintenance
Well not literally, but we are working our way through the retreating of the Marple Town Centre benches, this time completing one on Market Street and another on the Hollins.
We're also starting to think about how we can clean up and repaint the metalwork too and it would be easier if we had access to an outside tap. Is there an owner of a business premises or residence that could help us with this please?
Everything is growing so quickly now and there's lots of work for our volunteers!
Now that we are allowed to use power-tools in the park again we were able to catch-up on maintenance of the bandroom garden by strimming (with our new cordless strimmer) and mowing the grass. Lots more work on the flowerbeds too, which are now filling out nicely thanks to the sunshine.
We also gave shrubs alongside Hollins House a good pruning and others cleared weeds from the park entrance on Stockport Road, which has made a huge improvement.
We also called local councillors and the emergency control room to get the park toilets opened as the were still shut at 10am.
And last but not least, we took delivery of the plywood boards for the Pavilion Art Project, which is very exciting.
Park visitors said thank you by placing over £18 in our collection bucket.
Three more Town Centre benches knocked off the list!
Another three Town Centre benches were sanded and treated by Friends of the Park today, as we gradually make our way towards Stockport Road. Special thanks today for refreshments from Aggie's Bar and to Forever Yours of Cheshire Bridal Shop for helping us out with parking because the car parks were all full.
A huge thank you to the two people who donated £130 + Gift Aid between them via Local Giving after seeing this article too!
Squeezed in another Task Day with only 24 hours notice!
As the weather was so good we organised today's task day with only 24 hours notice, so some of our volunteers couldn't make it. However, there were enough to make a difference and the Allotment Team were out in force working on their plot. As well as working on the flowerbeds, we pulled a pile of self-seeded saplings from several of the shrub beds.
Thank you to park visitors for just over £11 left in our collection bucket!
Another busy day in the park with lots of work completed in several areas...
While one team focused on a further tidy-up and maintenance of the main flowerbeds and the war memorial beds, another scoured the top half of the area used for the Lock 11 repairs for stones that could damage the council's mower again (they keep rising to the surface). The top third of this area should then be mown to return it to grass, while the rest is to be left wild and, hopefully, the wildflower seed we sowed in the autumn of last year will put on a better display than it is currently doing.
At the same time others were working on clearing weeds, grass and moss from around and under benches and the steps down to the library, and on the allotment plot too.
Thank you to generous park users, who popped over £34 in our collection bucket!
