2023 JUST KEEPS GIVING AND GIVING!

I honestly did not think our year could get much better following the announcement on 14th November of our Kings Award for Voluntary Service.

However, last Wednesday we received a truly excellent feedback report from the RHS Judge who inspected Didsbury Park in July. On the day of the inspection Diane, Alan and myself did a tour of the park with the judge. Both Diane and Alan made a huge contribution to the information we were able to provide and it certainly made a big impression on the judge. Thank you both - you did us all proud!

The following is an extract from the amazing report:

Areas of Achievement:

This friends of group is to be commended to the highest order. The number of volunteers is fantastic and the work they undertake is invaluable in keeping this charming much loved (and used) oasis to the impeccable state I witnessed on the day. The wildflower area, Flower Walk and Bird Garden were all lovely and alive with pollinators during my visit. The group have had an eye on improving the environment with all the projects they have undertaken, and their choice of plants was wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit and very much hope to see you again in coming years, please keep up the great work.

Areas for Development:

It was certainly very difficult to come up with suggestions for development as the group has done so much in the park over the past years to bring it up to a high standard.....

The report (click here to view) details how we were awarded an overall total of 96 marks out of a possible 100 marks. This put us once again into the "outstanding" classification. This award is a fantastic achievement and a culmination of all the work by every volunteer who has ever worked in any area of the park. Well done everyone!

TODAY

Today was our final volunteering day until after our Christmas and New Year holiday. Despite the intermittent rain throughout the morning we had a great turnout of 37 volunteers. Picture 1 shows most of the volunteers participating in a quick team photo during a pause in the rain.

We were pleased to welcome 5 new volunteers from Kroo Bank and Jed, a new Didsbury based volunteer, who having seen us at work in the park wanted to join us as soon as he had a community day available from his work. Everybody was made welcome.

As is traditional on the last day of volunteering before our Christmas break, we were all treated to hot mulled wine and mince pies (thank you me!). In addition, we had a lovely surprise when a large box arrived all the way from Glasgow containing lots of very special gingerbread characters made especially for us by Sofia.

In picture 2 the Christmas gingerbread characters can be seen on the table in front of David, Gill N, me and Sonia, as can the mince pies, and coffee cups. And a good time was had by all!! The table also displays a beautiful and delicate congratulations card received from Lorraine. Thank you so much for your kindnesses Sofia, Artem and Lorraine.

TODAY'S WORK

Prior to our festive coffee break celebrations we also did a lot of work in the park this morning including:

• Disposal of a large fallen tree: Picture 3 shows the large team of Tristan, Adrian, Richard, Carl N, Murray and Alan who had all been working on the disposal of the large tree which had blown down in the park. This picture captures the team towards the end of their work to clear away the whole tree.

• Woodchip: I am pleased to report that last week we restarted our regular delivery of woodchip to the park and so we were able to start topping up woodchip in some key areas. Picture 4 shows Emma (from Kroo), Wendy, Debbie and Sandra all loaded up ready to go, Picture 5 shows them stopping for a chat with Brenda who was cleaning up the path with David (see Jude in the background) and picture 6 shows Jude working on smoothing out the woodchip on the woodchip path to the children's playground. - After the coffee break it was the turn of the guys, in the form of Tristan and Carl N to create a new woodchip path to the cafe. Thank you to everybody involved in these new woodchipping activities. It has made a huge improvement in the park.

• Compost Bays: On Wednesday evening we did a presentation at a Dragon's Den event for a NIF grant to enable us to replace our current badly damaged (by vandalism) compost bays. I am pleased to say that we were successful and so today we started the task of decommissioning our old units by begiining to remove the compost for use in the flower beds near the Wilmslow Road entrance. Picture 7 shows Jed, Carl M and Tristan working on clearing out the old compost bays. Greg who was also working on these compost bays was just out of shot of the photo. Thank you all - this is a great start.

• Poppy Path: It was great to see the members of the Kroo team working really hard on the Poppy Path firstly with John and then afterwards with Robin this morning. Picture 8 shows Jennifer, Annie, Bob and Phil starting to empty the newly delivered 1 tonne bag of gravel and then move it to the Japanese garden. Picture 9 shows the completed project. Thank you all. Excellent work.

• Litter Picking: It was also lovely to see Andrew and daughter Winifred returning yet again to do some great litter picking with us today. Thank you! The park was certainly tidied up for Christmas.

• Flower Walk: Once again, the expertise of Julie D, Diane, Kevin, Ilma and Lucy was concentrated upon the continued improvement of the new bed in the Flower Walk, and today, additional whips were pruned from the hedges in the wildflower meadow to provide contrasting features and design. Thank you all.

TIME FOR A SHORT BREAK

It is now time for a short, exceptionally well-deserved winter break from our volunteering activities. We have not only seen some great improvements in our park this year and received some notable recommendations and awards BUT most importantly, I do hope everybody has really enjoyed what we have done, made even stronger friendships and kept smiling.

With thanks once again for your amazing support, and wishing you a very Happy Christmas. I look forward to seeing you again on Monday 8th January 2024!