A Busy Day in Didsbury Park: Volunteer Efforts and Community Updates
TODAY
With so many regular volunteers on holiday today, it was time to call up the young reservists. I am pleased to report that at least two families came to our aid. Picture 1 shows Andrew, Winnie and my namesake, Brian the dog, and picture 2 shows Lorna and young Luke. Both families undertook litter picking duties which were desperately required due to the heavy use of the park in recent days when the weather has been good. In total there were 29 very busy volunteers working in the beautiful sunshine this morning.
Everybody was made very welcome.
WE ARE RECRUITING - BREAKFAST CLUB MEMBERS
Since the schools have broken up for Summer we have definitely noticed a significant increase in both anti social behaviour (more later) and the amount of litter left in the park. We are therefore trying to increase the size of our Breakfast Club i.e. those people prepared to bring their litter picker to the park with them and just pick up any litter they come across. The more of us who do this the easier it is for everybody participating and the cleaner the park is every day.
Last week we recruited a new member Eugene (now with a new litter picker) and I am delighted to report that Denise also brought her litter picker out of storage during the last week and has been very active with it every morning. If your litter picker is in storage at the moment could I ask you to dig it out as we need all the help we can get each morning at the moment. Alternatively if you do not have a litter picker and you would like one to help will you either let me know and I will give you one, or alternatively meet me in the park any morning between 7am and 8am and you can have a spare one which I will bring along.
ANTI SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
Sadly I have to report that the current spate of anti-social behaviour has continued to occur during the last week. On Saturday night between the hours of 9pm and 7am the following morning, 3 of the KAVS plaques on the gates were sprayed with black paint in an attempt to cover them up completely. I am pleased to say that on Sunday I found the right black paint removal product from my large store of anti-graffiti materials and I was able to clean up the 2 plaques on the Wilmslow Road gates and then this morning Lesley and Allan completed the clean up of the plaque on the Sandhurst Road pedestrian gate. Thank you Lesley - this was a super result.
In addition on Saturday a large 'ACAB This is War' slogan was painted on the wall along the Wilmslow Road path. I reported this to MCC late on Saturday evening and by Sunday evening it had been removed - What a fantastic response - Thank you MCC.
Can everybody please be vigilant and let me know if you come across any ASB activities in the park and we will do our best to remedy them ASAP.
TIME FOR A SHELTER TIDY UP
Picture 3 shows Grace and Gill N busy tidying up the storage of the granite sets in the volunteer's shelter. This made a huge improvement to the space available for storage and safe movement in this area.
Thank you both as this was a long and heavy job!
IT LOOK'S A BIT LIKE LORD'S!
After two seasons trying to develop a cricket wicket on the sports field - picture 4 shows what a hero Gary is! Not only did Gary spend hours in the burning sun this morning mowing a wicket of the finest calibre but he then went on to mark it out as well. I can definitely say it has never looked as good as this ever, Gary - great work - thank you!
WEEDING AND FLOWER BED WORK
We had a number of small groups working on different flower beds across the park today.
Picture 5 shows Sandra, Sonia and Christine working hard on the flower bed around Buddy and Lucy and horror of horrors discovering that we have some mare's tail in the border. Time for serious removal plans for next week. Thank you all - great job!
Picture 6 shows Sandra (again - but after coffee) but this time working with Lis and Denise in the flower bed near the Sandhurst Road pedestrian entrance. Leslie in picture 7 (with Denise) was also part of this team which made a huge improvement in this flower bed. Carl M also made a great contribution to this work. Thank you all
Over the other side of the park Wendy, Gary, Kevin O, Julie, Ian and Jude worked in the heat of the sun as they tidied up the rockery. This was a great job thank you.
TREE MEN
The 'heavy gang' members of Murray, Carl N and Adrian turned their attention to the ongoing programme of tree maintenance today. This is a major piece of work to ensure that every young tree in the park is checked to make sure that it has the correct support and protection. Today it was the turn of the trees in the rowan copse. Picture 8 shows Carl and Adrian erecting a new support for the stunningly colourful rowan tree.
This is a great piece of work. Thank you all.
EDGING
Path edging makes an amazing difference to how the park looks. So today we had two teams working in separate areas of the park.
Picture 9 shows Lesley and Ian making great progress along the edging by the rose beds and picture 10 shows Greg returning to base with his and Robin's working equipment after they had both completed their edging along the Flower Walk and near the rockery. Thank you all this work made a huge improvement.
ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
A big thank you to Grace for filling the doggy bag dispensers at each gate
Thank you to Allan for re-installing the KAVS banner
We need to make a special mention today for the work Kevin undertook at the top of the park where one bench in particular had a large number of weeds growing below it. The contrast between the weedy run down looking appearance beforehand to the smart attractive bench afterwards was amazing. A huge thank you Kevin.
Julie and Kevin O were amazed at the number of worms in the rotted leaves which had been left in the old compast type plastic bags which we had stored since last year. If you have any of these bags then please will you bring them along and we will use them this coming autumn.
FRIDAY 9TH AUGUST - MAZARS
The additional volunteering day arranged for last Friday, with 50+ attendees from Mazars, had to be cancelled in the end due to me being tested positive for Covid. It has now been re-arranged for Friday 9th August. It will begin at 0930 and end at 1300. We already have support from Allan, Murray and Sonia. If you would like to join us, then you will be made very welcome.
Thank you once again for your amazing support.