A Busy Start to the Year at Didsbury Park
LAST THURSDAY: THE WILMSLOW ROAD GATES
Picture 1 shows Allan posing in front of one of the Wilmslow Road park gates after he and I had fitted new King's Award for Voluntary Service plaques to both gates. Thanks to the generosity of Craig from Impact Signs we were provided with two new plaques to replace the previous ones which had been damaged by the large red rubbish bins from the cafe being bashed against the signs on the gates.
You can see from the picture that we have learnt from this experience and resighted the new plaques above bin height at the top of the gates. Thank you Allan - the new plaques look fabulous.
TODAY
It was really great to be able to do some volunteering work again today following last week's enforced cancellation due to the dangerous patches of ice on the paths in the park. Although it was overcast and drizzly at times this morning, the temperatures did reach a heady 4 degrees. It felt like life was returning to 'normal' again as 28 volunteers set about a busy morning's schedule. Among our volunteers today we were pleased to welcome Qazim once again after an absence of about six months.
A special mention should also be given to our well loved ex-PCSO officer Carol, who made a surprise appearance at coffee time to kindly donate several large tins of biscuits and 2 large containers containing chocolates, for the benefit of our volunteers. These were very much appreciated Carol - thank you. Thank you also to Lesley who very ably managed the drinks orders in Gill N's absence.
TREES - FRUIT TREES IN THE BIRD GARDEN
I am delighted to report that even though it was a last minute notification, Joyce was able to attend an RHS fruit tree pruning course last week. As a result, Joyce was able to apply some of her new skills and knowledge to the many fruit trees in the Bird Garden this morning. Picture 2 shows Joyce, with secateurs in hand having just given a careful pruning to a damson tree. Fingers crossed for a bumper crop of fruit this year - thank you Joyce.
I am now on a regular RHS newsletter circulation list which advertises future free horticultural courses. For example on 21st February there is a course in Little Hulton where you can learn "how to split and pot up sections of herbaceous perennials to take away and grow in your community setting". If you are interested, please let me know and I will be happy to co-ordinate it.
TREES - THE AMELANCHIERS
This morning the heavy gang consisting of Adrian, Richard, Murray and Carl N working under Kevin and Julie's guidance, carefully dug up two mature specimen amelanchier trees (originally donated by Maria Stripling several years ago) from the rockery and replanted them alongside the new amelanchier tree (donated by Janet Wolff in November) in prime position in the grassed area in front of the cafe.
Picture 3 shows Richard, Adrian, Murray and Carl N carefully replanting one of these beautiful trees. The impact of 3 of these beautiful trees in a row is just amazing. Thank you all.
HORTICULTURE- PYRACANTHA
Today we were aiming to complete the job we could not finish last week. Thanks to Geoff using his mechanical digger to break up the mound of surplus soil from the bowling green we were able to start transporting it by wheelbarrows across the park to where the pyracantha (originally donated by MCC - Thank you) were to be planted. With the massed strength of Qazim, Tristan, John and Shashvat we were able to set up a veritable convoy of wheelbarrows full of soil, across the park all morning. This great physical effort enabled us to transport enough soil to be able to successfully plant the pyracantha.
Picture 4 shows John, Sandra and Qazim starting to plant the pyracantha. As a result we have now successfully managed to apply another layer of security in front of the houses bordering the park. Well done everyone.
HORTICULTURE - PLANT SPLITTING AND FLOWERBED TIDYING
Picture 5 shows Kevin and Julie busy tidying and splitting plants in the flower beds in and around the rockery. Later on they were joined by Ilma.
Thank you all, this was a timely piece of work.
FODP MEMBERSHIP
Thanks to Louise and Sonia and Sandra, our membership officers, we have printed 3 newly designed posters to attract new members to the FoDP. Christine and Jane took on the task today of attaching one poster at the Wilmslow Road gate and another at the Sandhurst Road gate. Later in the morning John and I attached the third one to the volunteer's shelter.
We are now starting to receive the 2025 annual membership renewal donations. If you have not yet paid your annual membership for 2025 will you try and do this by the end of this month if possible please. Thank you.
PATH WORK - THE PATH TO THE CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUND
Over the Christmas period the children's playground has been incredibly popular. This heavy use of the playground combined with the wet weather has meant that the woodchip path to the playground has taken an amazing amount of traffic and so today one of our priority jobs was to replenish the whole path with a fresh layer of woodchip. I am pleased to say that we had a large team busy on this task which they successfully completed by the end of the morning.
Picture 6 shows Charlie, Jane, Gill B, Christine and Wendy all busy loading up their wheelbarrows with woodchip. In addition others in the 'woodchip team', not in the picture, such as Allan, Anne, Lesley and Sandra were also very busy laying more woodchip onto the path. This really was one of the big jobs of the day with a large team doing an amazing job to rescue this path back to a great standard again . Thank you all
PATH WORK - GILLBROOK ROAD
Picture 7 shows Brenda ready to start her regular project of keeping the entrance area to the park from Gillbrook Road really looking clean and tidy.
The first impression of the park as you enter it is so important and with Brenda we are always guaranteed that it will be a good one. Thank you Brenda.
PATH WORK - SANDHURST ROAD PEDESTRIAN GATE
Picture 8 shows a picture of Denise on her second shift of duty in the park this morning. As early as 08:30am Denise stepped in to help oversee the open volunteers shelter whilst Allan and I were temporarily away from it. Thank you Denise.
As can be seen in the picture Denise is returning with timbers pre-cut by Geoff, off site. These timbers have been specially cut to enable us to display our framed certificates on the internal walls of the volunteers shelter. A job for next week!
Having returned with the timbers Denise then spent several hours cleaning up all the paths around the Bird Garden and the Sandhurst Road pedestrian gate area. Thank you Denise - this was a huge improvement and thank you Geoff for skillfully cutting the timbers.
Finally thank you all once again for some amazing support.