A Day of Sunshine, Remembrance, and Community Effort in Didsbury Park

TODAY

Today was an ideal dry and sunny day for volunteering in the park and we were not disappointed when we had an amazing turnout of 64 volunteers!! In addition to our regular volunteers we had a large party of 20 volunteers led by Az from NatWest Bank; 7 volunteers from Allianz ;  Pam, Rianne and Nikita from Carrier,  Michelle and Kriss from the Manchester Building Society and James. Picture 1 shows an assembly of most of the volunteers from business who worked with us today, just after our coffee break.

We were also delighted to see Grace returning to volunteer with us again today. Everybody was made very welcome.

At our coffee break at 1100 we all observed a period of silence for Remembrance Day and then we were treated to a large box of shortbread biscuits from Sandra and a beautifully baked delicious pumpkin cheesecake (to a Ukrainian recipe) from Myra - thank you both!

PRIORITY NUMBER 1 - PLANTING OF SPRING BULBS

On Friday morning we received a large delivery of spring bulbs from Will White at MCC. Thank you to Will for organising our delivery and to Allan for helping to unload it all. 

Planting these bulbs was our number one priority today and right across the park we had many teams busy planting including the following: 

Picture 2 - shows Sonia surrounded by her NatWest helpers as she and the team planted tete-a-tete and large daffodil bulbs along the path to the Wilmslow Road gate.

Picture 3 - shows Denise and her team of Allianz volunteers planting giant alliums in the Flower Walk

Picture 4 - shows Michelle and Kriss from the Manchester Building Society planting giant alliums further along the Flower Walk

Picture 5 - shows Tristan, Carl and John lifting turf to plant crocuses in swathes in the Bird Garden 

Picture 6 - shows Lesley, Christine, Jane and Myra also lifting the turf in the Bird Garden but with a slightly different swathe pattern than the boys!

-  At the top end of the park Allan, with some other NatWest volunteers firstly cleared all the leaves from the old compost bay area and the surrounding paths and then planted some large daffodils right across this area. 

-  At the bottom end of the park Roger undertook a solo task of planting tete-a tete in the flower bed next to the Bird Garden.

-  Also working on planting bulbs in the Flower Walk, although not pictured were Julie, Ilma , Kevin and Lucy

- By the Gillbrook Road entrance Jude managed a team of NatWest volunteers to plant tulips, which always do well in that spot.

By the end of the morning, and after a mammoth planting exercise we had managed to plant an estimated 7,000 spring bulbs - a totally amazing result!! A huge thank you to everyone who was involved

PRIORITY NUMBER 2 - LEAVES

Even though we made huge inroads into the number of fallen leaves at our public BIG LEAF CLEAR UP event last weekend we nevertheless had another layer of leaves to be cleared from our park today. I suppose that is not surprising when we have nearly 500 trees in the park!

Picture 7 shows Az and colleagues from NatWest after they had just finished clearing a huge area of leaves from the copse in the picture. Although picture 7 is the only picture of leaf clearing in this week's update nevertheless there were many other areas being cleared and there were two leaf blowers in constant operation throughout the morning to ensure that all the paths were clear and safe. Thank you to everybody who participated and helped fill bags, compost bays and the skip with dead leaves. 

OTHER VOLUNTEERING ACTIVITIES THROUGHOUT THE PARK

New Signs

Last week I called at Craig's print factory in Altrincham to collect his very generous donation of 12 new professional signs requesting everybody to keep off the areas where the spring bulbs are planted.  

Picture 8  shows Wendy and Joyce in the middle of attaching one of our new signs to the kick fence along the Flower Walk. I am delighted to report that Joyce and Wendy installed these signs throughout the park. Thank you both this was a great job!  

Doggy Bag Dispensers

A huge thank you to Gill N and Grace for refilling all the dog bag dispensers at all the entrances to the park today.  This was indeed a job well done. 

Goal Post Repair 

Following the vandalism damage to the net supports on the goalposts a few weeks ago, Tom took away one of the snapped supports and with amazing engineering skills managed to repair the support ready for re-installation today by Murray and Gary. I am delighted to report that the fix was a success and one of the goal posts is now back to its original self again. We will address a plan for the remaining two broken supports on the goal post at the other end of the pitch. Thank you Tom, Murray and Gary. Super result.

Children's Large Slide

During the last 4 weeks we have taken advantage of every dry Monday morning to continue painting the children's large slide in the children's playground. Last week we ran out of paint. So this week Sandra and a small team of NatWest volunteers used a new tin of 'Oxford blue' paint which we had bought to finally finish off all the blue areas. We still need another coat of green paint which is on order and should be delivered for next week. Let us hope for just one more dry Monday! This was an excellent piece of work. Thank you Sandra and helpers.

Final Finish for the Owl Carving Steps 

Picture 9 shows Richard and Steve having just finished painting the steps, around the owl, with preservative and just about to start bringing a new layer of woodchip for the walk area around the owl carving. This has been a long and caring project to improve the steps up to the owl carving for the many children who visit this very popular carving of the owl and woodland family. 

Richard and Steve then took on the very challenging task of digging out a self seeded small sycamore from a difficult location next to the railings behind the owl carving. I am delighted to report that both Steve and Richard rose to the challenge and successfully removed the young tree.  Well done and thank you both. 

Repairing Vandalism on the New Compost Bays

I would like to say a huge thanks to Geoff (and Denise) this week for their swift response to the reported vandalism damage on the new compost bays which resulted in 2 of the hasps being broken and a lock missing.

Picture 10 shows the new stronger hasp and lock which are now installed on bay 2. Thank you for your help as always Geoff and Denise. 

Litter Picking

It was a pleasure to see Aristhote and his job coach Lisha volunteering again with us this morning from Bridge College. As was Aristhote's preferred choice, he and Lisha did a very thorough litter pick across the park. Thank you both.

REMEMBRANCE WEEKEND 

Saturday's Poppy Path 'Act of Remembrance' was once again an emotional and poignant event. Especial thanks must go to Sonia and Allan who provided some great help on the day, and to the celebrants Reverend Mark Hewerdine and Mike and also to Anna from the Didsbury Park cafe who welcomed us with teas and coffees afterwards. Once again it was a lovely event.

On Sunday I had the honour of laying a wreath on behalf of the Friends of Didsbury Park at the Act of Remembrance at the Cenotaph next to the library in Didsbury Village. 

Finally thank you all once again for your amazing support on what has been a very busy day!