A Productive Spring Day in Didsbury Park: Volunteers, Safety, and Community Spirit

TODAY 

Today was a crisp and sunny spring morning which attracted a great turnout of 37 volunteers amongst whom were two new volunteers joining us for the first time. Victoria was a new local volunteer from Didsbury and Leah was a new volunteer from industry who joined us to test out if it would be appropriate for more of her office colleagues to also join us. Luckily, we passed the test, so watch this space for more new arrivals!  It was also great to see Steve C making one of his amazing return appearances this morning. Steve seen here in Picture 1 digging out the foundation of the hard standing for the new bench, is an amazing worker and always completes the workload of at least three of us regular volunteers. We always try and encourage Steve to visit us as often as possible! Everybody was made very welcome.

THE TREE WHICH FELL TWICE

In the high winds of a couple of week's ago a large section of an old tree fell across the path near the the Sandhurst Road vehicular entrance. So it was a bit of a surprise today when first thing this morning we found most of the rest of the tree trailing across the same footpath.

Picture 2 shows Victoria and Alan keeping the public at a safe distance while in the background Murray can be seen cutting up the tree so that it could be removed from the site. Adrian and Carl N also helped at various stages of this operation. Thank you everybody - this was an excellent and necessary activity for everyone's safety- very well done.

TRANSFER OF THE RECENT DELIVERY OF GRAVEL INTO STORAGE IN THE PARK

Picture 3  shows the team of Richard, Steve and Rob in the process of moving the gravel bags from their delivery position in Sandhurst Road to a new temporary storage area in Didsbury Park.

This was a large operation involving the support of Adrian and others. We are especially grateful to Geoff who travelled to Wales over the weekend to collect his pallet truck from his brother, and loan it to us so that we could successfully move the gravel on pallets. Thank you all, for the huge amount of work which went into the successful relocation of these materials. Thank you also for diverting some of the gravel by wheelbarrow to the become the hardcore base for the new bench. 

CLEANING OF THE SANDHURST ROAD PEDESTRIAN GATE AREA

Spring was certainly in the air this morning as spring cleaning got underway at the Sandhurst Road pedestrian gate area. The long wet winter had certainly taken its toll at this entrance as all the railing were covered in mildew and moss. Picture 4 shows the team of Leah, Sandra, Carl M and Joyce proudly displaying the newly cleaned railings.

The transformation at this gate was amazing as Joyce donned the leaf blower and cleared all the dead leaves and then everybody set to and weeded the nearby flower beds too. If we have a dry day next Monday the team are keen to further enhance the entrance by giving the railings a coat of quick drying black Hammerite paint.  Thanks everyone - great result! 

'SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS' VOLUNTEERS

We have been approached recently by two educational establishments who would like one or two of their students to gain experience by working alongside us in the park. Gill B, who is our Safeguarding Officer, myself and Greg (who has lots of teaching experience in this area) have shared our safeguarding policy with the organisations and agreed that the caring of any student volunteers will be on a 1:1 basis with staff from the organisations. The staff will be totally responsible for the safety of the students. We all agree that this should be carefully trialled. 

So today at coffee break we thought it would be a good opportunity to update everybody on this suggestion and to have a general discussion about what may be involved. I am pleased to say that Greg did an informed briefing to everybody which was well received. Picture 5 shows Greg preparing his support props for the talk under the watchful eye of Allan. Thank you Greg.

ACTIVITIES ON THE WILD FLOWER MEADOW

There were two main activities on the wild flower meadow today. The first consisted of Kevin hand mowing and clearing dead grasses and flowers, ably asisted by Tristan and the second activity was undertaken by Lorna as she skillfully weeded out grasses and weeds from the bordering hedge. See picture 6 showing Tristan and Lorna on the wild flower meadow. Thank you Kevin, Lorna and Tristan. 

POPPY PATH   

I am pleased to report that a lot of hard work went into tidying and maintenance work on the Poppy Path today by Dan, Dominique and Robin. Well done everyone and thank you.  

PATHS AND LITTER PICKING

In addition to our regular litter picking and path tidying today by David and Brenda, and Andrew and Winnie (see picture 7) we also had a team from brsk who had specifically requested to come to the park last Saturday morning and do a litter pick. (see picture 8)

Five minutes after arriving they came to see Allan and me at the volunteer's shelter and said they could not find any litter at all. What a testimony to everybody's great work in the park!! So the brsk team offerred to do some sweeping of paths, edging and trimming of the Bird Garden hedge. If you look at the path Andrew and Winnie are using in picture 7 you will see some of the great results of their work. Thank you Brenda, David, Leslie, Winnie, Andrew and the brsk team.  

OTHER HORTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Whilst it was a very busy morning on projects all around the park this morning we still found time to keep the flower bed maintenance activities going. Picture 9 shows Sonia in the foreground and Gill B in the background working on the flowerbeds around Buddy and Lucy. Picture 10 shows Ilma arriving with a new a plant for the Flower Walk where she worked with Julie D and Lucy. Super work everyone. Thank you. 

ANOTHER MILESTONE FOR THE DIDSBURY PARK VOLUNTEERS

I am delighted to report that last Monday we passed the milestone of undertaking more than 40,000 hours of volunteer work in Didsbury Park since we started volunteering in November 2014. This is an amazing achievement and we are planning to celebrate this alongside our Kings Award for Voluntary Service at our Garden Party in the Park in the Summer. I am currently looking for some help to organise this event. If you would like to help will you please let me know?

Thank you once again for your continued amazing support.