A Wet but Wonderful Day of Volunteering in Didsbury Park
TODAY
Despite the forecast of rain later in the morning we still had a very good volunteer turnout of 35 volunteers today. Our volunteers included two families taking advantage of it being the last day of the school summer holidays to bring their children along to do some litter picking.
Picture 1 shows Sebastian and Alexander, taking a break from litter picking, to proudly hold our certificate for the King's Award for Voluntary Service. They were particularly impressed that it had actually been signed by King Charles the Third. Our other family was Joanna and her son, also called Alexander. Both families did a super litter pick, for hours across the whole park. Thank you - we will miss you next week when you are back at school!
We were also joined today by 4 volunteers from Coutts Bank and Vinod and Yash, once again, from Autotrader. Everybody was made very welcome.
PAINTING - CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUND RAILINGS
Picture 2 shows Vinod and Yash, from Autotrader happily painting the final section of the children's playground railings. Julie T was also heavily involved as part of this team but was just out of camera shot. At the other end of this section of railings picture 3 shows the Coutts team making good progress. Unfortunately when the rain began to fall after our coffee break we had to postpone this painting project.
A big thank you to Julie T and the teams from Coutts and Autotrader for making some excellent progress.
PAINTING - KICK FENCING
Luckily our water based preservative which we use to paint our kick fencing allows us to continue painting when it is lightly raining. This was lucky for Bettina today and enabled her to continue painting after the coffee break until the paint ran out!
PIcture 4 shows Bettina painting the preservative on the kick fencing along the path leading to Wilmslow Road. Great work Bettina! Thank you.
HORTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES - FLOWER WALK
It was all out attack today on the bindweed which had suddenly sprung up in the Flower Walk flower beds. Picture 5 shows our large team of weeders focused on this challenge today. From left to right are Anne, Lesley, Tristan, Sandra, John and Jude. Julie D was also weeding further along the Flower Walk and can also be seen here in picture 6. Thank you everyone - this was a crucial activity, very well done today!
Later the team were joined by Ilma, Lucy and Carl and the focus for weeding also moved to the Rockery. Thank you everyone. Great work.
HORTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES - SENSORY GARDEN
It was really encouraging today to see Robin, although still not 100% fit, still continuing with his challenge of tidying up the sensory garden flower bed. This was excellent progress Robin - thank you.
HORTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES - STRIMMING THE CAFE GARDEN EDGES
Especial thanks to Allan today, for coming to the rescue of the cafe garden, and employing the strimmer to cut back the overgrown grasses around the edges of the cafe garden. Picture 7 shows Allan tidying up some stubborn pieces of grass on the patio side of the cafe garden railings. Thank you Allan.
HORTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES - PRUNING ALONG THE WILMSLOW ROAD PATH
Picture 8 shows the challenge facing Greg today as he attempted to control some of the excessive shrub growth we have witnessed along the path to Wilmslow Road.
This was a great start Greg - thank you!
HORTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES - WEEDING IN THE BIRD GARDEN
A huge thank you to Kevin C who noticed that the Bird Garden needed some attention and so he took the initiative and spent several hours, working solo, on giving the garden a good weeding. Thank you Kevin.
TODAY'S HEROINE
Picture 9 captures today's star volunteer - Sonia. Barely a week since having a knee replacement operation Sonia turned up for duty today!!
Sonia did a great job helping Gill N to collect the drinks orders for the 11am drinks break and also helped to keep an eye on things at the volunteers shelter whilst I was able to take photos and help others around the park. Thank you Sonia - you are amazing!
ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK TODAY
Gary was able to mow the cricket pitch and white line it just before the rains became too heavy. Good timing Gary
Gary also then mowed some of the grass edges in preparation for filling of the drainage channels with the gravel. The gravel arrived at about 1:30pm after we had finished. This is a job for next week now. Thanks Gary
Grace and Gill N completed the dual task of re-attaching the "pick up after your dog signs" to the main park gates (after the park gates had been recently painted by volunteers) and also refilling the dog bag dispensers - thank you Grace and Gill
Currently one of the park gates at the Wilmslow Road exit is very badly damaged. It was fine when we painted it a few weeks before the Didsbury Festival. and now we have a gatepost after the Didsbury Festival which has clearly been hit by something very heavy and has knocked the gate out of alignment which means that the gate is stuck in the open position. We had complained to MCC prior to the Didsbury Festival about the suitability of bringing these large funfair vehicles (up to 18 tonnes) into the park and the damage they cause. Today we wanted to make sure that at least the other half of the gate was still operable and could still be lockable. I am delighted to report that Murray and Carl N worked most of the morning to ensure that the locking mechanism on the second gate was fully operational again and properly aligned. Thank you Murray and Carl. This was an excellent piece of work.
LIFE AS A VOLUNTEER - WET AND HAPPY!!
For me, our final picture, picture 10, captures the true spirit of volunteering this morning.
It shows Carl M and Lesley, wet but happy, after a great morning working in the park with friends and fellow volunteers for the benefit of our community! Well done everyone.