TODAY - BANK HOLIDAY

As a result of it being a Bank Holiday today, some of our regular volunteers were missing this morning, but nevertheless we still had a great turnout of 26 volunteers who all worked really hard.

Our volunteers today included a welcome return for Steve C who was able to spare the time from work this morning. As ever, Steve did an amazing job in the park. Starting before 08:30am Steve single handedly dug out all the numerous sycamore saplings from the Bird Garden hedge, before going on to trim it all. Thank you Steve.

We were also joined this morning by, Judith and Vania, two new volunteers from NatWest for the first time. It was also great to see the return of Oliver and William who were accompanied by their Mum. Picture 1 shows William and Oliver proudly showing off the results of their thorough litter picking throughout the park.

TODAY - DONATION OF TIMBER

Picture 2 captures the unusual shot of Allan (at the front), Steve S, Adrian, Tristan and Carl N carrying a 20ft length of timber which had been generously donated to us by the contractors working on a house extension in Heritage Gardens. This piece of timber will be ideal for us to use to hold back a raised flower bed from eroding onto one of the park paths. Picture 3, by contrast, shows a rear shot of the team having just entered Didsbury Park and having been joined by Gary to give extra support. Thank you all - a great piece of work.

Once we had the timber back at the volunteer's shelter it was handed over to the 'preservative painting' team of Lis, Bettina and Dominique who gave it a thorough coating of preservative paint in preparation for it being installed in place next week. Great teamwork - thank you.

After the timber preservative had been applied to the timber, Lis and Bettina, moved on to applying a coating of preservative to the kick fencing near the Sandhurst Road entrance. Dominique switched back to the job she had been working on for several weeks, of pruning back some of the shrubs along the woodland trail. Picture 4 shows Dominique standing in front of a very full green waste skip. All these jobs were incredibly helpful in maintaining the standards in the park. Thank you.

TODAY - DONATION OF PLANTS

We were also the beneficiary of further generosity today. This time it was Alison who kindly donated a bay tree, a pieris and several other plants. Debbie and Carl M went to collect the plants from Alison's house off School Lane and then co-opted Suborno, Gill B and Allan to help plant them.

Picture 5 shows Debbie and Suborno preparing the area where the bay tree was planted and picture 6 shows Carl M and Gill B having carefully planted one of the other variegated plants. Picture 7 shows Allan midway through tidying the paths near the planting and eventually joining up with the excellent work done by Brenda around the Gillbrook Road entrance. Thank you Brenda, Debbie, Carl M, Allan, Gill B, Suborno and especially Alison for the donations. Another boost to the variety of plant life in the park!

TODAY - REMOVING GRASS FROM THE EXTENDED FLOWER BED

When we created the extended flower bed earlier this year, some turf which had been removed was piled upside down into the middle of the bed in the hope it would go to compost.

Unfortunately it was not as successful as we had hoped. So today the team of Diane, Judith and Vania (see picture 8) carried on with the work started last Thursday to continue to remove the established grass in the flower bed.

TODAY - SPORTS FIELD

Picture 9 shows Gary with the 'line marker', having marked the lines of the second football pitch.

Unfortunately due to the wetness of the grass the exercise was not as successful as we had hoped and will have to be completed next week - if dry. Picture 10 shows Adrian and Carl N who had been helping Gary with the preparations for the markings. Thank you guys.

TODAY - FLOWER BED NEAR BIRD GARDEN

It was good to see Greg and Tristan continuing their work of the last few weeks when they carried on weeding the flower bed near the Bird Garden today.

Picture 11 shows Tristan posing for a photo by the much improved flower bed. Thank you Greg and Tristan. Progress along this bed has been going really well.

TODAY - THE CAFE GARDEN

Following a brief discussion with Graham, who looks after the cafe garden for Didsbury Good Neighbours, we offered our services today to help tidy up the cafe garden before our coffee break.

Picture 12 shows Judith, Vania and Sandra helping Graham making a huge improvement to the raised beds. Thank you all.

TODAY - THE POPPY PATH

With some support from Debbie and Carl, Tom T took the initiative today to do some maintenance work at the bottom end of the Poppy Path. It was much improved as a result - but did set us a bit of a challenge with our already overfull green waste skip as a result. Thank you all - great job.

LAST THURSDAY - LARGE TURNOUT OF VOLUNTEERS FROM INDUSTRY

With some great help from Sonia and Allan we had a hugely productive day last Thursday when 32 volunteers from Autotrader came to volunteer with us. The work undertaken included:

• A massive start on clearing grass from the extended flower bed

• A major project of laying woodchip on the already weeded flower bed near the Bird Garden.

• Applying preservative to the kick fence from the rockery to Gillbrook Road

• Applying preservative around the 3 dog carving by the exit to the Poppy Path.

• Mowing the wild flower meadow lawned area with two hand mowers

• Cleaning up all the path edges along the paths from the Sandhurst Road pedestrian entrance to the bowls hut.

• We also had some drama on Thursday, as a large section of a dead tree, located next to the Dawn Redwood, came crashing to the ground. Luckily nobody was hurt and Noel Nugent from the MCC arbor team has been to the park and checked it over and declared it safe. Picture 13 shows three members of the Autotrader team taking a part of the tree to the skip.

LAST THURSDAY - ASB MEETING

Despite the fact that, with respect to anti social behaviour, we have been experiencing a relatively quiet couple of weeks in the park, we are continuing to pursue solutions to the anti social behaviour problems which have been occurring in the park this year. Last Thursday was a good example, when, thanks to an initiative from Mandy Salmon, we met with a representative from Ngage and our local PCSO's, to see if we could also progress an Ngage approach to a solution.

Thank you Mandy for your initiative and support.

Thank you all once again for your amazing support.