Once again it has been a very busy week this week for Didsbury Park Volunteers

ON THURSDAY - LORD MAYOR'S AFTERNOON TEA

I am pleased to report that 7 of us we were able to take up the offer of afternoon tea with the Lord Mayor of Manchester, in recognition of our Kings Award for Voluntary Service. Picture 1 shows the formal part of the day as we posed for a photograph with the Lord Mayor and her Consort. From left to right are Ilma, Emma, Julie, me, Lord Mayor, Consort, Brenda, David and Sandra. It was a lovely friendly occasion as can be seen the smiles captured from Emma, Sandra and Ilma in picture 2. . Overall it was a very enjoyable occasion.

ON SUNDAY - THE VISIT FROM THE BEAVERS

 On Sunday afternoon I hosted a visit from 26 young Beavers, at the volunteers shelter in Didsbury Park. They wanted to learn all about what the volunteers did. They were fascinated by some of the equipment I showed them such as the mattock, water bowsers and especially the rotivator. However the most impressive piece of equipment for them was Gill's old school bell which we use for announcing coffee time. They each had a go - and loved it. Sorry there are no pictures ( as we did not have parental approval) but take it from me - they all had a great time!

TODAY

We were blessed today with some beautiful blue skies and a large contingent of 40 volunteers. Our volunteers today included 11 volunteers from NatWest, a new local volunteer called Peter and for the first time a Special Educational Needs student Aristhote and his job coach Safiya from Bridge College, Openshaw. (See picture 3).

Aristhote and his job coach were helped by Gill B, our safeguarding officer, and the whole litter picking exercise they undertook seemed to go really well. Thank you Gill. We were also delighted to see Winnie and dad Andrew joining us once again to do another fabulous litter pick right across the park. Thank you all.  Everybody was made very welcome. 

With so many volunteers this morning we were able to complete some great projects.

PAINTING THE MAIN PARK GATES AT WILMSLOW ROAD

Joyce and Gill B took advantage of some bright spring sunshine this morning to prepare the rusty, flaky Wilmslow Road gates for a much needed coat of Hammerite paint.  Picture 4 shows Joyce joined by 4 willing volunteers from NatWest to complete the preparation and give the gates a good coat of new paint. The gates looked superb afterwards. Thank you all! 

CLEARING THE MAIN PATH FROM THE WILMSLOW  ROAD GATES 

Picture 5 shows the team of Peter, Tristan, and three ladies from NatWest just about to tackle the tidying up and weeding of the main path from the Wilmslow Road gates. The hard work and dedication of this team was amazing and the results were superb. Thank you all.

Picture 6 shows a combination of the painting team and the pat clearing team returning to base after 2 very successful projects. Thank you all.  

WILD FLOWER MEADOW

We did some great work on the wild flower meadow today. Picture 7 shows Julie D, Ilma and Kevin, preparing the wild flower meadow for seeding, (and thanks to Will White from MCC for the delivery of seeds first thing this morning),  picture 8 shows the team of Peter, Kevin, Tristan and Ilma sowing a combination of yellow rattle and other wild flower seeds.

 Fingers crossed that this helps us tackle the wild grass problem we have on the meadow. Thanks for this great work everyone.

TACKLING THE WATER DRAINAGE PROBLEMS ON THE PATHS AT THE TOP OF THE PARK 

Picture 9 shows the team of Allan and and 2 of the 4 volunteers from NatWest who tackled the flooding onto the path at the top of the park near the children's playground by digging new soakaways and filling with gravel ( that's where the missing 2 volunteers are - getting wheel barrows full of gravel!). Thank you eveyone - this was a huge improvement by the end of the morning.

Just a little further along the top path picture 10 shows Roger doing a great job cleaning up the path after the recent heavy rains had washed mud all over them. Thank you all for this great effort to improve the paths.  

NEW BENCH HARD STANDING - HEAVY GANG

The regular heavy gang members Steve and Gary were joined by Greg today to continue the work on installing the hardstanding.for the bench being stored in the wild flower meadow. Picture 11 shows the team installing the remaining concrete edgings ready to infill with compact gravel next week. Great work guys 

Incidently, next week, Gary is planning to give instruction to all interested volunteers in the art of white lining football pitches. We have at least one taker so please let Gary know if you are interested!

POPPY PATH PROGRESS

With the large numbers of volunteers in the park today we were also able to release some extra volunteers to work on the Poppy Path. Robin, Dominique, Jude and John all made some great progress and not only filled the skip which had been ordered specifically for them (thank you Debs from MCC) but they also created enough extra green waste to fill another one!! Robin had also worked on the Poppy Path during the week last week and asked me to mention wished me to mention Brendan and Peter who had spontaneously helped Robin with moving green waste into the skip. Thank you all - this is great work!

AND MORE!

• A huge thanks to Gill N and Grace who topped up all the litter bins with extra bags today. Thank you

• Thank you also to Lucy for doing a super tidy up and twig fence repair around the flower bed at the roundabout

• We had a lovely surprise today when Nataly - one of our former volunteers before she moved out of the area - came back to visit us at coffee time. Everybody was pleased to see her - especially as she came bearing gifts of biscuits. Best wishes from all of us Nataly!

• Brenda once more did a superb job tidying up around the Gillbrook Road entrance. Thank you Brenda and will you please convey all of our love and best wishes to David and we all hope he will be feeling better soon

• Finally thank you to everybody who attended the FoDP AGM earlier this evening and especially the member who dialled in from South Africa!

Thank you once again for your amazing support.