Celebrating Awards, Community Events, and Meaningful Volunteer Contributions in Didsbury Park
AWARD OF THE WEEK
I am delighted to announce that this year we have once again been awarded an "outstanding" classification in the 'RHS It's Your Neighbourhood' annual competition. Congratulations to all volunteers for all the hard work undertaken to make the park look so amazing.
Picture 1 shows the award being presented to Allan, Sonia and Bettina last Tuesday at a reception in Bolton. Thank you to all volunteers and especially to Sonia, Bettina and Allan for attending the award ceremony on our behalf. Very well done!
EVENT OF THE WEEK
We had a great attendance on Saturday when we held the Big Leaf Clear Up event in the park. Thanks to some great support from regular volunteers Sonia, Sandra, Natalie, Denise, Louise and Allan we were able to manage almost 50 additional volunteers from the community on the day. It was lovely to see that many of our additional community volunteers were made up of young families who had such great fun in the leaves.
Thanks also to Brenda from Fletcher Moss and Heather from Parsonage Gardens for the loan of additional rakes and leaf grabbers which were all well used on the day. Thanks also to Dan from the RSPB who set up a very interesting RSPB wildlife stall in the park and was extremely busy all the time throughout the morning, with lots of interest being shown by park visitors and volunteers alike.
Picture 2 shows Mandy with young Sebastian and Alexander who were the first to arrive - because the boys wanted to guarantee that they got to use the special leaf grabbers (which Alexander is proudly displaying in the picture). Great to see you all.
Picture 3 shows the a typical busy morning scene in the section of the park where the leaves were being collected in the green waste skip. Amazingly we soon filled the skip and had to use large bags, the compost bays and other areas of the park to store the leaves.
Picture 4 shows one of the fun features of the morning when from time to time the leaves in the skip needed to be compressed. We had no shortage of willing volunteers to be involved in this activity - including the parents too!
All pictures of children were taken with parental consent.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK - DIDSBURY PARK "A LITTLE CORNER OF HEAVEN"
I hope everybody feels the way I do and is equally proud of the design and operation of our fabulous website. This is all down to the amazing work undertaken by Phil. Recently Phil has been involved with some work for an American company and they were so impressed with his work that last week they sent a film crew over to the UK for a few days of filming in Didsbury.
According to Phil "We spent the last hour on Sunday in the park, filming from one of the benches near the Flower Walk. Four of the crew were from different parts of the States and I think they were quite enamoured of Didsbury: as one of them said goodbye to us in the park, they said ‘you live in a little corner of heaven here’."
High praise indeed! We look forward to sharing the video when it ‘goes live’ in December!
TODAY
I am delighted to report that on a dry day we had a large turnout of 43 volunteers and everybody was very busy in our "little corner of heaven today". We were pleased to welcome 12 volunteers from business including 5 volunteers from Carrier, 4 from Autotrader and 3 from the Co-op bank. We were also delighted to welcome back Steve and his wife who volunteered with us for the first time on Saturday at the Big Leaf Clear Up. Steve said that they had returned because they had not quite finished what they wanted to clear up on Saturday. What a spirit!
We also welcomed Mike Casey for the first time but as Mike had just had an operation on his hand he had a limited capability to undertake any serious activity today. It was also good to see Gill N back again today after recovering from the wasp sting she received last week. Everybody was made very welcome.
PAINTING THE CHILDREN'S LARGE SLIDE
Under Sandra's experienced direction, a carefully selected group of 3 volunteers from business who could paint, finished painting every part of the children's large slide in the playground with at least the first coat today.
See picture 5 for a photo of the team having just finished for the day. The team reported back that a second coat will still be required in a few places. We will buy some more paint and finish off at least two coats everywhere next week provided the weather is dry again. Thank you Sandra and team - a truly excellent piece of work.
FINAL PREPARATION OF THE POPPY PATH FOR NEXT SATURDAY'S ACT OF REMEMBRANCE
A huge thanks must go to Allan and the 5 ladies from Carrier who worked their socks off on the Poppy Path today to remove the old wreaths and to smarten up the area where we will be holding the Act of Remembrance on the Poppy Path on this Saturday (9th November). It is a relatively short and simple service on the Poppy Path and afterwards everybody is invited to have a complimentary cup of tea / coffee in the park cafe.
Please arrive about 10 minutes early if possible because the service begins promptly at 11am with the playing of the Last Post by the bugler. - Thank you Allan and Carrier team for doing such a good job today.
SPECIAL OCCASION - PLANTING A NEW AMELANCHIER
Following discussion with MCC and the City of Trees experts we have all agreed that we should not plant any more trees in the park - with nearly 500 trees at the last count we have all agreed that we have enough for the time being.
However, today was a very special day because it marked the last scheduled tree to be planted for the time being. It is a rather beautiful tree called an amelanchier. It has been donated by Janet Wollf in memory of her youngest sister Eleanor. Both Janet, with her other sister Veronica came to the park today to witness the planting of the tree.
Picture 6 captures the moment at coffee time when most of today's volunteers were also able to witness the tree being planted under Joyce and Murray's careful direction and assisted by Richard and Gary. A big thank you to Joyce who liaised with Janet to make all this happen. Thank you all!
HORTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES - NEW LARGE FERNS ARRIVE FROM MAGGIES
Thanks to Kevin and Jan's relationship with Maggies we received a donation of a large number of sizeable ferns last week. Jan very kindly collected a 'car load' of these for us on Friday and today Kevin organised about five wheelbarrows with volunteers to collect them from storage in his garden.
As a result Julie led a team to plant some near the Wilmslow Road entrance and Kevin, Diane, Jude, John and Tristan first weeded, and then planted some near the Sandhurst Road pedestrian gate. This team also planted a large batch of donated crocosmia bulbs along with the ferns. Thank you all, especially Jan and Kevin. This is a definite improvement in these beds.
HORTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES - EVEN MORE LEAVES HAVE FALLEN
It is very noticeable this year that we do seem to be having a very long and very heavy leaf falling period. As a result we did a lot more leaf clearing today. Picture 7 shows the team of Sonia, Carl, Denise (showing off her own personal rare leaf picking tool to the envy of the rest of the team) Jane (just returned from weeks in Portugal - welcome back!) and Myra. They can be seen filling large bags with leaves. Thank you Sonia, Carl, Denise, Jane and Myra.
Picture 8 shows Jane and Kevin heading off to the compost bays with even more leaves. In the background of picture 8 we can see the team of Steve and his wife and Denise working hard on clearing the path. Thank you all.
Meanwhile Brenda and Lucy were working on clearing the path further along towards the Gillbrook Road entrance. Picture 9 shows Lucy finally resorting to the leaf blower in order to make a faster and bigger impact on clearing leaves from the paths. Thank you Brenda and Lucy.
It was path clearing time all over the park today and a special mention should go to Gill B for working along the particularly leaf strewn path between the Bird Garden and the Bowling Green. Thank you Gill. A great job!
ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
Thank you to Ilma and Julie especially for planting guidance along the Flower Walk.
It was great to see Aristote and his job coach Lisha volunteering with us again today. Together they did a litter pick right across the park and then joined in with others to help pick some leaves - for a change. Thank you. We really appreciate your involvement.
The reduced heavy gang of Richard and Gary did a great job today completing the strengthening of the side panels of the steps up to the owl carving at the Wilmslow Road entrance - as well as supporting Murray in the planting of the amelanchier. Thank you guys - another great morning's work.
Thank you to Greg and Mike for continuing the bulb planting work especially around the side of the volunteer's shelter. Thank you.
FINAL REMINDER: ACT OF REMBRANCE EVENT - NEXT SATURDAY - STARTS AT 11AM
If you can spare 15 minutes next Saturday please do come along to the Poppy Path where we will have a short Act of Remembrance. Lest we forget!
Thank you all once again for your continued amazing support.