TODAY

We had an amazing turnout of 51 volunteers in the park this morning. Lots of regular volunteers, plus 18 volunteers from business which included 10 volunteers from NatWest and 8 volunteers from Booking.com. We also had 2 new student volunteers (Zilin and Shuwei) from Manchester University. Everybody was made very welcome and picture 1 captures most of our volunteers at the coffee break. Great picture! It was especially good this morning to welcome back appearances from Robin, Grace and Debbie following bouts of illness. Everybody was made very welcome.

Picture 2 shows Gareth and the twins returning for the second week running. After donning a hi-vis vest and armed with a litter picker and bag, Gareth set off around the park. An hour later I am delighted to report that Gareth returned, with a full bag of litter, and two sleeping babies - who says men cannot do two things at once!! Well done Gareth

WOODCHIP PATH TO CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUND

Thanks to some great work by Tony our MCC Park Ranger during the week, the trip hazard on the carpet at the entrance to the children's playground was removed. To further improve the safety we agreed with MCC that we would lay a new layer of woodchip over the area today. Like a lot of jobs, once you improve one area it shows up others. This was no exception, and so we ended up relaying the whole length of the path from the playground to the roundabout.

Picture 3 shows some of the Booking.com team hard at work spreading woodchip. Picture 4 shows Sonia giving out some guidance among the woodchip piles and picture 5 shows Zilin and Shuwei refilling their wheelbarrows for another return trip to the playground path. As a result of all this work the path was greatly improved - thank you everyone.

GOOD PROGRESS ON REPAIRING THE DANGEROUS PATH EDGING ALONG FLOWER WALK

I am delighted to report that the heavy gang of Richard, Murray and Carl N made fabulous progress today to complete the re-installation of the Victorian tile edging along the Flower Walk path to the right of the black bench, in front of the newly repaired wall. Picture 6 shows a very happy 'heavy gang' really making great progress and producing a very straight edge. Picture 7 shows the postion at the end of the morning with the edging completed. Thank you and well done!

With this new firm edging the path is now ready for Tony to lay the tarmac and make the path safe for the public to use again.

FOLLOWING CLOSE BEHIND - PREPARING THE NEW FLOWER BED ON THE FLOWER WALK

We were very unfortunate today, that the compost, ordered for delivery last Friday, did not arrive until late this morning - too late for us to dig it in to the new flower bed. However we did manage to undertake further preparation work by digging over the existing flower bed.

Picture 8 shows Dominique working her way along the flower bed behind the heavy gang in the distance. Thank you Dominique and the other members of the team who worked on these beds.

FLOWER WALK

Further down the Flower Walk we also had another large team dedicated to weeding and pruning back the existing flower bed.

Picture 9 shows Julie, Ilma, Kevin, Carl M, Gill B, Debbie and Joyce all hard at work on improving this beautiful flower bed. This team was also helped by Lucy and Sandra. Thank you everyone.

BIRD GARDEN - HUGE IMPROVEMENT

Picture 10 captures the excellent work undertaken by the whole NatWest team, working under Allan's leadership, in the Bird Garden. The resulting improvements were remarkable.

The areas around the bases of the many trees were cleared of weeds and tidied up, the hedges were pruned, the flower beds weeded and most impressively the footpath running through the middle of the Bird Garden was reclaimed from the spreading grassed area. The whole Bird Garden had a remarkable transformation today. A huge thank you!

OTHER BUSY PROJECTS

• It was good to see Grace in action with Gill N once again this morning as they refilled the doggy bag dispensers at the 5 entarnces to the park. Thank you Gill and Grace.

• Robin split his time this morning between removing a nasty batch of bind weed from the new flower bed and working on the Poppy Path with the help of Zilin and Shuwei and some of the Booking.com volunteers to move the green waste to the skip. Thank you all.

• Picture 11 shows Alan and Sandra, in marital harmony, as Sandra held the bottom of the ladder for safety, as Alan pruned back the high hedge along the park boundary behind the cafe. Thank you both - great teamwork!

• Picture 12 shows Tristan dedicated to the task of clearing the path leading to the volunteers shelter, Picture 13 shows Brenda (assisted by David - but not in the picture) as she cleaned up the pathway around the Gillbrook Road entrance. Thank you all - the park looked so much better after this work.

• Especial thanks to Bettina for taking the majority of the photographs today - especiially as she overcame the technological challenges of my old camera. Bettina later joined Lis to do some great work together, firstly giving the kick fencing around the triangular flower bed, another coat of preservative and then applying preservative to 2 further woodland trail carvings. Thank you Lis and Bettina - this is vital work for these lovely carvings.

• Speaking of woodland carvngs, the bad news from Denise today is that we have still not found the missing piece of the fox's ear. Consequently Geoff is now looking at plan B which is trying to remodel the hacked off part with another piece of wood. This will be a lot harder to achieve so can we please still keep looking for the ear in the meantime?

• Gary was totally dedicated today to the maintenance of the newly created cricket pitch. Picture 14 shows Gary at the start of his marathon wicket cutting session as he turned long grass into a credible pitch. Thanks Gary - great work!

• Finally I would like to say a huge thank you to Joyce who, during the last few weeks, has been undertaking an audit of all our medical supplies in the first aid cabinet. Whilst we may have been very lucky and only needed a handful of plasters over the last nine years it is important nevertheless to make sure that we keep all our first aid equipment as up to date as possible. Picture 15 shows Joyce putting some final items into one of our 2 first aid kits. Thank you Joyce. This is much appreciated. Let's hope we do not need to use any of it.

Thank you once again for your huge support today and for all the fantastic improvements you helped to make.