BREAKING NEWS

I am delighted to be able to report that we can now confirm the date of the Didsbury Park Volunteers Garden Party to celebrate the Kings Award for Voluntary Service. The date will be Monday 24th June and our guest of honour will be the Lord Lieutenant of Greater Manchester who represents His Majesty The King in Greater Manchester. 

Our Garden Party Organising Team of Emma, Louise, Sonia and Phil will now be able to firm up on many of the outline plans which we have already put in place to make this a day to remember in the history of the Friends of Didsbury Park volunteers. 

EARLIER THIS WEEK - VISIT FROM THE 'CITY OF TREES'

On Wednesday of this week, our newly formed tree expert team of Joyce and David met up with the City of Trees team, in Didsbury Park, to review and understand more about the circa 480 trees we already have in our nine acre park. Our team should also have involved Greg too, but unknown to us at the time Greg had been taken to hospital. Greg is still in hospital but is hoping to be discharged in a day or two. We all wish you a speedy recovery Greg! 

The visit by Rachel and David from the City of Trees was very informative and has certainly improved our knowledge of our current stock of trees. Thank you Rachel and David. 

TODAY

We were very grateful today that the weather was much improved compared with last Monday morning and even though it was raining early on. we nevertheless had a great turnout of 32 volunteers. We were very pleased to welcome back Sonia after her spell away in South Africa and new volunteer Nikki from business. Picture 1 captures them both working in the flower bed around Buddy and Lucy. We also welcomed a new local volunteer called Ben, seen here in picture 2 with Katie from Kroo as they started the preparation for re-seeding the football pitch. Our team was further boosted today by a team of six volunteers from Kroo (an internet bank) and our regular volunteer Aristote and his job coach from Bridge College. Everybody was made very welcome.

RESEEDING THE WORN OUT GRASSED AREA ON ONE OF THE FOOTBALL PITCHES

Following a season of intensive daily use, we retired the goal posts from one of our very popular football pitches last week. So this week we undertook the project to re-seed it.

The labour intensive preparation work can be seen most clearly in picture 3 where the six volunteers from Kroo, Ben and Neils can be seen digging, hoeing and creating a fine tilth in which to sow the new grass seed. I am especially grateful to Ben, Niels, Alan and Nikki who stayed on until nearly 2pm so that we could finish the sowing of the grass seed in this whole area. This was an amazing commitment. A huge thank you to everybody who helped us to complete this project.

NEW BENCH PREPARATION WORK

Picture 4 shows our much depleted heavy gang of only Steve and Adrian making remarkable progress on the installation of the hard standing for the new bench which is expected to be delivered very soon.

Today the team installed a weed protection membrane, a course of MOT and also cut the concrete slabs to fit the edgings of the hard standing area. Thank you Steve and Adrian. A great morning’s progress.  

AND THE WEEDING GOES ON!

After what feels like weeks and weeks of weeding it looks like we are beginning to win the battle with the weeds. Once again Gill B and Peter worked on weeding the flower beds along the Wimlsow Road path. Kevin, Ilma, Lucy, Diane, Sandra and initailly most of the Kroo team worked on weeding the area from the rockery to Gillbrook Road. Tristan concentrated on removing the weeds in the flower bed next to the Bird Garden and Sonia and Nikki worked on the flower beds near Buddy and Lucy.

Picture 5 shows Jude and Sandra, Picture 6 shows Gill B, Ilma and Diane and picture 7 shows Peter. These are all pictures of a lot of 'skip filling' weeding going on! Thank you everyone the difference this work has made is now really showing through.

ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK

     - Picture 8 shows the fabulous job which Roger did clearing the mud from the paths near the Poppy Path exit. Thank you Roger

     - Brenda and David undertook an equally super improvement in the path area around the Gillbrook Road entrance. Thank you both

     - Gill N worked hard to re-stock the plastic bags on all the rubbish bins - thank you Gill.

     - Picture 9 captures both Denise returning to the volunteer's shelter with an empty wheelbarrow having delivered the rotivator which Geoff had loaned us.Thank you both Geoff and Denise. 

     - In the background of picture 9 you can also see Allan giving the Bird Garden hedge a good pruning. Thank you Allan

    - Finally picture 10 shows Aristote having helped already with the football pitch preparation, now beginnig his second job of giving the park a good litter pick. Thank you Aristote.  

Once again I would like to say a huge thank you for your fabulous support.