From Dog Shows to Deluges: A Week in the Life of Didsbury Park Volunteers
LAST WEEK WAS YET ANOTHER BUSY WEEK FOR DIDSBURY PARK VOLUNTEERS:
TUESDAY
Following last Monday's great turnout of 26 volunteers, Tuesday was all about focussing upon the preparations for Saturday's Didsbury Dog Show. Gill N did an incredible job finalising the collection and organisation of all the raffle donations and Emma worked hard on completing the design of all the posters. Thank you both for putting in so much hard work
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday involved travelling to our distribution charity in Trafford Park, with an empty car, to fill it completely with boxes and boxes of plants, donated by a local supermarket. The plants were mainly heathers and chrythanthemums. When I drove these back to the park they were stored next to the wild flower meadow, ready for planting as soon as we could.
THURSDAY
Thanks to some great support from Murray and Allan, we were able to host a team of 30 volunteers from Autotrader on Thursday They had alll worked with us before so were keen to get stuck in to some hard work. We therefore worked on 3 main projects. Two projects were related to recovering the park, after the contractors had left, having done a great job in repairing the Flower Walk wall.
Picture 1 shows the large patches of the damaged grass area left by the contractors' storage equipment. Picture 2 shows Jude and Sandra working on preparing the area last Monday and Picture 3 shows the team from Autotrader (with Allan) after having completed the preparation and having sowed the area with grass seed on Thursday. Picture 4 is a better picture of the re-seeded area. A huge thank you to everybody involved in this great piece of work. Now we just have to watch the grass grow!!
The other project, related to the repair work on the historic wall, concerned the unsafe pathway which was exposed when the contractors fencing was removed. For this job we were delighted to welcome Tony, our MCC Ranger , who worked with Murray and members of the Autotrader volunteers to recover and rebuild the path edging so that cold tarmac could be laid to fill the potholes in the path. Tony was able to lay some new tarmac but there is a lot more tarmac still to be laid once the edging work is complete.
Picture 5 shows the Autotrader team posing for a picture before they set to work to scythe off this year's disappointng wild flowers on the wild flower meadow.
FRIDAY
Was final preparation day before the Didsbury Dog Show and involved the delivery of a full car load of gazebos, arena fencing and show equipment for storage overnight in the park.
SATURDAY
On Saturday it was 'all hands to the pump' from1030am onwards as Allan, Brian (Gill's neighbour), Sandra, Dan, Heather, Grace, Gill N, Pauline, Emma, Murray and Graham all turned up to set up and man the stalls. A huge thank you also to Tom who spontaneously volunteered to cut the grass in the arena and in the agility course before the show began.
As a result everything was set up and ready in good time for our partners 'Perfect Paws in the Park' to put on a super dog handling demonstration, organise lots of fun games for owners and dogs and then go on to judge the most beautiful bitch, most handsome dog, cutest puppy, super senior, waggiest tail and the dog who could do the best trick!
We estimated there were between 400 - 500 people in attendance (plus dogs) and a great time was had by all. Thank you everyone for yet another fabulous event.
SUNDAY
Recovery!!
TODAY
At 8:30am this morning, the park looked stunning, especially with beautiful blue skies overhead. All was looking well until a park visitor kindly showed me a satellite weather forecast on her phone predicting a very heavy downpour round about 10am. Unfortunately the forecast was right and we had atrocious rain for most of the rest of the morning. BUT despite this weather forecast we still had an amazing volunteer turnout of 34 people.
Our volunteers this morning included Jude and Ian returning for a second time, Linus making a final guest appearance before heading off to Durham University, Shreyash from Manchester University (our first Manchester University volunteer for over 2 years - hooray!), James and 5 colleagues from Turner and Townsend, Tom from Amazon and 3 volunteers from Lendlease who came to review and plan for their 2 days of volunteering activities in October. Everybody was made very welcome.
TODAY - FLOWER WALK WALL - DANGEROUS PATH
The 'heavy gang' of Adrian, Carl N, Murray and Steve were joined by Linus (as the young apprentice) started work with the intention of completing the installlation of the new path edging. Unfortunately the rain was so heavy that it was not allowing the postcrete to set and so this project was abandoned and an early coffee break was taken by all!. Thanks guys. We will hopefully finish this when we next get a dry day.
TODAY - FLOWER WALK WALL - FLOWER BED
With no let up in the rain after our extended coffee break, we decided to dedicate a large team to recovering part of the flower bed adjacent to the repaired Flower Walk wall.
Picture 6 shows Ian, Julia and Muzaffar from Turner and Townsend, Tom from Amazon, Ilma and Murray from FoDP, and Shreyash from Manchester University all side by side in the flower bed being recovered. Picture 7, taken at the end of the morning gives a better perspective on the task in hand. In Picture 7 the brownish layer of mortar and builders debris left by the contractors can clearly be seen on the surface of the flower bed behind the bench and in the foreground. However, in the background, where the team was working, this has all been skimmed off and the soil dug deep and turned over. The end result is looking very good. Thank you all.
TODAY - PLANT DONATIONS
Firstly thank you to Pauline for donating a wheelbarrow full of anemones which she had split from her own garden. Thank you to David for collecting these from Pauline's garden this morning and thank you to Tristan and Anne for expertly planting them in the flower bed next to the Bird Garden. Thank you.
Tristan and Anne then continued their dedication to this area of the park by planting lots of the new heathers in the same flower bed. A huge thank you once again. Picture 8 shows Linus collecting some of the heathers.
The team of Wendy, Jude and Gill B did a great job this morning tidying up the large daises next to the rockery and then planting lots of chrysanthemums in the same area. I must say that your dedication to this task during the deluge of rain was truly admirable. Thank you.
THE END OF THE MARATHON PRUNING PROJECT
I am delighted to report that after many months of dedicated work at the top of the park, next to the woodland trail, to prune back the hedging, the task was finally completed today. Huge congratulations should go to Dan and Dominique who were also assisted by Ian today, for achieving this huge improvement. As a result of this work it is now possible for an MCC vehicle to travel the whole length of this path without having to drive across any grassed area. Win - win all round - Thank you.
HORTICULTURAL MAINTENANCE
Picture 9 shows the team of Julie D, Lucy and Kevin deep in the flora of the Flower Walk as they hunt for weeds, particularly bindweed. Thank you - this border is looking terrific.
Thank you also to Mike C for tidying and weeding the flower beds next to the wild flower meadow.
REMINDERS
I have not yet had enough responses from people who are interested in getting together for a Curry Night on Thursday 23rd November to enable me to make a booking with the Sangam. Can you please just drop me an email if you are interested in coming along?
Anne asked me to mention that a meeting has been set up for next Monday 25th September between 1900 and 2100 at Emmanuel Church to discuss how to improve the quality of the River Mersey. All are invited.
Finally, please do take a few minutes to look around this new website - especially the pictures taken by James Conibear of the wildlife in Didsbury Park. They are stunning!
Thank you once again for your amazing support.