CHRISTMAS ARRANGEMENTS

Every year we usually have a two week Christmas break from volunteering and recommence volunteering in the park on the first Monday in January. However this year, the first Monday in January is New Years Day and so our plan is to have a bonus of an extra week's winter holiday from volunteering.

The volunteering timetable during the next few weeks will therefore be as follows:

• Monday 4th December: A normal volunteering day

• Monday 11th December: A normal volunteering day until 11am when we will partake of mince pies and hot mulled wine and then finish early

• Monday 18th December: Christmas break

• Monday 25th December: Christmas break

• Monday 1st January: Christmas break

• Monday 8th January: A normal volunteering day with volunteers returnng refreshed and ready to work off any Christmas excesses.

CURRY NIGHT - THURSDAY 23RD NOVEMBER

I am delighted to say that we had an amazing social evening last Thursday when 30 of us, scrubbed up well, and met for a curry night together in the large private room in the Sangam restaurant in Didsbury. The setting and friendly service were very good, the food was superb and the company was excellent. It was a fabulous social occasion and a great opportunity to get to know each other better. Thank you to everyone who could make it.

TODAY

It was a day of mixed emotions today. On the down side, at our coffee break, we had to say goodbye to Dan, one of our ever present recent volunteers. On the up side, we all congratulated Dan on being awarded a new employment contract, and wished him well for the future. Although we were all disappointed that he will be moving on, the blow was softened by Dan himself baking a huge number of mince pies for us all to enjoy with our coffee. Thank you Dan and good luck!

Despite the heavy rainfall during the first couple of hours of volunteering this morning we still had a fantastic turnout. In total we were 25 very wet volunteers. Our volunteers included Shane, Dave and Joe from business organisations who had never worked for us before and Helen once again from ITV. We also welcomed back Andrew and Winnie (see picture 1) who did a thorough litter pick throughout the park - including a dead squirrel which was later given a respectful burial. Everybody was made very welcome.

NEW TREE DONATION

We also had a visit today from Pat, Rose and Catherine from the Manchester branch of Soroptimist International who very generously donated a new specimen tree for us to plant in the park.

The tree was a young prunus royal burgundy (cherry blossom) and picture 2 shows Catherine, Pat and Rose standing behind the new tree after it had been planted by Gary, Steve, Adrian and Richard (in the background of the picture). Thank you ladies. Once the ladies had retired from the scene, the heavy gang, including Murray and Carl N added a tree guard (borrowed from a more mature tree), and added layer of woodchip around the tree to finish the job off.

IDEAL WEATHER FOR PLANTING!!

Whilst this morning may have been great weather for the new plants it was quite challenging from a volunteer perspective.

Picture 3 shows Tristan and Joe on their knees, as part of the team planting snowdrop bulbs around the bases of the Himalyan birches on the wild flower meadow. Other members of this team included Helen and Allan. Great work everyone.This should look stunning in the spring.

I am pleased to report that Kevin managed to obtain even more plant donations of aruncus plants from Maggies in Withington last week and as picture 4 shows, with help from Shane and Dave, they then set about planting these in the flower bed at the roundabout. Even more cyclamen plants were then later added by Diane and Ilma to make sure that this prominently positioned flower bed will look stunning. Thank you all. A super job in the conditions.

Meanwhile on the Flower Walk, Diane, Ilma, and Julie began planting up plants donated by Diane. This team were later joined by Kevin, Shane and Dave to plant lots of crocus bulbs in the grassed area opposite the Flower Walk. Picture 5 shows Julie D, Kevin, Shane and Dave at the 'turf digging stage' prior to planting the bulbs. This area just gets better and better - thank you all.

Across the park near the Buddy and Lucy carving, another team of volunteers were focussing upon planting bluebells in the woodland area. Picture 6 shows Mike and Tom in the foreground and Allan, Tristan, Helen and others in the background. This is very much an experiment, to see if we can successfully grow establish bluebells in this normally wild area. Thank you all. Fingers crossed.

David and Gill N also worked on planting winter pansies and violas elsewhere in the park. Thank you both.

I am sure, as we come to the end of this years winter planting, that everybody will be pleased that we now only have two half bags of spring bulbs still to plant (less than 500) and about 50 more winter violas and pansies. Hopefully we should easily get all these in the ground next week! This has been a mammoth task by everyone concerned - thank you.

AUTUMN LEAVES AND RAIN MEANS DANGEROUS SLIPPY PATHS

We have a number of paths in the park which are vulnerable to becoming very slippy when we have a combination of rain and lots of autumn leaves. So today, after planting the new cherry blossom tree, the heavy gang set to work on the long stretch of path from the 3 dog carving to the Sandhurst Road double gate. Picture 7 shows the fantastic result being achieved by Gary, Ian, Greg, Richard, Adrian and Carl N. The path was so clean and safe after the team had finished that you could almost 'eat your dinner' off it! This was a huge improvement. Thank you.

Meanwhile across at the Gillbrook Road entrance Brenda was making sure that the paths were also spotless. Thank you Brenda.

POPPY PATH WORK CONTINUES

On his last day of volunteering Dan joined Ian to work with John to postcrete in a number of anti dog fouling signs on the Poppy Path. Later on this team also did some super work to repair the herb garden display feature on the path. It is great to see new improvements happening again on the Poppy Path. Well done everyone.

SOME INTERESTING STATISTICS

I am pleased to report that last week we passed the milestone of undertaking 39,000 hours of voluntary work in Didsbury Park since we started volunteering in 2014. It is food for thought - that if MCC were paying the minimum wage to undertake this work in Didsbury Park then it would have cost MCC over £400,000.

Finally, thank you once again for your absolutely amazing support (no matter what the weather!)