Sunshine, Spring Blossoms and Community Spirit at the Big Spring Clean

SATURDAY: BIG SPRING CLEAN 

On a beautiful warm sunny Saturday morning we had a great turn out of about 25 families from all the Didsbury Primary Schools to help us do a big spring clean of the park. The park itself looked stunning with over one hundred thousand spring bulbs providing a colourful backdrop to the dramatic emergence of the blossom on the cherry blossom trees.

Picture 1 captures the beautiful blossom beginning to emerge on some of the trees on the main field. Thanks to some great support from regular volunteers Sonia, Allan, Joyce and Louise everything ran according to plan although, to be honest, we had such a great turnout, and the park was already reasonably clean before we started that it was a real challenge to try and find any litter at all by the end of the morning session. Picture 2 shows 4 of our young volunteers resorting to searching for litter in the trees, it was so scarce elsewhere!! Picture 3 captures one of our younger volunteers in action as she gave Buddy and Lucy a good wash down.

Thank you also to Ben Foster who joined us from Goodgym. This is an amazing organisation consisting of athletes who run to their volunteering location, undertake the volunteering task and then run home again - what a great idea if you are fit! Ben undertook a special litter pick for us along Sandhurst Road outside the park where some litter had accumulated besides the parked cars. Overall this event was a great success as well as being a great family fun day for everybody concerned.

Finally a huge thank you to Emma and Zoe from the MCC Keep Manchester Tidy Team who kept us well stocked with hi-vis, gloves, litter pickers and bags to enable us to complete such a successful clean up event.  (Parental permission has been given for the use of the children's photos.) 

TODAY 

We were lucky again today to have some more lovely warm sunny weather for our 34 volunteers who turned up to work this morning. Our volunteers today included two guest volunteers, Patrick and Mas from Autotrader, and Aristhote and his job coach Jennifer from Bridge College.

We also had two mid morning visitors -  Reverend Tom Burke from the Croft Church of the Nazarine who came along to discuss the plans for the Easter Egg Hunt on Easter Saturday 19th April with Sonia and myself, and Bryony met with us to discuss plans for potentially sponsoring a new bench for the park. Everybody was made very welcome. 

TODAY - WHAT! NO LITTER! 

We must say a big thank you today to our regular litter pickers Winnie and dad Andrew (and their dog Brian) and also to Aristhote and job coach Jennifer who all made valiant attempts to find some litter in the park.

Picture 4 shows Aristhote proudly displaying the bag containing his findings for the morning. Thank you all. 

TODAY - THE PROLIFIC ALKANET!

It is disappointing but true, that good growing weather also encourages the growth of the weeds we do not want. In certain areas of the Flower Walk we have seen a determined growth spurt from both ground elder and alkanet. So today we set up a large team of volunteers to focus upon weeding these plants out of this prestigious flower bed.

Picture 5 shows the 'girls team' of Anne, Jane, Jude, Lesley and Sandra  carrying a few alkanet trophies which had been weeded from the Flower Walk! Picture 6,  taken further down the Flower Walk, shows the 'boys team' of Stephen and Tristan with large buckets full of the stuff. John who was also helping in this area was unfortunately out of camera shot. Thank you everyone. This was a great piece of work.

TODAY - PRESERVATIVE PAINTING

We have also been trying to take advantage of the warm and dry weather to apply preservative paints to our wooden carvings, benches and fences around the park - today was no exception. Picture 7 shows Lorna  painting a second coat of preservative onto the butterfly carving, made by Andy Burgess, and donated by Lorraine, which is located at the Sandhurst Road pedestrian entrance. Thank you Lorna. This was a great job.

Meanwhile picture 8 shows the team of Mas, Patrick, Katie and Rebecca busily painting the kick fencing around the triangular flower bed. Charlie was also a key part of this team but unfortunately was not in this picture. If you look carefully at the background of the picture you should be able to pick out the impressive roundabout flowerbed containing an abundance of tete-a-tete flowers in bloom and surrounded by the new experimental willow fencing.

This team then went on after the coffee break to paint the kick fencing next to the  DNC and then onto the kick fencing at the exit to the Poppy Path. This was an excellent piece of work - thank you all. 

TODAY - REPLACING ROTTEN KICK FENCING 

Even though we only had a couple of members of the heavy gang present today they certainly made up for it in terms of achievement. Adrian and Murray together continued the work of previous weeks and successfully replaced another piece of rotten kick fencing with some new timbers from our store. Thank you Murray and Adrian. This was a very professional job!

TODAY - WOODLAND MANAGEMENT, GILLBROOK ROAD ENTRANCE AND THE ROSE BEDS

Picture 9 captures a whole series of important pieces of work being undertaken today throughout the park. In the foreground Brenda and Denise can be seen with their wheelbarrows full of green waste. Brenda's came from cleaning up the Gillbrook Road entrance, whilst Denise's full wheelbarrow was a result of the weeding and tidying up of the rose beds. Thank you ladies - this was really great work.

In the background to the left of the ladies, Kevin and Greg are using the workbench to cut up some timber as part of the woodland management activities they have been undertaking in the woodland area of the park and in the background of the picture to the right of the ladies, Adrian is busy measuring and marking up a piece of replacement kick fence post prior to cutting it to size. This was so typical of the hive of activity going on all over the park. 

TODAY - TREE WORK    

Picture 10 shows Joyce and Carl on a mission to free up some of the young trees from their supports and protective cages.  Whilst there is no question that the trees do look better without the cages - fingers crossed that this is not premature and that the young trees are not damaged or vandalised as a result. Thanks for this work Joyce and Carl.  

The removal of the cages was followed up by Shasvat and Chris who took the opportunity to make sure that each tree was given an ample supply of mulch. Thank you guys. 

REMINDERS - NHS FUNDED "ACTIVITY FOR HAPPINESS FUND"

We have received a small NHS grant to spend on treating our volunteers to some finger food at our break period next Monday. This will be a combination of food provided by Jo at the cafe and an assortment of goodies from M&S. Please do come along and we can all be happy together!! 

REMINDERS - FRIDAY - FOR AN INFORMATIVE PRESENTATION ON END OF LIFE MATTERS

The following is taken from a poster about this event. I understand you can also attend in person at the DNC:

MANCHESTER COMMUNITY FORUM PRESENTS “END OF LIFE MATTERS” Live streamed on Friday 28th March 2025 2pm - 4pm 

The date of Friday 28th March has been fixed with 4 expert speakers who will explain the proposed UK legislation and related matters for members of the Manchester community who are interested in knowing more about legislation related to end of life matters. There is no charge for attending the online forum (donations to Didsbury Good Neighbours welcome) but please register your interest with DGN by email to community@didsburygoodneighbours.org.uk You will then be sent some background information about the topic and the speakers. 

It is not easy to think about, but maybe it is a choice you will think about making? When: Friday 28th March 2025 2pm - 4pm. How: By Zoom, you will get emailed an invite, just follow the link. Why: One of our community members offered to fund a forum focused on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill that passed its second reading in the House of Commons at the end of November, we agreed to support the idea by providing administrative and IT help. The date of the 28th March has been fixed with 4 expert speakers who will explain the proposed legislation and related matters for members of the Manchester community who are interested in knowing more. There is no charge for attending the online forum (donations to Didsbury Good Neighbours welcome) but please register your interest with DGN by email to community@didsburygoodneighbours.org.uk.

We will then send you some background information about the topic and the speakers, as well as the Bill, as this important legislation progresses to its third reading in the House of Commons in April. Other regions of the UK are forging ahead with their proposals at this time. 

REMINDERS - FRIDAY - CITIZEN FORRESTER TREE PLANTING

When - Friday 28 March  10am to 3pm

Where - Parrs Wood Playing Fields SK8 2NZ

To Sign Up - visit cityoftrees.org.uk

Finally, thank you once again for your amazing support