LAST TUESDAY - KING'S AWARD FOR VOLUNTARY SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Didsbury Park was buzzing last Tuesday morning because, from 9am, we were allowed to publicly acknowledge the award of the King's Award for Voluntary Service.

The publicity preparation team of Louise (press & TV), Phil (website), Sonia (Facebook), and Emma (X - formerly Twitter) were given the green light at 9am to send out the news and put up the balloons and banners. Picture 1 shows the balloons and banners going up at the Wilmslow Road entrance (and includes myself, Allan, and Sonia) and picture 2 shows volunteers Denise, Lis, and Brenda posing under the banner and balloons at the Gillbrook Road entrance. Well done, everyone!

The response from the Didsbury community to the announcement of the award has been amazing. Today, I even received an email from somebody reading the website in New Zealand, sending their congratulations. We have received so many kind and encouraging messages; it has been almost overwhelming. One of my favourite messages is from a lady who wrote:

"@DidsburyPark So very much deserved! A million thanks for a million good deeds!!!! Don't think you will ever know how valuable and appreciated your work is - you brighten every day!"

TODAY

With the prospect of a cake and prosecco celebration party at 11am, we were pleased to see 47 participants in the park this morning. We were especially delighted to welcome two special guests - Jane, who had independently taken the initiative to submit the application for the award, and Colette, who had written one of the two supporting letters. (Sam, who wrote the other one, unfortunately, could not be with us this morning.) Whatever was written certainly worked. A huge 'thank you' from us all.

We had three new volunteers join us this morning. Elishe joined us for the first time and really enjoyed the experience, although we did warn her that it is not quite the same celebration every week. We were also delighted to be joined by Andrew and his daughter Winifred, who did a fabulous litter pick right across the park. Everyone was made very welcome.

HEAVY GANG WORK

We had quite a number of jobs lined up for the enlarged heavy gang today, including Richard, Murray, Carl N, Adrian, Gary, Qazim, and Steve: In the high winds last Monday evening, a large tree had fallen across one of the footpaths. Thanks to a great response from Geoff, it was rapidly cut up and the path cleared.

The job this morning was, therefore, to clear away the remaining wood and add it to the barrier at the end of the woodland trail. In another job, the heavy gang joined John to implement a project to add an ornamental stone to the Japanese Garden on the Poppy Path.

Picture 3 shows Steve, Qazim, and Adrian posing for a picture after the job was complete. Another job was to rectify the signpost near the exit to the Poppy Path, which had an arm pointing in the wrong direction due to it being knocked by a low hanging branch. This was fixed by the team. The final job was to do some maintenance work on the hard standing underneath the two wooden benches along the Flower Walk. Picture 4 shows Qazim and Steve returning from the Japanese garden with the equipment, and picture 5 shows the rest of the heavy gang "returning to town!" Thanks, guys - great jobs!

POPPY PATH WORK

Meanwhile, on the Poppy Path itself, Robin, Dominique, and Dan did some more fantastic work clearing and cleaning up some of the parts needing weeding. Thank you.

NEW PLANTS - FLOWER WALK

Thanks to some great work from Kevin, we received even more aruncus plants from 'Maggies' in Withington, which Kevin collected on Friday. With help from Carl M, Ian, Greg, and Rob, he brought them to the park and planted them this morning. Thanks also to Ilma, who brought even more plants from her garden, and to Julie D for arranging for us to purchase new roses to make up the full bed of roses next to the newly repaired wall along the Flower Walk.

Picture 6 shows Jude, Wendy, Elishe, Julie D, Ilma, and Lucy busy stocking up the flower bed along the Flower Walk. Thank you, everyone - these beds are really beginning to fill up nicely - great work!

NEW PLANTS - ROUNDABOUT

We also had a huge team reshaping and replenishing the flower bed at the roundabout with new winter bedding plants today. Picture 7 shows Lis, Anne, Sandra, Debbie, Bettina, and Tristan, all busy adding new plants at the roundabout.

Thank you, everyone, including Gill B who is missing from this picture - this work has transformed this area.

OTHER ACTIVITIES IN THE PARK

A huge thanks must also go to the volunteers who focused on the following other key areas of the park:

• Roger worked in the area near the Bird Garden.

• Alan focused on removing epicormic growth from the trees.

• David used the leaf blower to clear the wet, slippery leaves from the steep path from the Poppy Path.

• Brenda worked on clearing up the Gillbrook Road entrance area.

• Mike planted new winter plants in the flower beds near the wildflower meadow.

• Gill N and Sonia masterminded the arrangements for the cake and prosecco party.

Thank you all!

MAINTENANCE OF TOOLS

For many years, we have struggled with the repair and maintenance of our many hand tools. However, we now seem to have turned a corner thanks to Julie D. Over the last few weeks, Julie has been organising for all our secateurs to be sharpened, a few at a time, by a local man. We are now moving on to the bigger tools like loppers and shears, so if you come across any issues with the sharpness or functionality of any of our hand tools, will you please let Julie or myself know. Thank you, Julie - this is a real bonus!

MORE GOOD NEWS

You may recall that back in July, we were visited by the RHS judge as part of the North West in Bloom competition. I have just received the feedback and am delighted to report that we received the highest award, which is a Category 5 - Outstanding. Well done, everyone!!

THURSDAY NIGHT - CURRY NIGHT

It looks like we are going to have a good turnout of just over 30 people at Thursday's curry night at the Sangam. Just a reminder that it starts at 7pm. If there are any more people who would like to come along, will you please let me know as soon as possible. It should be a great night.

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY

If you look at our website, you will find some superb photography by James Conibear of the wildlife and flora in Didsbury Park. If you are interested in improving your wildlife/nature photography and would like James to help, then please do check out the posters from James, which I have just put up in our two main noticeboards in the park.

AND FINALLY..

I would like to say a huge 'thank you' for your amazing support at the end of a very exciting week!

Finally, finally, this is what the Prime Minister had to say about the King’s Award for Voluntary Service: