Task Day in Memorial Park [Last Saturday each month]

[admin]

Task Day 26 September 2020

 It was great to notch up our first official Saturday Task Day since 14 March, even though we have to restrict numbers to comply with Government guidance. Park visitors must have been pleased to see us too as they left over £30 in our collection bucket!

We focused mainly on flowerbed maintenance and edging of the main pathway through the park. The latter is one of those things that you don't really notice when it's done but certainly do when it isn't. It looks so much better now.

Read more about our task days here: http://www.marplememorialpark.org.uk/task-days/task-days-in-2020.html

The next scheduled Task Day is Saturday 17 October 2020 but is open to existing registered volunteers only due to Covid19.







Infants Play Area fence damage

Park users may have noticed that a large section of the Infants Play Area fence behind the swings has recently gone missing. This is due to it being vandalised by some of our less intelligent visitors to the park.



The whole of the fence has been past its sell-by date for some time. The Friends of the Park have kept it going for quite a few years by painting and maintaining but we now consider it beyond our abilities to deal with any longer.

The council will be installing some temporary fencing in the coming week and we hope that this will tide us over while we pursue our plans to merge and upgrade the two existing play areas. This is at a very early stage (with no funding) and is linked to the Community Hub project to bring the swimming pool to the park. So sadly it is not going to happen overnight.

[admin]

Task Day 27 August 2020

The weather is really not playing ball with our preparation works for the wildflower meadow but we continued stripping off dead vegetation to prevent it enriching the soil. The meadow area will be harrowed and stripped a couple more times and it would be great to have some prolonged sunshine to kill off the weeds and make lighter work of stripping them off by hand.



Work was also done on the flowerbeds, the Band Room garden, the Reading Circle borders, litter-picking and a tool store tidy.







Reading Circle Tree Sculpture

We also managed to get the council's Arb Team to cut the bottoms off the last two sections of the broken sculpture from behind the library. Visitors to the park may have noticed that the sculpture has been dismantled after we discovered it broken in July. Unfortunately the base has been decaying from underneath and one section broke off during lock-down, leaving the other two very wobbly. We asked the council to take down the remaining sections and the Arb Team has now cut the rotten bits off all three sections of the sculpture for us so that we can look at the feasibility of resetting them on metal bases.

[admin]

Task Day 18 August 2020

We managed to hit a weather window with minimal rain during our task day today but it was hard work clearing the new wildflower meadow area of dead vegetation as it had all received a good soak this morning! We'll be back to finish it off.







Other tasks completed include maintenance work on the War Memorial flowerbeds, tidying the sensory garden, litter-picking and the Marple Band Room hedge was given a much needed pruning.







One of our volunteers has also been doing much needed maintenance work on the picnic benches at Marple Recreation Ground. Well somebody's got to do it haven't they! We should soon have the missing slat from the centre of one of these benches back in place and hopefully these two benches restored by us in 2013 will be good for another few years.

[admin]

Border re-edged on Lock 17

Did you know that Friends of Marple Memorial Park look after the Lock 17 Flowerbed on Oldknow Gardens as well as the park? They recreated this bed in partnership with Marple Locks Heritage Society (now defunct) and the council. It was funded by the council, Marple Area Committee and The Marple Website, whose logo is cast in bronze on the plaque dedicated to Gordon Mills.

[admin]

AT LAST we're officially allowed back in the park!

Following release of guidance from the council and the production and approval of our own special risk assessment covering Covid19 precautions, our volunteers are now officially allowed back in the park. So we held our first authorised task day since March on Wednesday and it was all very different to how it used to be. In order to ease our way into it we returned with restricted numbers. Volunteers were asked to bring their own tools wherever possible and bins and communal tools were cleaned going in and out of the store and then "owned" by one individual for the session or cleaned again.

Thankfully small groups of volunteers and family units have come into the park of their own volition for exercise during the last  few months and kept on top of the flowerbeds and other key maintenance. This is why the park is looking so good and if not for this it would be in a very sorry state. We thank everyone who took it upon themselves to do so.

[admin]

Play Areas in Memorial Park to open on Monday

We have been told that the Infants and Junior Play Areas in Marple Memorial Park will be opened on Monday 6th July!

[admin]

Collection boxes for Friends of Marple Memorial Park

As Marple shops and businesses get back to work could any of you support Friends of Marple Memorial Park with a collection box in your premises? It's a great low cost way to support our wonderful community group that makes the park a better place for all: https://www.marplememorialpark.org.uk/sponsorship.html

[admin]

Time for some new flags in the park, courtesy of Friends of Memorial Park.

Great weather for flying a flag!

[Barbara]

Thank you for all your past hard work - it made a terrific difference to the park.  We look forward to seeing you in the future.

[admin]

Friends of Marple Memorial Park were off to such a great start in 2020 and we were entering the most rewarding season as the park springs back into life. Sadly for now we can't continue. Check out the minutes of our last meeting to see just how many things have had to be put on hold. But in the words of Arnie, "we'll be back!" so please keep supporting what we do to make our park a better place for everyone and stay safe Marple! https://www.marplememorialpark.org.uk/memorialpark/FriendsMarch2020.pdf

[admin]

Can you get as far as Marple Memorial Park during your permitted daily exercise, it's looking fabulous this week!

[admin]

Friends of Marple Memorial Park Task Days on Hold

Friends of Marple Memorial Park's normal Task Days have been placed on hold for the immediate future, until it is safe to meet in groups again.

Sadly that means that we will not be able to hold any further "Little Growers" sessions planned for March and April either.

During the coming weeks we will be forced to spend less time in the park, so if you spot any issues that you think will concern us, please report it via the Friends of the Park web site.

https://www.marplememorialpark.org.uk/

[admin]

Returning to our normal schedule of task days meant we were back in the park again yesterday and also launching this year's "Little Growers" events for 2020. The weather was much better and allowed us to set-up outside the library and engage with families using the play areas. We planted pots of seeds with 22 Little Growers, which was a great start to the season.

Out in the park, the main task was planting several 100 native whips - these are small bare-rooted tree saplings - mostly in the area where the Lock 11 compound caused the removal of trees and ground cover. We planted whips in several other areas of the park too and sowed some wildflower seed mix around the new trees planted in February.

Read more about our task days here: http://www.marplememorialpark.org.uk/task-days/task-days-in-2020.html

The next scheduled Task Day is Saturday 28 March 2020 and we'd be delighted if you can come along for however long you can between 10 am and 2 pm.

Stout footwear and suitable clothing should be worn and bring your own gardening gloves and small hand tools if you have them. Children should be accompanied by a responsible adult.







To learn more about what we do for the park check out our fantastic promotional video created by one of our regular volunteers:

[admin]

Our Task Day last weekend was cancelled due to the dreadful weather, so when we heard the forecast for today on Friday we decided to squeeze a replacement session in. Considering only 24 hours notice we had a brilliant turnout. Back in February we also grabbed the opportunity to plant nine new trees in the gap in the woodland left by the works to repair Lock 11. The trees were paid for by CRT and our volunteers were helped by the Council's Neighbourhood Team.

Read more about our task days here: http://www.marplememorialpark.org.uk/task-days/task-days-in-2020.html

The next scheduled Task Day is Saturday 14 March 2020 and we'd be delighted if you can come along for however long you can between 10 am and 2 pm.

Stout footwear and suitable clothing should be worn and bring your own gardening gloves and small hand tools if you have them. Children should be accompanied by a responsible adult.

[admin]

And we're off to an amazing start in 2020 with a turnout of 22 volunteers on our first task day of the year!

Read more about our task days here: http://www.marplememorialpark.org.uk/task-days/task-days-in-2020.html

The next scheduled Task Day is Saturday 29 February 2020 and we'd be delighted if you can come along for however long you can between 10 am and 2 pm.

Stout footwear and suitable clothing should be worn and bring your own gardening gloves and small hand tools if you have them. Children should be accompanied by a responsible adult.