Big news from The Friends of Didsbury Park! Today, on the King's birthday, we received the prestigious King's Award for Voluntary Service. This honor, the highest for UK volunteer groups and akin to an MBE, celebrates our commitment to community service in Didsbury.

We had an excellent turnout for the Poppy Path Act of Remembrance on 11th November, with over 50 participants in stunning weather, planting crosses and sowing poppy seeds. This week also saw tremendous progress in our spring bulb planting, with almost all of this year's supply planted, outpacing last year's efforts. Our volunteers, including new faces and corporate teams, have been instrumental in these achievements, from planting bulbs to tidying up the park

We had an amazing turnout of 45 volunteers working in a dry and mainly sunny park this morning. Our volunteers included 4 new volunteers from Kellogg's, 6 new volunteers from NatWest Bank, and Helen from ITV.

In this post, we'll reflect on a rainy morning in Didsbury Park, where dedicated volunteers came together to carry on the work despite the downpour. We'll also pay tribute to a dear member of the community, Chris Miller, who left behind cherished memories of Didsbury Park.

This last week, with great assistance from Murray, they both went above and beyond when, on Wednesday they also did an extra day's volunteering with another large team from Lendlease. The resultant improvement in the park is amazing.

After the weekends deluge of rain followed by some sun, it was great to see a sunny morning in the park. Allan and Sonia had put all the tools and equipment out, so they had an early start!

We had an amazing turnout of 51 volunteers in the park this morning. Lots of regular volunteers, plus 18 volunteers from business which included 10 volunteers from NatWest and 8 volunteers from Booking.com.

We had a really good turnout of 37 volunteers in the park this morning. We were all pleased to see Gareth, with his 1 year old twins, especially as he insisted on doing a good hour litter picking whilst wheeling them around the park in the pram.

Today, we had a lovely morning with blue skies and sunshine throughout, and all 25 volunteers were very appreciative of this improvement in the weather compared with the deluge last week.

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…

Despite a mixture of sunshine and showers today we still had a good turnout of 27 volunteers. Our numbers included 2 new volunteers Jude and Ian for the first time, as well as Spike returning for the second week running. We also welcomed Tony Melody from MCC to work with us on the pot-holed path.

I am delighted to report that after some fantastic work by Phil Birchenall, our Digital Manager, and by James Conibear, who has provided a lot of our new stunning photographs, we have now launched our new FoDP website.

As a result of it being a Bank Holiday today, some of our regular volunteers were missing this morning, but nevertheless we still had a great turnout of 26 volunteers who all worked really hard.

Out came the sun today and so also did a great number of volunteers - in fact 37 in total. Dario, plus sons Alexander and Sebastian, did a thorough litter pick in the park, as did Will who today also reported doing many hours of additional litter picking throughout the week. In addition it was great to see Laurent (our ex Duke of Edinburgh Awards volunteer) back with us once more - especially as he also brought along his Mum, Marie-Claude to volunteer too.

I am pleased to report that despite the 'yellow' weather warning of heavy rain this morning, we still had 19 brave volunteers who turned up ready to do the necessary work to keep the park looking great. We were especially pleased to see Grace returning after illness, and Laurent (one of our original Duke of Edinburgh Awards Volunteers) returning once again today.

Our dedicated volunteers, including people from NatWest, CGA, and Kellogg's, engaged in various park improvement tasks in Didsbury Park this week. From path cleaning and cricket wicket preparation to caring for our wild flower meadow and enhancing the park with plant donations, their enthusiasm never waned.

Despite a number of our regular volunteers being absent because of the Bank Holiday today we still had an amazing turnout of 38 volunteers working throughout a dry and mainly overcast morning in the park…

A busy day for the volunteers at Didsbury Park…