An Invitation from the Lord Mayor’s Office and Another Brilliant Day in the Park
AN INVITATION FROM THE LORD MAYOR'S OFFICE - SUNDAY 7TH JUNE
We have received an invitation from the Dean of Manchester for up to five of us to attend a civic service which will be held at Manchester Cathedral on Sunday 7 June 2026 at 11.00am. It is a civic service to welcome the new Lord Mayor, Councillor Shaukat Ali.
Following the service, there will be a reception at Manchester Central Library, St Peter’s Square. Coaches have been organised to transport us from the Cathedral to Central Library.
I am planning to attend, and I need to reply to the invitation. If you would like to come along too, can you please let me know by next Monday?
TODAY
We had an amazingly busy day today with lots of great achievements being made right across the park. We had another great turnout of 60 volunteers which included teams from Microsoft, Autotrader, St Pierre and MBC Building Contractors NW Ltd. We were also delighted to welcome our new volunteers Adam, Leo and Kiwi once again. It was lovely that Grace was able to join us too.
We also had some happy participation from the students and staff from Brentwood College and Shigad and Sheeba from Bridge College. Thank you also to Lesley for all those chocolate biscuits at our coffee break! Everybody was made welcome.
TODAY - SPECIAL GUEST PRESENTATION
We were delighted to welcome a very special guest at our coffee break today. We were joined by Jeff Sevantine, founder of the Didsbury Beer Festival who came along to formally present us with a cheque for £5,000.
Every year the Didsbury Beer Festival support local charities and we were privileged to be one of the beneficiaries of the latest festival. This will be a huge boost to our funds and as a result we are currently discussing with MCC the possible introduction of a piece of adult exercise equipment into the park.
Picture 1 shows Jeff presenting me with the symbolic cheque whilst surrounded by some of our volunteers. A huge thank you to the Didsbury Beer Festival.
TODAY - EARLY BIRD SKILLED VOLUNTEERS REPAIR THE WALL
Ever since I moved to Didsbury in 2013 there has been a small wall in the park which has been in a constant state of disrepair. Today therefore was a very special day because I am delighted to report that with the early arrival this morning of a small 4 man volunteer team from MBC Building Contractors, we were able to tackle the repair of the wall for the very first time ever.
Picture 2 shows the amazing result achieved by the team and the huge improvement it has made. The only unfortunate thing was that I was completely thrown by how quickly this skilled team worked. As a consequence I had not bought enough mortar for them to have finished the wall completely. This was a fantastic result - thank you!
TODAY - PREPARATIONS FOR REPAINTING THE POPPY PATH BRIDGE
The good news is that the FODP board of trustees, has reached the final stages of finding and appointing an artist to repaint the Poppy Bridge. The request from the artist was that, before she could start, the current bridge and painting needed to be thoroughly cleaned. So today, guided by Sonia, all 6 members of the volunteer team from Microsoft "got stuck in" and gave the bridge an amazingly deep clean.
Picture 3 shows the team after the end of the morning working on the bridge. This was a fantastic result - thank you all.
TODAY - LOTS OF TIDYING UP REQUIRED
It was great to see all our regular tidy up teams out in force with their brushes and litter pickers today, especially as the birds and animals had had a field day spreading litter around the park earlier this morning.
Our youngest volunteers Millie, Emeline and Winnie, working with their parents soon filled many bags of litter. Gill B, and Shigad and his job carer Sheeba also made a major contribution to the litter clearance which enabled the park to be brought back to it's pristine state again.
Picture 4 shows our Brentwood College students and staff doing a fantastic job cleaning up the main pathway across the park from the Sandhurst Road entrance to the Gillbrook Road exit. Thank you all.
TODAY - REPAIRING THE FENCING AT THE ROUNDABOUT
During last week one of the posts in the chain fencing near the roundabout became loose. So today one of our priority jobs was to do a maintenance check on the whole fence. As a result we decided to replace 4 of the fence posts with newer longer versions.
Picture 5 shows Murray and Carl N mixing the concrete ready to install the new fence posts. Thank you both and to Richard and some Autotrader volunteers who also helped reset these posts. This was a great job!
TODAY - WILD FLOWER MEADOW
There was a lot of activity in the wildflower meadow today which occupied most of the Autotrader team led by Allan. As a result, the hedging was trimmed back right along the new fencing and the hedge areas were given a good weeding.
Picture 6 shows some of the Autotrader volunteers, trimming and weeding a corner of the area. Picture 7 shows Taylan and Patrick working on clearing up the base of one of the rowan trees before they also moved onto the wild flower meadow to do a similar job on the bases of the Himalayan Birches.
The improvement in the wildflower meadow was quite remarkable. Thank you all - this was a great piece of work.
TODAY - WEEDING AND WEEDING
Sometimes it is just amazing the way that flower beds are full of beautiful flowers and plants one minute and then almost overnight are full of weeds. Now that the beautiful daffodils and tete-a-tete have died back in the flower beds along the path to Wilmslow Road they seem to have been replaced by lots of weeds. So today this area, and the area around the rockery were given a lot of attention by our horticultural teams.
Picture 8 shows Christine and Jude weeding near the woodland carving. A few metres further along picture 9 shows Kiwi, Adam and Leo and further along the path near the rockery picture 10 shows Lesley, Carl M and Tristan. Thank you all - these areas look so much better now.
Thank you also to Denise and Louise for their dedication to the rose beds which are really looking colourful and healthy at this moment.
TODAY - ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
A big thank you to Gill N and Grace for updating the lecterns and filling the dog bag dispensers.
Thank you also to Richard for once more mending the soccer nets
Gary also did a great job on the sports field where he mowed and marked out the cricket square once again. Thanks Gary.
Finally, a huge thank you from me for all your support.