Autumn Events, Tree Care and a Hedgehog Palace
UPCOMING AUTUMN AND WINTER EVENTS
It is strange, but as the mornings start to become colder and darker, and the dark nights draw in, the more we traditionally tend to accelerate our social activities. Looking ahead towards Christmas our events calendar is looking pretty full. The following planned events are currently drafted as:
Saturday 24th October - 10am to 12.30pm - Big Leaf Clean Up: involving lots of young children and their families, having fun, collecting the fallen leaves from across the park. We have nearly 500 trees in the park so there should be plenty of leaves to go around!!
Saturday 7th November - 11am Act of Remembrance on the Poppy Path: an opportunity for the Friends of Didsbury Park, volunteers, park visitors and local neighbours to participate in a short small local Act of Remembrance ceremony including: a bugler playing the Last Post; some short poignant readings from WW1 poets; the laying of the Friends of Didsbury Park wreath; and the sowing of poppy seeds by all attendees, on the Poppy Path. This Act of Remembrance usually lasts about 10 to 15 minutes, at most, after which everybody is welcome to join us as our guests for a warming cup of tea / coffee in the park cafe.
Thursday 26th November - 7pm Curry Night in the private room in the Sangam restaurant: A chance once again for us to get together socially with our friends and partners in a relaxed atmosphere and enjoy good food, drink and each others company.
Monday 14th December - 11am Carols in the Park, mulled wine and mince pies: This will be our last volunteering day before Christmas, when it has become traditional that we finish our volunteering early to listen to the children's choir from Didsbury CofE, singing some beautiful Christmas Carols (before they have their hot chocolate and tuck in to our mince pies!). This is always both a fun and emotional event after which we then finish volunteering for a two week mid winter break. We are going to return to volunteering on Monday 5th January 2027!
Please do pencil in as many of the above social dates in your diary as you can - the more the merrier! Additional individual details of each event will follow as we get closer to them but if you do have any questions at this stage, about any of the above, then please do not hesitate to let me know!
TODAY
Whilst there were no additional volunteers pre-booked in from business today we were delighted to receive a surprise visit from Marina, Daryl and Carl H, all from separate companies, to boost our numbers to a healthy 47 volunteers in the park today.
We also had a special visitor in the form of our local MCC Ranger Sue Polshaw today and it was extremely helpful to be able to spend some time discussing our progress throughout the park and highlighting some key areas where we need MCC support. I am afraid that my time with Sue meant that I was unable to take any photos of the great work going on in the park before the coffee break, so please accept my apologies if I missed you this morning.
We also had our regular student volunteers from Bridge College and Brentwood Special School in full force this morning and they worked hard on litter picking and leaf tidying respectively. Especial thanks today go to Christine and Gill who managed the break time drinks between them without a hitch. Everybody was made very welcome.
TODAY - TREE MAINTENANCE
We took the opportunity today to do further work to tidy up the tree bases throughout the park. Based upon the horticultural standards and practices in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, Picture 1 shows Taylan, Steve and Chris posing beside an example of the superb work they were undertaking to firstly clear any grass and weeds from the tree base and then to fill it in with a good supply of woodchip. Excellent work guys! Thank you.
Picture 2 shows Marina, Carl H and Allan starting a similar project on one of our older and more difficult trees. Daryl was also helping with this activity. Thank you all - this made a huge improvement on the look of the trees in the park.
TODAY - THE FINISHING TOUCHES TO THE CRICKET PITCH
Picture 3 shows a picture of Gary having just given the cricket pitch the final mowing for this season and then scarified and re-seeded both batting creases ready for next year.
Gary has done an amazing maintenance job throughout the summer on this wicket and it has enabled the game of cricket to become established as a completely new sport in the park. A huge thank you Gary!
TODAY - HORTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES
I would like to say a special thank you to Alison from the Didsbury in Bloom team for providing us with a supply of redundant 'bugle' plants which had been taken out of the planters in the village in order to make space for the new winter plants. In the spirit of sustainability, we made use of these shade loving plants and re-planted them in the shady flower bed next to the volunteer's shelter.
Picture 4 shows John busy re-planting. Thank you, John and fingers crossed that they continue to thrive.
Pictures 5 and 6 show some members of the team doing some splendid weeding work on the Flower Walk. Picture 5 shows Sandra, Savita and Gill B and Picture 6 shows Anne, Lesley and Sandra (again, for the second time). Other volunteers who also did some great work on these flower beds included Ilma, Joyce, Sue and Jude. Thank you everyone.
Denise L did some excellent work on the rose beds once again today - thank you Denise.
Meanwhile picture 7 shows Lorna and Sandra (again, for the third time) in front of the flower bed near 'Buddy and Lucy' where Lorna had been working with Christine and Denise O throughout the morning. Thank you!
TODAY - STORE ROOM ORGANISATION
Picture 8 captures Murray and Carl N recycling some re-claimed wood from a previously vandalised wooden picnic bench to create part of a sturdy frame to safely store the gazebos.
This has not only been a superb intelligent use of re-cycled wood but it has added a new dimension to our storage facilities. Hats off to both of you!! This is an amazing solution to a difficult storage problem. Thank you, Murray and Carl.
TODAY - ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
Thank you to Andrew (and Brian the dog) for an excellent early morning litter pick clean-up of the park
Thank you also to Sheeba and Brian (the student) for their supporting litter pick later in the morning.
It is always so encouraging, and an example to us all, when Brenda turns up every week to sweep the Gillbrook Road entrance clear of the needle dropping from the overgrown leylandii at the entrance. We would dearly love to replace this self seeded eyesore with something a lot more attractive and less gloomy at this entrance. Come on MCC, help us to make a huge improvement at this important entrance.
Kevin continued his work in the woodland today where he had started to create some natural hedgehog habitat - also known among the team as the Hedgehog Palace. He is hoping that one day soon we will have an occupant. Thanks Kevin.
Thank you once again for your continued amazing support.