Blossom Brings the Crowds as Volunteers Keep Didsbury Park Pristine
SATURDAY - DIDSBURY PARK BECOMES A REGIONAL ATTRACTION AND FEATURES IN THE MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS
This weekend Didsbury Park became a Mecca for many, many, visitors from all over our region. I was in the park early on Saturday morning to set up for our Big Spring Clean event and I took the opportunity to speak to 3 of our early visitors who had already set up their equipment to photograph the 3 beautiful trees which were in full blossom on the main field. Amazingly the first 3 people I spoke to had driven to the park from Sheffield, Bolton and Warrington respectively and were determined to get some great pictures before the crowds arrived.
Here is the stunning picture (see attached picture 1) which I took at the time. Evidently the blossom in the park has been the subject of much social media fame, particularly among our Asian community. There was even an article in the Manchester Evening News in the last few days about Didsbury Park. The article in the MEN began "I explored a hidden oasis of blossom trees in this popular Manchester suburb......"
Picture 2 was taken later on Saturday morning when more people had arrived to admire, picnic under and photograph themselves with the blossom trees in the background. It has been a truly amazing weekend for visitors which hopefully helped to boost the cafe's business.
The weather on Saturday was particularly beautiful too, and with all the local primary schools sending representatives to the Big Spring Clean Up, we had some great 'fun in the sun'! I am delighted to report that after an hour, we had the litter picking teams returning to the volunteer's shelter claiming that there was no more litter in the park. So we had to switch our attention to other cleaning jobs.
In particular picture 3 shows some of our young volunteers cleaning the mildew from the railings around the bowling green. A huge thank you to everyone who participated and a big thank you to Allan and Tom who helped me to run the event on the day.
TODAY
Whilst today was somewhat chillier than Saturday, nevertheless we still had a good turnout of 59 volunteers. Once again, we welcomed a good contingent of volunteers from Bovis as well as our regular students and staff from Brentwood College and from Bridge College. It was also great to see Maas having the opportunity to volunteer with us again.
Roger Morris came along to give us some more training sessions on power tools - thank you Roger. We also had a visit from Sue Polshaw our current MCC ranger. Today was also very special, because we had two previous regular volunteers returning for a social visit at break time. Charlie came to see us today to proudly show us her beautiful, 3 month old new baby girl called Elin. Congratulations Charlie, firstly on having such a lovely baby and secondly for introducing her so early to the world of volunteering!!
We were also delighted to welcome Robin, who also made a guest appearance at coffee time today. Robin is infamous for the incredible impact he made in rescuing and maintaining the Poppy Path, almost single handed at times, before illness sadly curtailed his activities. We were all pleased to see how well you were looking today Robin. Everybody was made very welcome.
TODAY - LITTER PICKING NEEDED AFTER A BUSY WEEKEND
As already mentioned, on Saturday morning there was not a spec of litter in the whole park. However, by Saturday evening, with so many visitors to the park throughout the day, the situation in the park had changed dramatically, such that our Saturday hero, Alan Thurm, volunteered to undertake an immediate emergency litter pick across the whole park in the evening.
The problem on Saturday seemed to be caused mainly by visitors from outside the area not being used to taking care of their litter in a public park. However, come Sunday morning we had another big problem with litter again due to the inadequacy of the old litter bins in the park being able to contain the litter in them without the wildlife spreading it across the park again on Sunday morning. Despite requesting help from MCC, on many occasions, to solve the problem of the unlidded bins, we are still frustratingly having to continuously take action to work around the deficiencies of the currently installed litter bins.
So this morning, we put a lot of effort into cleaning up any remaining litter in the park. Our litter pickers today were Andrew and young Winnie, Ben and young Emilene, Sigad and Sheeba from Bridge College, and 3 of the Bovis team members. There was enough litter for them all to be fully employed throughout the morning and thankfully at the end of this hard work the park was looking pristine again.
Thank you everyone. This was a great job - well done!
TODAY - SOWING MORE WILD FLOWER MEADOW SEEDS AND HOPING FOR A LOVELY CROP OF WILD FLOWERS IN THE SUMMER
Thanks to support from Will and Felix White from MCC, we were able to "scratch and sow" a top up batch of wild flower seeds in the wild flower meadow this morning. Our team of Wendy, Christine, Jane, Anne and Gill B, under guidance from Kevin, carefully followed a simple guide on scratch and sow techniques and sowed the supplied seeds in the most appropriate areas of the wild flower area. Thank you all. Fingers crossed for a good crop in the summer!!
TODAY - GETTING ON TOP OF THE EMERGING SPRING WEEDS
Having completed the sowing of seeds on the wild flower meadow the team joined Jude and others, to focus upon the Flower Walk near the Sandhurst Road entrance. Picture 4 shows (from front to back next to the kick fence) Jane, Christine, Wendy, Lorna and Maas and from front to back in the flower bed, Gill B, Anne (with her back to us), Jude and Carl M.
Picture 5 is a close up picture of Lorna and Maas, on the path and Anne and Jude in the flower bed. Allan was also working with this team, but cannot be seen as he is behind the pampas grass. Thank you all - your work made a big improvement on this very weedy area.
Thank you also to Julie, Lucy, and Anne W who were working at the opposite end of the Flower Walk and along the Wilmslow Road Path. Thank you.
Picture 6 is a picture of Louise and Denise who did a great job weeding and feeding the rose beds today. Thank you - these beds are really a credit to you both!
TODAY - DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS
A large section of the Bovis team took on a huge project today when they tackled the drainage problem which occurs along the main path between the Sandhurst Road and Gillbrook Road entrances. Starting at the Sandhurst Road end of the path they dug out a long drainage trench, bottomed it with sand and then added the drainage pebbles which we had purchased and had delivered last week.
Picture 7 shows half a dozen members of the Bovis team posing for a photograph alongside the drainage work they had completed. Thank you all - this was a great result.
TODAY - ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
The heavy gang of Muray, Carl N, Gary and a couple of the Bovis volunteers did an excellent job to erect the second set of goal posts on the sports field today. Picture 8 shows Gary and two Bovis volunteers carrying one of the sets of goal posts to the pitch. Thank you guys - this will be really appreciated by the footballers.
Picture 9 shows Anne W, Lucy and Julie on their way to complete their hedge trimmer training with Roger. This was the second course undertaken by Roger this morning, having just completed the hand-held pruning saw training with Patrick, Taylan and Chris.
A big thank you to Gill N who re-filled all the dog bag dispensers at all 5 entrances of the park as well as managing the large hot drinks order today. Thank you, as ever, Gill.
One of the big projects we did today was to continue the Saturday work of the children and carry on cleaning all the mildew off the railings around the bowling green. In some areas the mildew was over 12 years old and required a bit of elbow grease to get it off. So we arranged a large number of people in 2 teams. Chris, Taylan and Patrick all worked together in one team and all the students and staff from Brentwood College made up the other team. Both teams did an amazing job and the railings are starting to look so much better as a result. Thank you all.
Unfortunately, there had been some vandalism of the moss garden over the weekend and so Tristan's first job today was to rectify everything before going on to add more moss to the garden thanks to a donation of moss from Louise. Thank you Tristan and Louise.
Kevin did some quick repair work on one of the willow whip hedges this morning prior to working with Roger to complete the last of the planned bug hotels. Thank you both - I have a great picture of one of the bug huts nestled in among the daffodils but unfortunately it did not make the cut this week - I will try for next week. Well done Kevin and Roger.
Thank you once again to Brenda who worked really hard not only at the Gillbrook Road gate but also did a super clear up at the cafe entrance too! Thank you Brenda.
I think the weather on Saturday has brought hope to many people that the warmer weather cannot be far away now. This was re-inforced in the park today when Gary gave the cricket square the second cutting of the season. It is really starting to look like a great square now - thank you Gary!
GOOD NEWS TO FINISH ON - FUTURE PLANS FOR NEW PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT
When the new equipment for the children's playground was installed circa 10 years or so ago, there was one piece of the old equipment which remained in situ. I am pleased to report that I have heard from MCC that they are planning to replace this old piece of equipment imminently. The piece of equipment which is due to be removed is what we call the "big slide" - the one we have repainted on several occasions.
Picture 10 shows a picture of the new equipment which MCC have chosen as the replacement.
Thank you once again for your amazing support.