Celebrating 50,000 Volunteer Hours in Didsbury Park
AN AMAZING MILESTONE ACHIEVED BY THE VOLUNTEERS FROM THE FRIENDS OF DIDSBURY PARK - 50,000 HOURS OF VOLUNTARY WORK
The Didsbury Park Volunteers began volunteering for the first time on a Monday morning on Monday 3rd November 2014. We had no tools, or hi-vis jackets or gloves but we were supported by Colin Evans from MCC who arrived in an MCC van containing one wheelbarrow and an assortment of second hand tools. On that first morning there were 8 of us plus Colin. The atmosphere was amazing, as we were determined that we were going to save this overgrown litter strewn park and make it something which our local community would enjoy, be proud of and respect for years to come.
Throughout the whole time we have been volunteering I have kept an accurate register of all our work and so we can be confident that our attendance records are correct.
Here is a copy (in picture 2) of our first month's volunteering showing the first 17 pioneering volunteers.
In the beginning we would meet up every Monday morning and use borrowed tools until we applied for our first £500 NIF grant and bought ourselves a few spades and gardening forks. But as we had nowhere to store our tools it was a case of me wheeling them home in my own wheelbarrow each week and wheeling them back again the following week.
After a few weeks we began to realise just how big a challenge we had taken on and Colin came to our help once again. He organised some MCC contracted staff to help. They were given some very simple instructions "go right through every flower bed in the park and cut everything back to 6ft or below".
Whilst this was very effective with many of the very ordinary shrubs, especially laurel, it did give us a few palpitations - so we rapidly put red tape around a few of the better plants worth saving and changed the instructions to "cut everything back except the shrubs with red tape around them". This blitz on the park lasted for weeks. One of the most amusing stories about this process was that when the flower beds between the rockery and Gillbrook Road were pruned back we came across a full size Lambretta scooter which had been hidden in the undergrowth of the flower bed. It must have been there for years because the scooter had got so rusty that nobody could determine its original colour.
Gradually, as our volunteers grew in numbers we were able to expand the coverage of our work in the park.
As a result, today, nearly 11 years later our work covers the whole park. In the early days our work involved rescuing the park from the terrible state it was in, the middle years we spent enhancing it with new projects such as the Flower Walk, woodland trail, Buddy and Lucy and the wild flower meadow. Finally in these last few years it is being recognised for the beautiful park and community asset it now is.
Recognition has come in a number of forms:
Every year since 2016 (with the exception of covid years) the park has achieved the "outstanding" category in the "In Your Neighbourhood" competition by the RHS
In 2022 the park was voted by the public in a national parks competition, to be the 'Most Favourite' park in Manchester.
In 2023 our volunteers were awarded the KIngs Award for Voluntary Service, the highest honour which can be bestowed upon a volunteer group in the UK and equivalent to an MBE
In 2024 the RHS awarded the park a "Gold" award in the "small parks category", believed to be one of only 5 such gold awards in the North West of England.
The motto of the Friends of Didsbury Park is Enhancing, Promoting and Protecting and we are all very proud that our volunteers have been able to follow this proudly for the last 11 years..
A huge congratulations to everybody involved and thank you!
To mark this momentous achievement there will be a small reception and celebration for Didsbury Park Volunteers (both past and present) next Monday at 11:30 in the garden of the DGN in Didsbury Park (we will of course have a normal volunteering session in the morning between 09:30 and 11:15).
Guests of honour will be the Lord Mayor of the City of Manchester, Cllr Carmine Grimshaw and Cllr Lee-Ann Igbon Executive Member for Vibrant Communities.
I look forward to seeing you there!
TODAY
Weatherwise it was a bit of a drizzly day today with intermittent showers throughout the morning. Nevertheless, we had a good turnout of 35 volunteers, including a team of 5 from Groupo Bimbo who did a great piece of work re-laying the woodchip path along the woodland trail (see picture 3). We also had a good contingent of young litter pickers, taking advantage of their last few days of the school summer holidays.
Picture 4 shows young Eoghan with Mum Marita. Picture 5 shows young Avery with Grannie Joyce. Lorna was also in attendance with young Luke but these days Luke prefers to do more manly jobs and so was very active in filling up the green waste skip. It was also great to see Andrew (without young Winnie) also doing a litter pick for us today. Thank you all.
The big news today (as well as the 50,000 hours) was that John returned to volunteering with us after being away most of the summer and announced that while he had been away he had got married! It was congratulations all round for John at the coffee break. John can be seen in Picture 6 working on one of the rose beds with Denise and Louise. Well done John - we all wish you the very best and lots of happiness for the future.
TODAY - THE PRESSURE OF THE PREMIER LEAGUE
One of our top priority jobs today was to bring the football pitch back into operation for the children now that the football season has started up again.
Picture 7 shows Adrian and Esme installing the first of the replacement goal post sleeves which we had to purchase in order to replace the ones damaged by the large lawnmowers on the sports field. Today was a great start. Thank you Adrian and Esme.
TODAY - HORTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES
The main horticultural work today was as follows:
Jude, Tristan, Sandra and Christine worked on weeding the Flower Walk, the beds near the Wilmslow Road entrance, and the rockery. See picture 8 of Tristan working on the rockery. This beds are maintained beautifully - thank you
Picture 6 shows John, Denise and Louise maintaining the rose beds. Thank you all - this was a great piece of work.
Picture 9 shows Shasvat, Chris and Patrick pruning the large privet hedge bordering the park. As a result both the houses on the boundary and the surrounding flower beds received a lot more light. Thank you guys. Really good work.
Augustine and David tidied up the overgrown hedging around the Didsbury Neighbourhood Centre. Once again this really improved the tidiness of this whole area . Thank you both.
Officially today is the first day of Autumn and as all the advice is that Autumn is early this year, Allan set about strimming the flowers in the wild flower meadow today. This was a huge job and he made great progress but there is more to finish off next week.
Sonia once again oversaw the horticultural maintenance of the area around Buddy and Lucy and then went on later to tidy up the leaf covered flower bed at the roundabout. Both areas looked super again after this work. Thank you Sonia.
TODAY - ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
Once again, in Gary's absence, Carl N stepped in and made a great job of mowing and marking up the cricket pitch. Thank you Carl - super job
A huge thank you to Lesley for updating all the lecterns with the new posters about the achievement of 5,000 hours! Thank you Lesley.
Thank you to Brenda for once again spring cleaning around the Gillbrook Road entrance.
Following the launch of the bug hotel last week, Kevin assisted by Carl, enhanced the current bug hotel build with the introduction of some log retaining features. Thank you guys.
Last week we could not fit all our green waste into the skip so we temporarily stockpiled it behind the shelter. There was rather a lot of it. This week Anne volunteered to transfer it into today's empty skip. This was an amazing job and although later on Anne was helped by Lorna and Luke it took all morning to clear the backlog from last week. Well done Anne for doing the bulk of this work and to Lorna and Luke for being a big help.
HISTORICAL MYSTERY PICTURE - COMPRESSOR PLANT 1913
In her research Louise has come across this picture entitled Compressor Plant, Didsbury Park, 1913. We are both at a loss. Neither of us has any knowledge of such a plant being in the park? Can anybody help shed any light on this? It might of course be wrongly titled?
Thank you once again for your continued amazing support.