Four Seasons in One Morning: 26 Volunteers Power Through in Didsbury Park
TODAY
It really was a case today of "when the going gets tough, the tough get going!". Like Melbourne in Australia, where they are renowned for regularly having 4 seasons in one day, I think we had the same this morning in Didsbury Park but with more emphasis on one particular season - winter!
Picture 1 captures the bravery and dedication of today's litter picking team of Ben and children Franklin and Emilene, and Andrew with daughter Winnie, as they worked in this awful weather today. The rest of the litter picking team of dad Gary and son Sebastian were still working elsewhere in the park when this picture was taken. In all we had 26 volunteers working valiantly in the park this morning. Our volunteers today also included guest volunteer Mike Hare from WSP Ltd. Everybody was made very welcome.
Special thanks must also go to Sandra today, for not only organising the coffee order but also for remembering to defrost the spare cake leftover from last week - this beautiful cake was a real bonus for us all today!
TODAY - WEEDING
One of the advantages of the many heavy rain and hailstone showers this morning was that despite the flower beds being a lot muddier, they were also much easier to weed.
Picture 2 shows Christine, Jude and Lesley tackling the abundant wood avens and alkanet weeds in the Flower Walk. Thank you Christine, Jude and Leslie and Sandra who joined you later - this was a great morning's work!
TODAY - WILD FLOWER MEADOW
The news about the opening to the public of the Didsbury Park wild flower meadow last week has certainly sparked the imagination of a lot of people. Amazingly, according to Sonia, we have had over 20,000 views on our Facebook account already!! Especial thanks to Allan, who during this week worked on tidying up all the edges between the lawned area and the wild flowers. This looked great today Allan - thank you. Allan also reported that he was in the wild flower meadow on Saturday (our only sunny day last week) and there were lots of people using the picnic benches and picnicing on blankets too. This is great feedback.
Picture 3 shows Taylan, Sandra and Kevin doing more work today to replace as many grass infested areas as possible with spare clumps of soil containing wild flowers. Thank you - this will hopefullly help us in the battle to eradicate these meadow grasses and return our area to attractive wild flowers. Picture 4 shows Lorna doing a similar task in a different part of the wild flower meadow. Thank you all.
TODAY - GRAFFITI ATTACK ON THE POPPY PATH - SORTED!
I would like to express my huge gratitude today to Alan. Sadly over the weekend (we think Sunday evening) the Poppy Path was vandalised with graffiti in 9 separate places. Picture 5 shows Alan, complete with graffiti removal kit, returning after 2 hours of solid work on the Poppy Path where he removed it all. A huge thank you from all of us Alan - this was an excellent piece of work.
p.s. please note the blue skies and sunshine in this photo - which we temporarily enjoyed for about 15 minutes!
TODAY - TIDYING BARRIERS AWAY
Picture 6 shows Taylan and Mustafa also taking advantage of the sunshine break, to retrieve the plastic barriers from where they had been used, when the tree fell down near the children's playground. Although that area of the park still contains large sections of the fallen tree, it is now deemed safe enough by MCC not to require the additional barriers. Thank you guys - this looks a lot tidier now.
TODAY - BENCH MAINTENANCE - HARDSTANDING TOP-UP
We undertook a project today to use some surplus compact gravel to top up the hard standings under some of the park's benches.
Picture 7 shows Mike filling a wheelbarrow with the compact gravel. Picture 8 shows Mike, David, Richard and Carl posing for a photo whilst working on the wooden bench near the volunteers shelter and Picture 9 shows the bench which had been completed next to the cafe. This was a great piece of work everyone, Thank you.
TODAY - ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
Picture 10 shows Brenda , temporarily sheltering from the rain, but with shovel in hand, ready to rush back again to tidying up around the Gillbrook Road entrance once the rain stopped. Thank you Brenda. Great work.
We have been reviewing the operation of our wild life camera, and, after some discussion, I am delighted to say that Tristan has agreed to undertake a review of how best to use it going forward. So one of our important tasks today was to remove the camera from its original tree position so that Tristan can start his work. Thanks to Allan, Tristan myself and Carl N. we successfully de-installed it this morning. Thank you all.