Heatwave Heroes, RHS Preparations and Another Blow from Vandalism
LAST WEEK - THANK YOU TO THE HEAT WAVE RESCUE TEAM!
I would like to start this week's update by saying a huge thank you to all the volunteers who put in extra shifts during the heatwave throughout last week. We managed to water the priority flower beds to ensure that we saved most of our vital flowers and plants.
Unfortunately, we did lose all the non-stop begonias around the roundabout so we had to rework and tidy up this flower bed today. A huge thank you must go to Sonia, Allan, Sandra, Jane, Steve, Paul and myself who all participated in the rota of early morning and evening waterings.
We would like to keep a rota going this week too, particularly at the beginning of the week ahead of the arrival of the RHS judges on Thursday morning. If you can help say for an hour either at 8:30am or 5pm any day, will you kindly let me know please?
TODAY
Knowing that we were not expecting any additional volunteers from business this morning, it was really encouraging to see that we still had a great turnout of 43 volunteers. Our volunteers today also included 3 new local volunteers Sarah, Hermes and Simone. The weather was really odd this morning. Whilst being sunny and hot most of the time, every so often we could see and smell drifting clouds of smoke from the grassland fires around Greater Manchester.
Last week we said goodbye for the summer to Sigad and Sheeba from Bridge College. This week we also said goodbye to all the staff and student volunteers from Brentwood High School and Community College. We shall miss their smiles and infectious enthusiasm. Despite their complex needs and physical difficulties, they have been a pleasure to be with throughout the year. They have always been so incredibly positive about everything they did.
We shall miss their lovely company but do expect to see Anna back again in September with another group of lovely students. Everybody was made very welcome.
TODAY - DEPRESSINGLY VANDALISM CONTINUES
We had made arrangements this week with Geoff to repair the badly vandalised circular bench around the Giant Redwood tree. However, we sadly discovered today that further vandalism took place overnight last night on other sections of the same bench. The vandals seem intent on destroying this lovely bench.
Following discussions this evening, we feel we have no alternative but to remove the bench before it is completely demolished. At the moment, with a lot of work, it is still repairable. What a sad state of affairs it is when wanton destruction takes place like this in a beautiful park.
TODAY - PREPARATIONS FOR RHS JUDGES VISIT ON THURSDAY
I am pleased to report that having had about 300 cars parked throughout the park on Sunday, at the Didsbury Car Show, just 4 days before the park is judged by the RHS, we do seem to have got away pretty much unscathed. Thank you to Paul and Helen and all the Car Show organisers who did a great tidy up job afterwards.
So today our main activities focussed upon the last minute jobs of weeding and watering our main flower beds.
Our watering champions today were Grace who watered the full length of the Flower Walk and our new volunteer, Hermes, who watered the summer plants edging the wild flower meadow and the beds near Buddy and Lucy. Thank you both.
Most of our team today worked on removing the weeds and tidying up the flower beds.
Felix, Patrick, Taylan, Chris, Hermes, and Steve made short work of removing all the dead summer bedding plants from the roundabout and temporarily applying a layer of woodchip. Steve then carried on afterwards to tidy up the willow fencing around the edging of the roundabout. Picture 1 shows Steve posing in front of the finished article. Thank you all - this was a great job and a huge improvement on the look of the roundabout.
Louise, Simone and Denise concentrated on the rose beds in the middle of the park where because of their distance from any water taps, they were starting to suffer from the hot dry weather. Patrick, Chris and Taylan used the large water bowser to help, as best they could, to provide some water for these rose beds. Thank you all.
The Flower Walk had the bulk of the team concentrating on it today. Picture 2 shows Wendy returning to the skip with a wheelbarrow loaded up with green waste from the Flower Walk.
Picture 3 shows Julie and Jude further along the Flower Walk, again with a wheelbarrow full of weeds. In addition, I would like to say a huge thank you to the rest of the gang on the Flower Walk including Jane, Christine, Wendy, Gill B, Joyce, Sarah, Anne W, Carl, Ilma and Lucy who worked really hard and made a fantastic improvement to the whole Flower Walk.
TODAY - GETTING READY FOR THE NEW BENCH NEXT MONDAY
Today Murray and Steve, completed the final preparations for the delivery of the new bench next week. The old temporary kick fencing was removed and new small sections of kick fencing were cut out and carefully inserted to create a smooth edging.
Picture 4 shows Steve holding a piece of 4x4 kick fencing whilst Murray carefully and skilfully cuts a new small section to size. Picture 5 shows the completed new hardstanding area ready for the new bench. Thank you Murray and Steve. This was an excellent job.
TODAY - LITTER AND PATH CLEANING
With such a large event in the park on Sunday we needed to give the park a bit of a "deep clean " this morning. Thanks to Joyce and our regular litter picking teams of Andrew and young Winnie, and Ben and young Emilene we were able to collect a few bin bags of the minutia of litter left after the car show. The park was looking pristine again afterwards. A huge thank you to you all.
Picture 6 shows Brenda, looking the part, as she arrived in the park first thing this morning about an hour before anybody else. The picture shows Brenda with her personal lightweight equipment ready to clean up the path at the Gillbrook Road entrance. Thank you for all your hard work today Brenda.
Thank you once again from me for your fantastic support.