Major Poppy Path Rescue & Record Volunteer Turnout in Didsbury Park
LAST FRIDAY - MAJOR RESCUE PROJECT ON THE POPPY PATH
In 2017 the Friends of Didsbury Park set up a major project to rescue the overgrown, dirty, fly tip path that was a popular route for the children walking to and from the local primary schools. As a result the whole community came together with neighbours, regular park volunteers, parents and local councillors, all rolling up their sleeves and helping to clear this path of its rubbish, turn over the soil and sow 3 million poppy seeds to commemorate the centenary of the end of the First World War.
The path was named the Poppy Path and a popular street artist was engaged to paint a beautiful poppy field scene across the bridge. A crowdfunding activity provided an ongoing budget to maintain the path and a neighbourhood team was set up to manage ongoing maintenance work. Unfortunately, despite John's valiant efforts to keep it going, the Poppy Path maintenance team is struggling to keep on top of the work.
So on Friday last week Murray, Allan and myself took advantage of the support from 32 volunteers from the Manchester based Forvis Mazars team to undertake a rescue act on the Poppy Path.
Picture 1 shows the row of wheelbarrows loaded with tools which we had prepared for the team prior to their arrival and picture 2 shows most of the team posing in a picture at the end of the morning and using the wheelbarrows, this time as a resting facility. The transformation of the Poppy Path after all the work of the volunteers was just amazing. Thank you to the Mazars volunteers and especial thanks to Murray and Allan for giving up an extra day of their time to help to supervise this huge piece of work.
TODAY
In complete contrast to last Monday when, thanks to Storm Floris, we were absolutely soaked, today we had a beautiful, dry sunny morning which was a much more pleasing proposition for many of our regular volunteers. In total we had a great turnout of 52 volunteers. We welcomed a new local volunteer Nico. In addition from businesses we welcomed 8 volunteers from Kellanova (formerly known as Kelloggs), 6 volunteers from the Co-op Bank, 2 volunteers from Xero, and 2 volunteers from Carrier the luxury travel company.
Sonia also brought along two of her grandchildren Mia and Jasmine, (see picture 3) who helped tidy up around Buddy and Lucy.
It was great to see Gill B once again after her holiday travels in France. We were also delighted to see Laurent one of our students for the first time this summer vacation and his Mum Marie-Claude. They worked really hard in the sunshine tidying up the tree bases (see picture 4). Everybody was made very welcome.
TODAY - THE MAINTENANCE OF THE AREA AROUND BUDDY AND LUCY
We now have some stunning flower beds in the area around Buddy and Lucy. This is mainly down to teams working every week in this area under the guidance of Sonia. Today was no exception as Fasil, Kedir, Augustine, Mia and Jasmine all set about weeding and tidying up.
Picture 5 shows Kedir and Augustine posing for a picture on the newly cut grass, in front of one of the many colourful flower beds with the church steeple in the background. Great picture and great result. Thank you everyone who helped.
TODAY - THE WOODLAND AREA NEAR THE SANDHURST ROAD ENTRANCE
With the availability of the Co-op Bank volunteers today we were able to focus the Co-op team on woodland and hedge area bordering the Sandhurst Road entrance. 2 volunteers from the Co-op Bank helped to make a huge improvement to the area behind the hedging in the woodland area which had been overgrown with brambles.
Picture 6 shows the other 4 members of the Co-op Bank team who tidied up and weeded the area of the woodland bordering upon the main path. As can be seen from the photo, the area between the kick fencing and the main path looks impeccable. Thank you all.
TODAY - THE PROJECT TO REMOVE THE PRIVET HEDGING AROUND ONE OF THE LARGE CYPRESS TREES IN THE BIRD GARDEN
Picture 7 shows the large team of volunteers who undertook a major project of removing the old privet hedge around one of the cypress trees in the Bird Garden. This team included Carl M, Allan, Kedir, Chris and Shasvat from our regular volunteers and all 8 volunteers from Kellanova. This was a huge project which also revealed a lot of old bottles and rubbish in amongst the old hedge.
As can be seen from the picture, in the taped off area, there is still a little bit of root removal still to be completed next week. The improvement in the look of the Bid Garden as a result of this work is quite remarkable. Thank you to everyone who participated.
TODAY - THE FLOWER WALK
Pictures 8 and 9 show some of our team members working on the Flower Walk. The ever changing display of plants along here this summer has been stunning and now the teams are looking at what plants need splitting in order to bolster other flower beds around the park.
In picture 8 we see Gill B , Julie and Sophia attending to the weeding. Wendy, Sandra and Lesley were also working in this area but are not in this picture. In picture 9 further along the Flower Walk Tristan, Ilma and Julie are doing some cutting back, splitting and collecting seeds from existing plants. Thank you all. The Flower Walk is looking amazing.
TODAY - THE FLOWER BEDS LEADING TO THE WILMSLOW ROAD GATE
Picture 10 shows Lucy, Augustine and Anne clearing and pruning back some overgrown areas in the flower beds alongside the path to the Wilmslow Road gate. This required a lot of energy and stamina and made a huge improvement to the look of this area. Thank you all.
TODAY - ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
There was a lot of activity right across the park today including the following:
Samia and Vikash from Xero helped Brenda to sweep the paths around the Gillbrook Road entrance and made a huge improvement to this area - thank you all!
Gary once more mowed the cricket wicket and marked it up ready for another week of popular use by local children. This new facility has been one of the major successes of the summer - thank you Gary.
Nico, joined Carl N and Kevin in the woodland today to learn all about the latest Des Res of the insect world and to help construct another piece of the latest bug accommodation! I understand that the roof is due to be attached soon and then we may see some marketing pictures of these new bug hotels! Thank you all - can't wait for the show house to be ready!
Esme and Adrian continued with the construction of the surrounding fencing for new "oasis" bench area as well as fixing the work bench and fixed the punctured tyre of one of the water bowsers. This was an amazing morninings work. Thank you Esme and Adrian.
Murray continued with the next stage of upgrading the chain fencing near the cafe by attaching new fixings to the second set of posts. Thank you Murray.
And a big thank you to Lorna who has herself taken on the responsibility of trying to save the young hawthorn whips from dying off by ensuring that they are given regular watering using the water bowsers. This is a great initiative Lorna - thank you!
Finally I am afraid there were just too many volunteer activity pictures to select from this week to enable me to include an historical one - hopefully normal service will be resumed in next weeks update.
Thank you once again for all your amazing support.