Northenden Civic Society website

I imagine that anyone who reads this will already know that the Northenden Civic Society launched their long awaited website in december 2012, however if you did not know ...

It is rather attractive and if you are interested in the activities of the Northenden Civic Society you can keep up to date with all their news and activities. Good luck to them. It is still new, and developing but already contains a lot of interest.

Application for funds for benches etc!

I feel a little bad for not managing to update this blog recently - other preoccupations, I'm afraid.

We have not managed to make any progress with our plan to manage to open on occasions and in a very supervised manner the toilets next to the Park. As a result at our last committee meeting we decided to, with some regret, give up on this and instead ...

... we have applied to use the funding for some picnic benches for the Park and for some additions to the play equipment and replacement of the damaged swing hammock.
Some of this should be installed very soon!

Thanks should go to Amy for all her very hard work in a very short timeframe to apply to use the funds in this way.

Oasis for The Arts Planned for Northenden

There will be a meeting on Wed 10th Oct at 7.30pm at the Northenden Methodist Church, Victoria Road to publicise plans for what sounds like an exciting project!

In their press release they say,

An oasis for for the arts and culture is being planned for Northenden.

The Northenden Methodist Church has issued an open invitation for all to attend a meeting about plans to renovate the 150 year old building into a state of the art theatre and venue for cultural, dance and music events.  “This is a fantastic opportunity for the people of Northenden to have their say as to how we can best preserve the history of the building and for them to tell us what facilities and events they would like to see in the future” says Church Minister and Chair of Wythenshawe David Brown.
Nigel Machin of AEW Architects has volunteered his time and skills to revise the building's internal layout. A new theatre, seating 96 people, dressing and rehearsal rooms will be built to the the rear of the church. His plans will also transform the Church Hall into a modern bright and airy space, a mezzanine floor will create a space for multi-purpose use by clubs and groups, along with a separate refurbished area for worship.”This project could be the flagship for Churches across the country” says Nigel Machin” Many Churches are sadly no longer in use, this project would place the Northenden Church in the heart of the community”.

 Along with a presentation by the architect of his plans and a model of the proposed  internal layout, there will be the opportunity to discuss the activities and events people would like to see at the new venue.

An exciting prospect! Their website containing more information about this, and other local projects is at www.woasis.org.uk

AGM last Tuesday!

Although attendance was a little bit light since there was another attraction - the England football game  - we had a successful AGM!

We elected a new committee for the year;
Gwyneth Lloyd continues as Chair - thanks for doing this,
Papa Andoh-Kweku continues as Vice-Chair
Anna Bunney as Treasurer
Amy Carline will act as Secretary and Minutes Sec, with Sandra Bracegirdle stepping down - thanks to Sandra for her work and to Amy for taking over, continuing
Joan Mycock Membership Sec
Dave Wilson, Lynne Oldfield, Conor Jerram and Mary diMauro continue and we welcomed Fran Shone to the committee


Our Chair reported on the year and we talked about things we might want to do this year.


Dave Bishop, the Chair of the Friends of Chorlton Meadows gave us a highly interesting talk on the plant life in the Mersey Valley. I hadn't realised the range of diversity and how interesting the plant life is. I was particularly taken by the historical background of local naturalists documenting the local flora and by his hypotheses about the origins of some of the flora.


Now we just need to arrange our next committee meeting to start to plan for the year and, I hope, to follow up some of the ideas which were provoked by Dave Bishop. Thanks so much to him for coming to talk to us.

The river level!

Even though I was kept slightly awake by heavy persistent rain on my roof window in the early hours of Saturday I was not prepared to see the river level so high this morning when I went out to buy my newspaper!

The weir was totally washed out with large quantities of debris floating down the river. I glanced at the
Environment Agency river levels data for Northenden Weir this afternoon which confirmed that the level had risen very quickly overnight! I imagine that they will at least be considering opening the sluice gates at Stenner Woods in Didsbury to reduce the level.

Friends Group AGM 2012

This year's AGM is on Tuesday 19th June at St Wilfrid's Church Hall, Ford Lane, Northenden

The AGM will start at 7.30pm with the formal business of reporting back on the year and electing a new committee.

After a short break for tea and biscuits we are pleased to welcome Dave Bishop, chair of the Friends of Chorlton Meadows, who will talk to us for about 3/4 of an hour about natural life in the Mersey Valley.
We are looking forward to this as it should be highly interesting and informative, as well as stimulating us to get more involved with the plant and wild life in our area.

Yet more spring sightings!

A glorious walk upstream to Fletcher Moss yesterday, for tea and cake, yet again!
And we saw a small flock of swallows for the first time this year. This made me think that I'd made a good selection of a photo for this blog!
There was also a kestrel swooping over the river near Simon's Bridge.



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Location:Boat Ln,Manchester,United Kingdom