A report

12 months work!

During the last year the committee has continued to work hard.
We started to go to the park about once a month to do some gardening – essentially a bit of tidying and a lot of weeding together with adding to the planting.
We have also been trying to find a way to keep the public toilets open for at least a few occasions – such as after school on nice days and when there are events, small or large in the park. This has proved difficult. Although MCC has been very cooperative, and indeed offered us a small grant to support us, they want us to take over total responsibility for the block which is something the we feel we don't have the resources to do – a shame as we put a great deal of our energies into this.
We were also given a grant by MCC for some improvements to the play area. In the late autumn a small slide was added to the clambering boulders as a part of this. We should also be able to replace the hammock which was vandalised and to add a carriage to the play train.
Distracted, perhaps, by the toilets project we only began to pay attention to the state of the play area surface in the last few months. We are trying to work with South Manchester Leisure to deal with this. The surface has deteriorated so that whilst the top surface is still smooth and clear the bouncy foam under this has become solid in parts. It is only 3 years old and we don't think that this should have happened so quickly.
A little while ago some of us started an oral history project. After a hiatus we were stimulate by having a stall in March 2012 at the Manchester Histories Festival we revisited our presentations of the project and have just placed these on an Oral History section of our website. I hope that it is interesting.
We are holding our annual AGM on Tuesday 19th June at 19.30 in St. Wilfrid's Church Hall. We are working on final arrangements for this and hope to have some interesting talks by speakers about the plants of the Mersey Valley and concerns about Manchester's open spaces and parks. I'll post more details, and a reminder, nearer the date! Please come along to support us and to become involved in our small group.
Although we have had a website from our inception keeping a running blog with up to date information is something which we have only just started (April 2012).