Sunday 28 August 2016

FoMBL Work Party Report 27.08.16

Hi again everyone, I am back this month after a wonderful birthday weekend last month. Again, I want to thank everyone for helping out last month while I was off.

This month we got some beautiful weather which made the work all that much better. Everyone arrived quite promptly at 10am to get to work. I decided to focus the work on the East and West Meadows as these two areas have been a bit neglected and the litter was piled deep; remnants from the Festival I can only assume. Litter picking took up most of the time with me in the West Meadows with help from Derek and Joe while they trimmed up some trees along Melville Drive. In the East Meadows, Eileen, Suzanne, Jacob and Connor were busy picking up litter; though no one got all the way to the tennis courts as there was so much to pick up. 

Heather and Robin stayed at the Pavilion with the intention to finish the seeding from last month, though got stuck into some edging instead; utilising the scraps to do some patching. I believe that Bob did some work in this area also before leaving at coffee time. Alec and Andy did a fantastic job clearing the weeds that were growing fast and thick around the croquet club. Again, this took quite some time and the edging didn’t get started until after the coffee break. The area looked so much cleaner and neater, as I had also done a litter pick near the croquet club and playground.

While picking up litter in the West Meadows, it was a nice surprise to hear a “Thank you for taking that rubbish” from a runner-by. While I didn’t get a chance to chat to him, it is good to know that the work we do does go noticed. I think we can sometimes struggle to see any results and feel that we never really get too far.

At 11.15am, we sat for our coffee break at the Pavilion Café as we always do. Eileen, Robin and Bob had to leave now, and the rest of us went to finish some tasks. Andy and Alec cleaned their weed scraps and did some extra edging around the croquet club while Heather utilised Jacob and Connor to do the seeding at the Pavilion. Derek, Joe and I ventured to the East Meadows to try and get a bit closer with the litter eradication and were kept busy right up until 12.30pm when we stopped for the day.

We were lucky to have Park Ranger, Peter with us for the day offering assistance and support. Our FoMBL equipment is now secure in the shed that Andy provided, and we now have it all locked up tight.

Our next working party will be Saturday 24th September. Next month we will require some volunteers to help Sarah in the Wildflower plot which will be a nice change. 

Don’t forget your gloves and £1 for coffee! See you then!

Tammy Rudduck