"We: aim to keep Manley Park a thriving, safe green community space; meet every two months; hold an annual Fun Day, plus cleanup and planting days.
Contact us to –
share ideas about the park;
display a poster;
hold an event in the park;
or share equipment."

Friends Of Manley Park  

Annual Report January 2007 – January 2008   

Summary 

This year the group has strengthened its links with other community groups, council departments and local schools.

We have finally replaced the pod swing with two tall swings and are continuing to add to the benches and bins in the park.

We have also begun to increase the planting in the park which will be done in ways which will create habitats for wildlife.  

Although our committee and membership remain largely the same, we also now have a group of regular volunteers and supporters who help out at events and/or spread or bring us news about the park. 

The noticeboards are now established as a source of local information and our Fun Day has become a local annual event. 

The park was again awarded a Green Flag. 

Maintenance, Equipment and Planting 

We now have a sports noticeboard on the Ball Area fence. This is to advertise local clubs and venues for those who want to take their sports further. 

The Play Area looks complete now as it has extra benches, new swings and some roll bars. There is an extra bench in the shade and a bench for adults supervising children on the large multiplay. 

People have been asking for the taller swings for some time and having a set of swings for older children has meant that the other set can be used more by toddlers and young children.  

The roll bars were chosen because they could be sited on the grass and because girls like them.   

The Play Area and the Ball Area continue to be very well used.  

The maintenance of the park was taken over by Glendales this year, and there were some  problems, but the parks department has now appointed someone to oversee their work.

The lighting in Manchester is now done by Amey and this includes the floodlights in the park. It took them months to realign the lights despite being continually reminded by parks staff and councillors. 

The gate for the vehicle entrance to the park has been widened to make it easier for larger vehicles to get on to the park when we hold events. This will hopefully also mean no more damage being done to the pedestrian gate. 

The notices about food dumping have been put in  and we will have our large community noticeboard soon (when it's legs are long enough). 

The annual windflower meadow was refreshed and flowered again this year and hedging plants and trees have been ordered. The conifers in the Lime Avenue will be replaced by limes so that the avenue is complete. The avenue is a good habitat for bats. John's bird boxes in the lime trees have stayed up this year. 

Events 

We held a Health Day on 25^th March and a Fun Day on 8^th July.  

The Health Day only had a £500 budget and was intended to be a small event, but a combination of the first sunny day for ages and extra help from the council's Environmental Campaigns team changed it into a big event. 

We had professional basketball and rugby coaches and two volunteers organised a football game between hordes of children. Healthy food was provided by local businesses and prepared by volunteers and Bikeright ran a bicycle repair workshop.

The themes of exercise, healthy eating and looking after the planet were brought together by Blendavenda who uses cycle power to make fruit smoothies.  

All three local primary schools contributed displays about their work and the school meals service also came to the event. 

We were grateful for the Parks Department's new gazebos in July because we had rain for the first hour of our Fun Day, but this was followed by 2 hours of sunshine.

 There were several new stalls including jewellery and Asian suits, Mosscare Housing and  the Red Cross and lots of familiar faces returned as volunteers and to run workshops.

Despite the fact that we could not afford a stage this year, Tap Rhythm provided a very entertaining workshop and local resident Meenu and her daughter Shavani (9) drew a huge crowd when they performed traditional Indian dancing.  

 The Dukeries Neighbours Association held their Neighbour's day in the park on 10^th June and Manley Park Infant School held a sponsored walk in the park in July. 

The park was also used by the JNR8 Cookery club in December when they held their night time lantern walk. Members of the Friends group helped out with these events. 

Links with other groups and Organisations 

Through the Health Day and the Fun Day we have made contacts with many of the community groups in our local area and worked closely with different council departments:particularly Ward Co-ordination, Operational Services and Environmental Campaigns.

We have also strengthened our links with the local primary schools and the JNR8 Community centre. 

Members of our group attended meetings of, and/or are involved with, Ward Co-ordination, The Whalley Range Forum, Dukeries Neighbours Association, Young Celebrate, All Year Celebrate, Celebrate Festival and Whalley Range in Bloom.

We also helped with the setting up of two new groups this year: the Manley Park Primary School P.T.A and the Al Buraaq Women's group. 

We have helped the groups with the mechanics of setting up by writing minutes and letters and filling in grant applications and sharing our knowledge of grants, council departments, constitutions and other formal requirements and so on.

We have used our bank account to allow the new groups to apply for grants and for local people to apply for Neighbour's Day grants. We have also helped out at, and shared our equipment and contacts with, people holding Neighbour's Days, the school P.T.A. for their Autumn Fair and the Al Buraaq Chandraat. The Parks Department also lent The Al Buraaq group gazebos for their event. 

 Future Plans 

The tree and hedge planting will be completed by the end of the winter and we can then make plans for a perennial wild flower area. Some of the lecterns need new perspex covers as they are very foggy and the broken self closing gate needs fixing. We have not yet done anything about the play area noticeboard.

Our large community noticeboard will arrive. The Fun Day is booked for June 29^th and is already funded by grants and we will be holding a skipping event jointly with Young Celebrate on March 1^st. 

We have found working closely with other groups very useful for generating ideas and volunteers for activities in the park and would like to continue doing this. In particular we would like to get different groups running activities together at the Fun Day rather than running stalls for their particular groups and to encourage the groups to hold activities in the park.