Tag Archives: Friends

The 2012 Bulb Bonanza Makes a Difference – With Your Help

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500 Bulbs to Plant

Saturday 27th October is “Make a Difference Day” – run by the Community Service Volunteers (CSV), it is the UK’s biggest day of volunteering, and provides opportunities for thousands of people to volunteer every year in activities across the country. 

The Friends of Parkinson’s Park, have therefore decided to dedicate our regular Saturday morning working party to  a special project to ‘make a difference’ to the Park .   The task is to plan 500 small daffodil bulbs which have been given to us by the Groundwork Trust Continue reading →

It’s Your Neighbourhood

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It’s Your Neighbourhood -Friends of Parkinson’s Park, Level 3 Developing

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) supports a grassroots community gardening scheme called It’s Your Neighbourhood (IYN).  The idea is help local people to “clean up and green up their immediate local environment to make a lasting improvement- whether that’s the street they live in, or a small patch of communal land needing a revamp”.   By 2012 over 1,000 groups from all over the UK had signed up to the scheme and Parkinson’s Park is one of them. Continue reading →

Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Community Picnic

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Queen’s Jubilee Community Picnic Invitation

Come and join your neighbours in a community picnic to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.   As Parkinson’s Park starts to look like it’s old self,  we thought we’d revive some of the old events.  To start with, we’d like to bring elements of the Parkinson’s Children’s Gala back to life,  only this time as a Jubilee picnic with games for all the family.

The event will be held on Tuesday, 5th June 2012,  2,30-5pm,  at the top of the Park (Little Kelcliffe).  There will be family fun with a ‘follow the diamonds’ trail, and traditional games such as egg and spoon races, and welly wanging.  If there are games you’d like to see included from the old Gala days,  please let us know before the 28th May in the comments below. Continue reading →

The Birds, the Bees and Our Jubilee Trees – Darren Shepherd

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Liz, Ben and Freddie Lawson, digging the new 'supermarket' foundations

A great day yesterday, planting out our new trees, to create a field edge scrubland habitat for the birds and wildlife of Parkinson’s Park.  All the trees we planted are native British trees which provide food and shelter for our disappearing wildlife.  We planted hazel (nuts and catkins), elder (berries and flowers), blackthorn (flowers and sloe berries), dog rose (flowers and rose hips), and crab apple (flowers and fruit): a brilliant mix to diversify the habitat at the top of Great Brow, and complement the existing old, tall, hawthorn hedge.

Once grown, the new scrub area will benefit both resident and summer migrant birds by increasing the natural food harvest.  It will also provide shelter for willow warblers, chiffchaffs, blackcaps and garden warblers who breed and migrate through this area in large numbers in spring.

The tree-tits and goldcrests will love this improvement, Continue reading →

” He Who Plants A Tree, Plants A Hope”

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Darren Shepherd, tells David Myers about the trees as Friends gather with spades

“A superb morning and a great effort by like minded people”.  That was the verdict of the Friends who turned out on a drizzly morning to be told by project manager Darren Shepherd how to slit plant 104 trees donated by the Woodland Trust for a wildlife shrub border to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee.

After an initial damp start, we were soon stripping off, as the sun beat down on our efforts, and the digging started to work those calories.  As if to help us, no sooner had we finished our Yorkshire snack of tasty fruit cake and cheese, than the heavens opened and rained poured down on the newly planted whips: we hope that is a good omen !

This was the first Friends project to get underway,  and Councillor Graham Latty came to open the event and wish us well.  Continue reading →

Plant A Tree For The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

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Planting a Jubilee Tree

UPDATE 9AM 17TH MARCH – TREE PLANTING IS ON

To celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s historic Dimond Jubilee in 2012, the Woodland Trust is encouraging people to come together in their neighbourhoods and plant small areas of trees.  The UK is one of the least wooded countries in Europe with only 4% native woodland cover; we should have at least twice as much.  So, the plan in 2012 is to create hundreds of wooded areas across the country, and 60 special Diamond Woods, all on public access land and for the benefit of all.  The idea is to  transform our landscape in a generation, provide bird and wildlife havens, and leave behind for our children a lasting and meaningful tribute.  The project includes the Woodland Trust’s new flagship Diamond Wood in the heart of The National Forest in Leicestershire

We are pleased to say, that the Friends of Parkinson’s Park, have been given 105 small Continue reading →

First Friends Meeting – Next Steps

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Communication and Collaboration !

Thank you to all those who came to the first Friends meeting last night.  We hope you found something of interest, and will become a Friend and help build this important part of Guiseley’s ‘philanthropy’ heritage.

We are about to embark on Phase 2 of the regeneration which is about the Friends outlining what the Park should be,  and working together on different projects.   You can be involved as much or as little as you want to be, and more importantly, if you have ideas for further projects we can try and facilitate that. (To kickstart thoughts there is a new poll in the sidebar on ideas  suggested for the Park.)

Just to remind you,  here are some of the projects already planned (subject to Bellway’s confirmation), which, this year, have the Queen’s Jubilee as the main theme.   Email Continue reading →

Friends Meeting 21st February

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Where there's muck, there's ...................

The list of people who have said they would like to be Friends of Parkinsons Park is growing,  and it is wonderful to know that there are so many people interested in the future of the Park: be that from an historical,  recreational or environmental aspect.

The regeneration of the Park and it’s subsequent development has an important role to play in the health and wellbeing of the community.  Yesterday,  the Government published it’s Public Health Outcomes Framework 2013-2016: the objective of which is to improve healthy life expectancy overall, and address regional differences.  This is to be done through the improvement of a Continue reading →

Guiseley Parkinsons Park – Re-Generation work has Started !

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To all the Friends of Parkinsons Park and people of Guiseley

Park Re-Generation Work Starts Today

After many meetings and discussions it is with great pleasure that we are able to say that re-generation work on the Park started today. Paul O’Brian and Andrew Wilson from Pudsey Landscapes were on hand to meet some of the Friends: Barbera Winfield, Chris Parapia, David Myers, Josie Brooks and Andy Cheetham. Over the coming weeks the Friends will be meeting with Pudsey Landscapes on a daily basis to provide support and guidance as the work commences. Continue reading →

Thanks to the English Common Wealth

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Where there's muck, there's ...................

As the democracies of Europe are castrated one by one, the financial system goes into meltdown, and with a Westminster ‘bubble’ who could not grow a row of carrots, let alone an economy, it’s now time to sing the praises of ‘the little people’.  The tax fodder and  abused motorists, who, over the last three months, have come together in an ancient concept, known to our ancestors as the English Common Wealth (aka today as the Big Society).  So, as Pudsey Landscaping work on the park in the dying days of 2011, we take time to thank all those who have got us this far:- Continue reading →