Can you spare one hour, without any commitment, on Thursday (11.4.24) meeting at 1030 hours, in the Dell (adjacent to the Hare & Hounds Pub).

We are simply raking a large area, to unearth and remove decades of neglect. We have removed an unbelievable amount of debris already, but having recently removed large areas of ground Ivy, the serious debris is now just beneath the surface. We want to remove this debris before the spring growth returns, to enable us to re-establish a safe and environmentally friendly haven for the good of the community, nature and wildlife. However, before continuing with the large North Slope, we are hoping to focus on the bottom south slope entrance area, to rake and tidy up before an official unveiling tribute this Saturday between 10:30 and 11:00.

Weekly Achievements & Thanks.

We are enormously grateful to Paul Richards Tree Services and our volunteers for meeting early on Saturday morning to load giant mountains of green waste that we had accumulated over the last 24 weeks, amounting to 2 ½ tons of bulky yet fiddly Ivy and other vegetation. Paul kindly helped to fill two large vehicles and transported and paid for it to be recycled. Which is one of the countless acts of kindness that Paul has shown our community via FOMD over the last four years.

What can I say, our volunteers outdid themselves even more, not only loading the vehicles at the crack of dawn, but then raked up another eight bin bags of litter tenaciously kept in place by the Ivy roots and Bramble runners. Hilariously, some of them responded to my early start optional pyjamas, by wearing pyjamas!

In preparation for receiving some weed covering wood chip next week, I stayed on a little longer to brush cut exposed Ivy runners from the top and bottom of the previously cleared south slope, surprisingly raking out further debris. Afterwards, a neighbour – John who was very complimentary about our progress, very kindly took all our bags of rubbish and rubble away to the recycling centre. Then on Monday, Jill, brilliantly removed and bagged the newly exposed litter and debris.

Please check our website’s ‘event’ page at www.fomd.co.uk for more information and any last-minute changes. This is a one-hour event, without any commitment.

Equipment. All you will need are:

Sturdy boots, garden gloves (essentials)

• If you are interested in helping to remove the ground Ivy to enable us to access the debris beneath, please bring a brush cutter/strimmer, protective glasses.
• If you would like to litter pick and remove debris, please bring litter picker, garden fork, rigid rake (essential) not lawn rake, to remove some of the embedded litter.
• If you’d like to trim the Ivy hedge, please bring hedge cutter, tree loppers.

Overall, our one-hour sessions over the last 23 consecutive weeks have resulted in collecting 173 bin bags of litter, a huge array of debris and 30 agricultural bags (plus an additional 2 ½ tons removed!) of tree and wall damaging Ivy, with multiple trips to the recycling centre. We have received some wonderful feedback and are clearly seeing the difference every time we are there.

This preparation is for Stage Two involving future green landscaping and planting which has been delayed from next April to commence in August.

A huge thank you once again for your kind support of our group, you really are amazing and making such a massive difference to our community at so many levels.

Pictured, Our amazing volunteers: Chris, John, Joanne, Joan, Paul (Paul Richards Tree Services), Diane, Ken (Mayor of Maghull). Colin and Frank not pictured.

Looking forward to seeing you.

FOMD

Together Making Maghull a better place to live.

More information about this and other projects at: www.fomd.co.uk

(website created locally by www.abbeytech.net/)

Contact: admin@fomd.co.uk

#fomdcic #Maghull #Environment

Contact Paul Richards:

07455115790

07846455697