It was a huge honour and surprise to receive a Mayoral Award from Maghull Mayor Cllr Ken Hughes, in the presence of Maghull Council Leader – Chloe Parker, and some of our amazing Friends of Maghull & District (FOMD) volunteers, with an impromptu presentation in the middle of one of our one-hour environmental events! Arguably, a sneaky way of getting me in a rare picture, as I generally take the picture to highlight our kind-hearted volunteers who are generally the people who are already doing voluntary work elsewhere.
Why Me!!
Since I retired eight years ago, I started quietly doing community work every day by myself, often with the occasional recognition of something on social media, ‘have you seen this bloke doing this great work down our road or the park’? However, in 2018, I realised that to raise money, to fund projects that would make a positive difference to our community I needed to create a trusted regulated group. My co-founders were already involved in other worthy responsibilities, so I became chair, treasurer, media communications, organiser, hands-on, which has resulted in FOMD practically becoming a full-time unpaid job, with volunteer work in the daytime and most evenings involving paperwork, and pre-retirement aspirations on life support!
Every environmental and social project has contained another 20 subprojects within it. For example, the Woodend Community Woodland Project coincided with the pandemic but before we started the four years of improvements I had to undertake the following:
- To get permission, the land was owned by Sefton Council who had leased the Land to Maghull Town Council for 10 years, but for the first two years it had not been signed by the solicitors, so we needed countless communications to get them together.
- We had to satisfy conditions from both councils, by drafting plans, with risk assessments, but before both parties would vote to agree, I had to visit over 600 houses to undertake a survey, which was also circulated to thousands of others to be collated and submitted along with a 20-page document.
- Everything was closed during the pandemic including the local newspaper, shops, businesses, leisure, so I worked twice as hard with shop collections, countless letters to local businesses, grant funders to somehow raise over £30,000 in cash and in-kind.
- One project of many within the Woodend project, was the creation of the 230 m path which I and the fantastic Ashworth Hospital horticultural team slavishly undertook over two weeks, to remove 146 tons of soil and replace it with the same amount of building materials. Project managing these involved permissions, risk assessments, organising storage of materials, erecting hundreds of individual perimeter Heras fencing, liaising with building contractors, obtaining special mats so the 30 ton lorries could access the site with deliveries, advertising, informing, thanking the endless list of people and businesses who supported us. Not forgetting the numerous unsuccessful contacts and applications. Whilst other subprojects involved creating a 50 m x 4 m border, raising funds to populate it and collecting over 500 kindly donated plant donations from local residents gardens et cetera.
The snapshot, above has been echoed in many of the main projects (see www.fomd.co.uk) and smaller projects that we are involved in Parkbourn, Stafford Moreton Way, Woodend, planting 16,000 trees, litter picking, resolving effects of ASB, funding £6140 for digital equipment and services for the functioning of the Maghull Advice Centre, funding £7000 over two years to run the Cosy Club (the most successful warm space in Sefton) for our most vulnerable residents, and the Dell.
There are many interventions that often we either don’t have time to highlight or if they have involved resolving ASB we don’t provide the oxygen to the perpetrators by highlighting it, one of which involved resolving a problem throughout most of one Christmas Eve.
Absent Friend.
During the surprise presentation and the very kind tributes, we reflected and toasted our young friend Matthew who was inspired by our work to, establish a litter picking group, undertake regular community work with Ken and Tom, and would help with FOMD whenever he could. I was delighted to receive the award from Ken, not only because he is the mayor representing Maghull, but because I know how relentlessly he rolls up his sleeves, after a gruelling day at work, to undertake countless amounts of unrecognised community work, particularly since Matthew always took the selfies together, whilst Ken doesn’t even have a social media interest/presence. Similarly, I must confess I hate any attention like this, and I would much rather it be about all the fantastic people that have helped along the way, whilst focussing on promoting FOMD with limited opportunities, in the absence of the Champion newspaper
Inspiration.
However, I hope this small insight has been of some interest and will hopefully inspire others to undertake a bit more kindness in our community, whenever they can. Yes, it has involved a lot of work, every day, at a personal level, but it has been enjoyable to see the positive change in our community, have the privilege of working alongside some of the most kind-hearted and cheerful people I’ve ever met, whilst providing a vehicle to people to help out whenever they want to without any commitment.
Dedicated to My Amazing Wife – Ulrike.
However, none of this would be possible without the support of my inspiring and resilient wife, who worked tirelessly as an NHS manager and has currently been battling an aggressive form of cancer over the last few months. Her strength and positivity are beyond compare.