Today (27.11.23) Maghull’s third public sculpture was unveiled by the Friends of Maghull & District (FOMD) at their four-year crowd funded Woodend Community Woodland Project, at the junction of Liverpool Road South and Northway (L31 7BG).
The refurbished floral art iconic lambanana known as ‘CK’ (community kindness) was undertaken stunningly by Aimee Burns and the Maghull High School Art department, earlier this year.
Whilst the rockery surround provides a beautiful natural element to the plinth. It also functions to highlight acts of community kindness through the plaques planted within the rockery, which will be refreshed with new and old acts of community kindness, and recorded on the FOMD website ( www.fomd.co.uk) forever to celebrate and inspire community kindness that was born out of the pandemic challenges.
Huge thanks to the whole community for your brilliant support throughout this project and so many others.
Best Wishes,
FOMD
(Together making Maghull a better place to live).
#fomdcic #environment #Maghull
Extra Below!
  • Thank you.
  • Attendees.
  • Rationale.
  • Itinerary.
  • Full List of Thanks
Thank You. Expressions of our immense gratitude:
The beautiful floral refurbishment was purchased in February 2023 by FOMD, renovated, primed and afterwards lacquered by Mark Barker (MB Auto Body Repairs), painted by Maghull High School talented Art Students, transported and fixed by Ken Hughes, Matthew Lock and myself.
The 3 foot high plinth was designed by Ken Hughes, had the free base slab, walls and topsoil undertaken by MV Kelly Civil Engineering. The sandstone top slab was sourced and cut by Sean in Wigan, transported and positioned by Alan Frost and John Ashton alongside huge rockery donated free by Sean. The plaque was manufactured by Alexander Media. The rockery plants and mini flower shaped plaques were sourced and planted by FOMD. Sefton Council negotiated for Aldi to kindly pay for rockery transport and plants, top slab, the Coronation Picnic Area and approximately 35 standard trees.
The Unveiling Was Attended By:
  • Cllr Ken Hughes and Consort. (Mayor of Maghull)
  • Cllr June Burns (Mayor of Sefton)
  • Cllr Marion Atkinson (local Sefton Councillor & cabinet member for regeneration and skills).
  • Bryn Richards (Aldi Real Estates Director)
  • Andrew Morgan (Anwyl Homes Land Director)
  • Aidan Delaney (Contracts Manager for MV Kelly Civil Engineering working locally for Persimmon Homes).
  • Asa Murphy and Ken Harrison (singer/playwright and poet respectively) local special celebrity guests.
  • Christine and Richard Lock (special guests and parents of Matthew).
  • Bruce Hubbard (President of the Rotary Club of Maghull & Aughton)
  • Bumbles Children’s Nursery staff and children (6).
  • St. George’s Primary School. Miss Teresa Mawtus, staff and children (30)
  • Hudson Primary School staff and children (29)
  • Maghull High School. Mrs Hannah Eborall (Head of Art) staff and students (6)
  • Friends of Maghull and District Volunteers.
  • Maghull Town Council staff and councillors.
Rationale:
As you might know, The Friends of Maghull & District are a small group of hard-working volunteers, who over the last four years, have been galvanising the community to make Maghull a better place to live through a myriad of environmental and social projects, which amazingly have resulted in awards from Maghull, Sefton, royalty and the BBC.
The Friends of Maghull & District (FOMD) are concluding their miraculous four-year, £30,000 plus crowd funded (at the height of the pandemic), Woodend Community Woodland Project, with the unveiling of this art installation to celebrate and inspire heartwarming community kindness that shone during the darkness of the pandemic and continues to shine afterwards.
We are grateful for everyone involved in the creation of the fantastic artwork, plinth and rockery surround, which you will notice has 20 plaques inserted in it that will be refreshed to highlight old and new acts of community kindness, and then listed in more detail, forever on our website (www.fomd.co.uk) from next week.
We hope this living legacy will celebrate all the good things we do to help each other and also inspire more people to undertake acts of community kindness. It is a magical experience to give and receive kindness, to make the world a better place. You have to believe in the special magic of kindness and find ways to make it happen, which is captured by children’s writer Roald Dahl when he said,
And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. Roald Dahl
Please Read the plaques around the rockery which highlight Maghull’s community awards, and some of the recent kindness that has taken place in this project.
Itinerary.
13:15 Meet and Greet Arrivals with special guest Father Christmas giving early Children’s Presents on his throne at the Coronation picnic area.
13:30 Cllr Ken Hughes Mayor of Maghull:
  • Welcome, Introductions, Brief Itinerary
  • Thank You Speech.
1340 Dr Frank Sharp (FOMD Director)
1340 Community Kindness That Led to the Installation.
1345 Introduce: Hudson acts of kindness, a poem from Ken Harrison, and poem and prayer from St. George’s.
1355 Introduce and prompt unveiling (undertaken by Ken, June and Hannah)
Introduce Mrs Hannah Eborall to undertake short presentation about the installation process.
1400 Closing thanks and photographs.
Full List of Thanks:
Friends of Maghull & District (FOMD). I would like to thank the FOMD volunteers for organising so many social and environmental projects by galvanising our community to make Maghull a better place to live for all of us, through a host of amazing projects over the last four years.
This Woodend Community Woodland Project has involved many projects in one, with too many to thank today but on behalf of FOMD and our grateful community I would like to use this opportunity to thank the following:
Mr Andrew Morgan (Anwyl Homes Land Director) for generously donating a days work and 60m of logs to form the border of a pathway for the children’s nature corner.
Cllr Marion Atkinson (local Sefton councillor and Cabinet member for regeneration and skills) for her immeasurable experienced support from start to finish in this project.
Bryn Richards (Aldi Real Estates Director).
who negotiated with Sefton Council during the process of opening the neighbouring store in April 2022, to support the funding of one beautiful boulevard of trees with another to follow, The Coronation Picnic Area and most of the costs of this art installation. We are immensely grateful for this incredibly generous support and would also like to thank you for supporting our local food bank every week.
Mr Aidan Delaney (MV Kelly Civil Engineering Contracts Manager) and his wonderful team for kindly providing the plinths base slab, walls, and rockery topsoil, all for free.
Lisa Williams-Equizi for heart-wrenchingly selling the art installation to FOMD despite the fact that it had become almost part of her family over many years.
Mark Barker (MDB Auto Body Repair Shop) for repairing and preparing our refurbished art installation.
Maghull High School Art Department, specifically Mrs Hannah Eborall and her amazingly talented students for painting the art installation (especially Aimee Burns), and for supporting FOMD with previous stunning public works of art involving litter bins and bottle top mosaics.
Bumbles Neighbouring Children’s Nursery for their support and engagement throughout and particularly for their sponsored litter pick to support this project, but most of all for simply enjoying the green transformation.
Hudson Primary School and the Head Teacher Niki Craddick for supporting FOMD by planting 70 trees here at Woodend and 2500 trees at their school.
St. George’s Primary School and their forestry school teacher Miss Teresa Mawtus for also supporting FOMD in planting 2500 trees at their school, to support climate action and improve the community.
Asa Murphy and Ken Harrison for donating their performance fees every Thursday to FOMD and many other local community groups. They have now donated £4500 to local good causes en-route to their £10,000 target.
Finally, a huge thank you to everyone in our community for their random acts of kindness that make such a positive difference and make us so proud to call Maghull our home.