It always feels appropriate that Gorgeous Gorse Hill hold our AGM in January every year, it’s dark, it’s cold and most of our planting is dormant. But our mosaic bollards continue to sparkle on frosty night and our birds, butterflies, bees and caterpillar (have you spotted our tiniest art on the bollards at Ravenswood Rest Space) art puts a smile on your face on a damp trip to Tesco.

“Snowdrops: Theirs is a fragile but hardy celebration…in the very teeth of winter.”

Then there are the snowdrops, two years ago a few of us planted 1000 of the delicate little beauties and now when they appear they herald another year for us.

But, I’m drifting off into reverie and really came here to talk about how our last year went, well pretty well if I say so myself. Ravenswood Rest Space continues to develop with the addition of our amazing mural by Venessa Scott and our incredible chainsaw sculptures and benches by John Lee; there’s still work to be done on this area but the addition of art, benches, bird boxes and yet more bulbs to keep those snowdrops company is making a difference.

As a result of winning Tesco’s Bags of Help funding we were able to convert one of the worse grot spots in Gorse Hill on the canal bridge into a wonderful pocket park. This will create another wonderful spot for nature as well as much more pleasant stopping off spot for kids coming home from school and carrying the shopping home.

Finally, we planted eight wonderful trees as part of our New for Old Project. The trees look stunning and we spoke to lots of our older residents who had some amazing memories of parks and trees around the area. These great memories will be added as carved tags to the trees in the Spring.

All of these are achieved through a phenomenal amount of hard work by volunteers, you can see below how many hours were put in last year and we are eternally grateful. This year we’ll be working hard to recruit more volunteers as a community group is only as good as its active volunteers.

So what next? We are now doing a regular action hour every week to keep on top of maintenance on our many sites. We are also planning an action packed month in the summer, with lots of activities, events and opportunities to get involved. So, if you’re new to Gorse Hill of just want to do more, get out more and get to know your neighbours, what’s holding you back. Come on, let’s make Gorse Hill gorgeous together.

Thanks to funding from Trafford Housing Trust’s Community Panels and Trafford Council, we’re working with a Greater Manchester-based organisation called City of Trees to plant around eight new trees in Gorse Hill. The ‘New for Old’ name is because the new trees will be planted to honour some of our oldest local residents. The idea came about because we know from feedback that some of our oldest residents, especially those with mobility problems, find it hard to get involved with our planting activities. We’ve been out to interview several residents now about their memories of trees, parks and open spaces in Gorse Hill and had some really great stories. Lots about the parkies!

We have two planting dates coming up that you are all welcome to get involved with:

• Saturday 12^th November, between 10am and 1pm at Cranford Avenue Park

• Wednesday 16^th November, between 10am and 12 midday at Nansen/Topfields Park

No need to bring anything as we will provide all the tools.

Once the trees are planted we plan to inscribe some of the memories our local residents have shared with us onto wooden ‘tree charms’, and hang them in the trees.

A few months back we spent much of our meeting looking through tree nursery brochures with Beth from City of Trees to choose ones for the sites we had identified. We had some interesting discussions about native versus non-native trees. I’d originally thought that I would prefer native, but Beth explained that it’s actually a good idea to have a range of different trees to help protect against disease. Ash dieback being a good example of where one disease can wreak havoc where the species it affects is widespread.

For those of you who like to know the detail (like me), here are the trees we’ve chosen:

• Amelanchier Arborea Robin Hill https://www.barcham.co.uk/products/amelanchier-arborea-robin-hill

• Cut-leaf alder (Alnus glutinosa Imperialis) https://www.barcham.co.uk/products/alnus-glutinosa-laciniata

• A type of hornbeam (Carpinus betulus Fastigiata) https://www.barcham.co.uk/products/carpinus-betulus-fastigiata

• Purple beech (Fagus sylvatica Purpurea) https://www.barcham.co.uk/products/fagus-sylvatica-purpurea

• Black walnut (Juglans nigra) https://www.barcham.co.uk/products/juglans-nigra

• Pin oak (Quercus plaustris) https://www.barcham.co.uk/products/quercus-palustris

• Corkscrew willow (Salix matsudana Taortuosa)

We’re really excited to be nearly at the planting stage!

Tuesday 29th March 2016, 6.30 – 8.00pm sees the gorgeous Brenda Smith from Bud Garden Centre, getting Stretford’s beginner gardeners growing their own from seed!

Come along to the Gorse Hill Scout Hut on Beresford Rd, and kick off your summer of scrumptious, home-grown grub. Compost, pots and seeds are provided, but feel free to bring your own.

Places are limited, so email gorgeousgorsehill@gmail.com to book a space.

A discussion on social media had led to some pretty negative attitudes from a few local residents coming Gorgeous Gorse Hill’s way and it got me thinking about community. What is a community? Margaret Thatcher famously said, there is no such thing as society (a term closely linked to community initiatives). Was she right? There are so many initiatives at the moment that encourage communities to take ownership of what happens to them, to influence this, to drive it and increasingly to do it themselves.

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The plans have been for ages to mosaic the bollards outside Stretford Leisure Centre on Chester Road. The spanner in the works was the weather. We needed 3 dry days in a row around a weekend. So just after a rainy, end of August bank holiday weekend (yes, I was camping) we got the good news that dry weather was on the way. Everyone’s diaries had to be adjusted so we had a full day to finally get this done. I arrived, with husband, brother and 2 children just after 9am and found lots of other people getting ready to start.

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