Our expectations were surpassed last Friday (17.1.25) when we spent the day at St Gregory’s Primary School. The Friends of Maghull & District (FOMD) organised the first of two tree planting days at St Gregory’s Primary School. We had hoped to plant 570 of the 950 trees we took and amazingly achieved 800!
We had 11 incredible volunteers from a population of over 25,000 and were gratefully joined continuously throughout the day by wave upon wave of enchanting and inspiring children from the nursery through to year six (Instagram link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE9x61cupQN/?igsh=cThlYW03anFkejI5)
A lot of our regular volunteers were sadly unavailable, so we put a call out to other groups, high schools, the parish council, a live broadcast on BBC Radio Merseyside and on social media platforms. Remarkably those that came had ailments and others amazingly persuaded employees to give them time off.
Consequently, we would like to applaud the following:
- The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) for granting our application last year for the free Hawthorn trees that we received last week and kept alive for the planting.
- Ben Greenaway (Mersey Forest) who attended several planning meetings and drafted plans, then travelled from Manchester to motivationally facilitate the teaching and supervising of the children class by class with risk, rationale, method and hands-on planting. Supported by FOMD’s Diane and the teachers.
- David Jones (caretaker) who patiently catered for our every need and maintained the safety and security for the children.
- Joe Perree (Head Teacher) and Helen King (School Bursar) for their cheerful smooth running of the day, receptiveness and warm drinks!
- FOMD volunteers (8 of 43): Karen, Steven, John, Joanne, Christine, Diane, Frank and Sarah Pollard and her sons Tom and Luke (Saxon Tree Surgeons – see contact info below) who came early to help myself to create a planting guide with individual canes, tree guards and individual pre-planting holes for the younger children.
- The incredible schoolchildren for their captivating enthusiasm.
St Gregory’s Primary School has a ginormous playing field with a huge featureless perimeter, bereft of wildlife support and interest, that borders the local community. The January plan was achieved to create wildlife friendly hedging on two borders (178m with 950 Hawthorn trees in two rows), to provide habitat and food for wildlife and can function to reduce pollution by 60% and provide considerable carbon capture (sequestration) as part of climate action, whilst improving human health and biodiversity. In February we are returning to create a woodland with 450 mixed native trees.
A heartfelt thank you for this outstanding unprecedented volunteering that is making a massive difference to our local environment and planet, which is part of 2500 trees to be planted before March, culminating in over 16,000 over the last three years in Maghull.
Finally, whilst driving home through Lydiate I noticed an elderly man slowly moving along Southport Road supported by his Zimmer frame where he had attached a litter bag and was regularly stopping to use his litter picker to incredibly collect rubbish shamefully left by others without any support…… ‘Imagine what we could achieve together’!
Pictures: Before & after tree planting with schoolchildren, FOMD volunteers, Ben (Mersey Forrest) at St Gregory’s Primary School 17.1.25.
Huge thanks,
FOMD
Together Making Maghull a better place to live.
More information and to get involved: www.fomd.co.uk
Contact: admin@fomd.co.uk
Saxon Tree Services.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555652425418
Tel No: 07722432313
#fomdcic #Maghull #Environment
