Penge Green Gym November 2018 Newsletter

Penge Green Gym Newsletter 4th Green Flag award and much more at Winsford Gardens For the fourth year running Penge Green Gym are a Green Flag Award Community winner.  They have recognised the continuing work that all the volunteers do in the park.  We have scored highly with the Green Flag 'secret shopper' who inspected the park anonymously and found it welcoming and well kept, speaking to locals who use the park every day.  And the awards continue with a commendation from Bromley In Bloom.  The category is for the Best Community Environmentally Friendly Project. QAVS We are also very excited to announce that Penge Green Gym have been nominated for a Queens Award for Voluntary Service.  This is a very prestigious award and is normally awarded to much larger groups.  The process involves sending a detailed report of the work done by PGG and an assessment by and member of the committee.  We await with baited breath the results which will be announced in May 2019.  Thanks to Peter Hutchings at TCV for putting us forward for this award, it is very exciting! Work at Winsford Gardens Back down to earth and summer has turned slowly to a fairly warm and dry autumn and then into a more mixed winter season.  Ongoing work includes coppicing the hazel bushes at the Garden Road entrance.  We had hoped to use a lot of this to replace the hazel fencing around the gravel garden and wildflower but as the hazel has not been coppiced for some years there are not many straight whips.  But we have been liaising with South Norwood country park who will be coppicing their willow and hazel very soon and are happy for us to use what they cut. We have also installed a new bench in the children's play area.  We had applied for funding from the Skipton Community fund which paid for most of the bench with a little more used from the Waitrose fund.  Thank you to both. Work continues in the gravel garden, and it is slowly maturing.  It is interesting to see which plants thrive and which plants are not so happy in this spot.   The only problem is keeping the larger stones that define the path in place!  They seem to walk around the park every week!   Projects for Winter 2018/19 Winter means lots of leaf raking and collecting to make lovely leaf mulch for next year.  We are also continuing to maintain our natural seating benches as some have started to decay.  We have also been given lots of bulbs by Penny Read at Idverde which will make a colourful splash next spring.  Thanks Penny!