Thursday 29 May 2009

Team: Peter, Carolyn and lots of young people from the "Hope 08 Urban Adventure" group http://www.bigdeal.org.uk/Group/Group.aspx?id=54419

In the morning, Peter and Carolyn continued with our work to clear the flat grave stones in the B section.

In the afternoon we were joined by the young people. The City Council had provided a large skip which was filled with fly-tipped rubbish and rubble mainly from the area of the churchyard near to the bottom of the vicarage garden. This included some huge reinforced concrete fence posts which took 8 or more of the volunteers to move - they carried them on their shoulders - a very impressive sight!

The long term project for this area, which does not contain any graves, is to create a natural (not manicured) memorial garden.

Thanks to the generosity of members of the congregation, we were able to provide the volunteers with sandwiches, biscuits, cakes, tea and coffee after their very hard work. Thanks to Chris, Greta and Eric for making the drinks and serving the food.

Thursday 22 May 2008

Team: Dorothy, Harry, Peter, Carolyn

We all continued to work on uncovering and clearing the flat gravestones in the old ivy section (I say "old" as there isn't much ivy left - hurrah!). This section is really section B so that's what I will try to remember to call it from now on!

Thursday 15 May 2008

Weather: warm and sunny but with a cool breeze
Team: Peter(1), Dorothy, Michael, Carolyn, Sean, Peter(2)
What we did:

• Michael sprayed the weeds on the paths - a continuation of the work which he had been doing earlier in the week.
• Dorothy and Peter continued to work on the graves near to the Tomlinson grave in section JX.
• Carolyn spent time with a visitor, Mr Foster, who wanted to investigate the registers we hold in church. He was looking for marriage, baptism and burial information on some ancestors. We were able to find most of the entries which he was looking for.
• Carolyn then did some further work on the graves around the Tomlinson grave, including planting some pansies in two urns which are on nearby graves.
  

Thursday 8 May 2008

Weather: dry
Team: Dorothy, Harry, Michael, Carolyn

What we did:

• Dorothy and Harry worked on clearing more of the flat gravestones in the ivy section. This work is now nearly complete.
• Michael and Carolyn worked on clearing and tidying the Tomlinson grave in the JX section, together with the surrounding graves and paths. This is in preparation for the internment of ashes of Mrs Edith Tomlinson who died recently. See the before and after pictures below.
• Eric again provided tea and biscuits

Thursday 1 May 2008

Weather: dry
Team: Michael, Carolyn, Sean, Peter(2)

What we did:

• Sean and Peter cut down some small self-seeded trees near to the vicarage and some branches from other trees which were either dangerous or in the way.
• Michael and Carolyn moved brushwood from the Lion Brow side to the burn site and then moved logs and rubble to the Lion Brow site.
• We were also able to identify two pieces of stone which had been removed from their graves and then return them to the correct place.