Dear Civic Pride,
So much has been achieved over the past week, it’s hard to know where to start explaining.…..The community gardens are flowering beautifully and our pavements and public byways are being regularly maintained by our litter pickers and pavement tidying volunteers. Well done everybody for weeding, planting, clearing and cleaning, for planning, sorting, organising and turning out in all weathers.
Janet, [email protected] would like some photos of our Lone Ranger litter pickers in action for social media. We have a huge archive of grotty litter photos, but we need pictures of our volunteers too! Please don’t be shy; send in your selfies.
There’s lots happening in the coming week too:-
Peaceful Plot @ Rawtenstall Cemetery
Tuesday 21st July – Meet 10am at the cemetery gates. Last week saw lots of new volunteers join in to remove the prolific Himalayan Balsam from CPR’s reclaimed area. Native flora and fauna are already beginning to re-establish but will need a helping and protective hand. If you’re interested in restoring this quiet pocket of land then please come along. Contact Moira [email protected] for more details.
Re-wilding natural Britain is gathering a sustainable pace, if you’d like to know more, www.rewildingbritain.org.uk is a really useful website.
Crawshawbooth
Monday 20th July – This week, the Crawshawbooth team are litter picking in their own time. Volunteers can contact each other if they wish to arrange to work (distanced) together. [email protected]
(All back to normal from Monday 27th July – 9am. Gardening at the lovely Jubilee Gardens.
Wednesday 29th July – 6pm at Jubilee Gardens for litter picking)
Waterfoot
Monday 20th July – 09:30 until Noon. Trickett’s Memorial Ground – it’s looking lovely in this gem of a garden and with plans afoot, Liz is sourcing Hosta and Ornamental grasses. So if you’ve any going spare from your garden [email protected] The best plants are free!
As ever, Waterfoot volunteers are out and about again all this week maintaining planters, picking up litter and clearing weeds from the paved areas of town. We’re making such a positive difference to the town especially with businesses reopening.
Rawtenstall
Tuesday 21st July – 10am until 12 Noon. Central Reservation and Embankment Garden, St Mary’s Way. Planting up the last of the bedding plants in the Central Reservation. Pruning, weeding and dividing plants in the over exuberant Embankment Garden.
Wednesday 22nd July – 10am until 12 Noon. Back to the Embankment Garden and also Ladbrokes Bed with lots more weeding and pruning to be done. Enthusiastic plants from Ladbrokes need moving to the Gyratory Train Garden where there’s more room for them and the bees.
Thursday 23rd July – 10am until 12 Noon. It’s the Town Square Garden’s turn. Civic Pride transformed this area after the Valley Centre was demolished in 2013. Now, following completion of the Bus Station it’s time to step up and tame the planting in and around the Square. Project Officer, Chris Blomerley, is currently working alongside Rossendale Borough Council to improve the area, now we are certain that plans for Spinning Point Two aren’t going ahead. You can contact our Project Petal [email protected] with any ideas or questions.
Sunday 26th July – 10 until 12 noon. The Gyratory Train Garden on the Fire Station Roundabout. Plants in the train carriages are suffering from slug attacks, so Anne is on a mission. Organic suggestions for pest control are always welcome, and if you have any questions for the Rawtenstall sessions [email protected] has the answers.
Hope that’s enough to keep us all busy and out of trouble?
Helen Thomas
Vice Chair CPR
View from the Back Room
The original concept of CPR was to remove litter from Rawtenstall centre. Once a week a group of volunteers would gather for an hour on a Wednesday evening at Sunday Best on Bank Street.
By 2013, gardening was well underway and the weekly sessions included volunteers picking litter but the volume was simply overwhelming. One volunteer started going out alone with a CPR hi-vis and within weeks half a dozen new recruits joined in. The Lone Rangers were born.
In 2016 BBC Radio Lancashire invited CPR to a 2 hour outside broadcast at the inbound layby. The then Litter Officer was explaining on live radio that our Lone Rangers were now out 364 days a year. Another LR intervened, ‘Actually you’re wrong, I was out on Christmas Day’!
Enough said.
Roger G.