On Wednesday 21st March Groundwork welcomed 17 volunteers from HSBC from around Greater Manchester to the wonderful Trafford Ecology Park.
Liz Edwards, Community Lead at Groundwork Greater Manchester explained what happened throughout the day:
“The volunteers were able to help with some of the general park maintenance as well as creating bug hotels, renewing the paths, creating a wood store for the forest school area and a whole host of other things.
The main advantage of groups coming to Trafford Ecology Park is that they get some time to enjoy the natural world, engage with nature and spend some time together. It’s a really lovely, unique site; in the middle of one of the world’s largest industrial estates and just 1 mile from the Trafford centre. It’s well connected too, so if you’re coming into Manchester or Media City it’s really very close.
The corporate volunteers started their day with a safety talk from Liz to make sure expectations were clear and they understood how to use some of the tools that might be unfamiliar with. In addition they completed a physical warm up to prepare their body for exercise in order to keep volunteer’s safe and injury free.
After this it was into the tasks; on the day the corporate volunteers helped renew the paths around the site so that they are disability friendly. They helped develop the forest school area, rejuvenated the bug hotel and started weeding in preparation of a wildflower meadow which will be planted by other corporate volunteers in May.
Groundwork inherited the Trafford Ecology Park site in the 1980’s enabling the location to thrive ecologically and to be used as a space for the local community but the 11 acre site requires a lot of maintenance.
Engaging with corporate volunteers means that the site continues to grow but it also allows Groundwork to train more people on practical skills and understand how to connect with nature volunteers learn about the value of wildlife, why biodiversity is so important and how things grow.
