Category: News

Hi Everyone,
 
We hope you are all keeping well and safe.
 
Following further advice and guidelines from Green Sefton and Sefton Council, we now feel that we can continue with our litter picking and gardening sessions.
 
The following measures will be taken, to ensure the safety of the attendees by compliance with current regulations. (These regulations will change from time to time, so are not detailed here):

• To control numbers the sessions will not be announced as events on social media.
• Refreshments will not be provided.
• Everybody taking part must satisfy themselves that they are eligible and safe to help with litter picking or gardening. For further guidance and clarification please see current Government advice here: Local restriction tiers: what you need to know – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 
• If you or someone in your household starts to show symptoms of Covid 19, or if you are at high risk of severe symptoms yourself, then you must not attend.
• Equipment will be provided but you must bring your own gloves.  Each person can select a ring and a picker, or gardening tools.  All the equipment will be cleaned/sanitised before being stored in the lock-up.
• Bags will be handed out by someone wearing gloves, and the picker will fix it to their own hoop. 
• The prescribed social distancing rules must be observed, both within the group (if a group is working) and anybody else nearby.
• The location to leave filled bags will be announced before the start, and pickers will take their own bags there.

Our litter picking session for December will take place will take place on Saturday 12th December in Crescent Garden between 10.30am and 11.30am.  Hopefully with enough volunteers we’ll be able to work in the other gardens too.

We will just have the one gardening session in December, which will take place on Tuesday 8th December at 9.30am, meeting outside our lock-up next to the Waterloo Sunset Cafe.  

Looking forward to seeing you again,

Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

Thank you to everyone who joined us to litter pick in Beach Lawn Garden in September.  We had 20 volunteers, and split into smaller groups to litter pick in both Beach Lawn and Adelaide Garden plus another group for weed clearing. Special mention to Don and Anthea who have done a marvellous job this year of keeping the surface drains clear; also Richard and David who went further afield, armed with waders, to clear the nature boardwalk by the Marina.
 
We had 7 volunteer gardeners at our Tuesday gardening session, and 10 at the Wednesday session.  We have worked on the rockery at Marine Garden and several beds at Crescent Garden.
 
Sadly, following recent further restrictions put in place because of the Coronavirus crisis, we have now been advised by Sefton Council to once more cancel all our future activities in the gardens until further notice.  Volunteers are still able to go out as individuals, but groups activities are on hold. 
 
We hope you all keep safe and well, and that it won’t be too long before we’re able to resume our usual volunteering sessions.
 
Best wishes, 
 
Janet Markland
Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

From the Champion Newspaper 24th July 2019…

Crosby Coastal Park Consultation video…

Crosby Coastal Park Draft Vision Presentation.

NOTE: The five Waterloo Seafront Gardens are in Zone F.

Gardening Sessions are on the 2nd Tuesday (9.30am) & 4th Wednesday (1.00pm) of each month. As start times vary between Winter and Summer, please check Facebook or the regular newsletters for latest details.

2020 Dates

January: 14th and 22nd
February: 11th and 26th
March: 10th and 25th
April: 14th and 22nd
May: 12th and 27th
June: 9th and 24th
July: 14th and 22nd
Aug: 11th and 26th
Sept: 8th and 23rd
Oct: 13th and 28th
Nov: 10th and 25th
Dec: 8th

Volunteer update and activities – September 2020

Thank you to everyone who came along to our volunteer sessions in August. We had fifteen litter pickers in the children’s play park.

We will continue to follow advice and guidelines from Green Sefton and Sefton Council, and the relevant measures will be taken to ensure the safety of the attendees by compliance with current regulations.

For more details please click here.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

11th January	Adelaide
8th February	Beach Lawn
14th March	Potter’s Barn
11th April	Play Park, Marina
9th May	Marine Garden
13th June	Crescent Gardens
11th July	Adelaide
8th August	Play Park, Marina
12th September	Beach Lawn
10th October	Potter’s Barn
14th November	Marine Garden
12th December	Crescent Garden

All are welcome to our litter picks which are held on the second Saturday of the month.

We provide gloves and litter pick equipment and free refreshments for all litter pickers.

Come and meet us at the next litter pick, one of our events or mail us at contact@FoWSG.co.uk.

Watch the litter pick video below.

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are all keeping well. Thank you to everyone who came along to our volunteer sessions in July and it was good to see so many familiar faces again! We had a fantastic turn out of 24 for the litter pick in Adelaide Garden, and 7 and 8 at our gardening sessions.

Our litter pick this month will take place on Saturday 8th August at the children’s play park near the Marine Lake, between 10.30am and 11.30am.

Our gardening sessions will take place on Tuesday 11th August at 9.30am and Wednesday 26th August at 7.00pm (evening), meeting outside our lock-up next to the Waterloo Sunset Cafe.

We will continue to follow advice and guidelines from Green Sefton and Sefton Council, and the following measures will be taken to ensure the safety of the attendees by compliance with current regulations. (These regulations will change from time to time, so are not detailed here):

• Refreshments will not be provided.

• Everybody taking part must satisfy themselves that they are eligible and safe to help with litter picking or gardening. For further guidance and clarification please see current Government advice here: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

• If you or someone in your household starts to show symptoms of Covid 19, or if you are at high risk of severe symptoms yourself, then you must not attend.

• Equipment will be provided but you must bring your own gloves. Each person can select a ring and a picker, or gardening tools. All the equipment will be cleaned/sanitised before being stored in the lock-up.

• Bags will be handed out by someone wearing gloves, and the picker will fix it to their own hoop.

• The prescribed social distancing rules must be observed, both within the group (if a group is working) and anybody else nearby.

• The location to leave filled bags will be announced before the start, and pickers will take their own bags there.

Looking forward to seeing you again,

Janet Markland

Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens

Our 2019 Scarecrow Festival was a big success for the 11th year running. The weather was lovely all day and we estimate that this was the highest attended Festival we have ever hosted with numbers in the thousands. We raised around £1500 for our funds which will be used to improve the Gardens for the benefit of the whole community.

We would like to thank everyone who helped make the day a success: the volunteers who helped set up the day and run games and stalls; the independent stallholders and entertainers – Punch and Judy and the bouncy castle were big hits with the children as usual, as was the face-painting by Beccie French. Some new additions for this year were also welcome: Kitchen Street Cooking who provided great hot food, and excellent musical entertainment from the Travelling Wannabes ukulele band.

Thank you also to everyone who made cakes and donated plants to sell on our own stalls, especially Tony Almonds and Magill’s Nurseries who were very generous. Finally, and most importantly, a big thank you to all those who made Scarecrows for the competition. The quality of entries was very high for our ‘Mystery, Myth and Magic’ theme and our judges had a hard time choosing between them. We had several categories in this year’s competition with entries from groups as well as individuals. Our winners were:

Child category: ‘Bad Witch’ by Leanne Dixon
Group category: ‘Cloak of Invisibility’ by 3rd Crosby Brownies
Family category: ‘Dobby’ by Jo Mercer

More photos of the day can be found on our Facebook page, courtesy of Heather Currie and Karen Abram.

A short presentation in Crescent Garden March 2014.

Our latest newsletter letting everyone know what Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens is currently involved in.

Ongoing Projects

We are currently working with the Council on railing and brickwork restoration, plus replacement noticeboards. Additional railings have been ordered by the Council and these will hopefully be installed soon. We are in the process of arranging for each Garden to have a new noticeboard as the current boards are no longer fit for purpose.

Sefton Council are currently holding a consultation on the future of Crosby Coastal Park. Our Seafront Gardens form part of this and it is a chance to tell the council your views. If you have not already completed the consultation it can be found online at yourseftonyoursay.sefton.gov.uk/ Events.

Weather permitting, we now have Yoga classes every Saturday at 10am. These will continue for as long as the weather allows.

Our Scarecrow Festival this year will take place on Saturday 21st September, starting at 12.30pm. Our theme for this year is Mystery, Myth and Magic, so get those thinking caps on now! Also, if you would be free to help us set up/take down on the day, or would be able to run a stall/game for us, please do let us know. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Regular Volunteer Activities

Thank you to everyone who has come along to our litter picking and gardening sessions throughout the year. We now have 15-20 volunteers for most of our litter picking sessions and around 5-8 gardeners at our gardening sessions. Our rockery and raised flower bed were also recently judged for the North West in Bloom scheme – watch this space for the results later in the summer.

Throughout the year we will be litter picking on the second Saturday of each month from 10:30 until 11:30. Full details can be found on our website and Facebook page.

Our gardening sessions take place on the second Tuesday of each month commencing 9:30am, and the fourth Wednesday of each month commencing at 7pm (summer) or 1pm (winter). For all gardening sessions we meet outside Waterloo Place café.

Equipment is provided for all volunteer activities and we have tea and biscuits afterwards. Everyone is welcome and there is no need to commit to regular attendance – simply turn up when you are able. All help is appreciated.

New toposcope for Adelaide Gardens

Local community group Friends of Waterloo Seafront Gardens unveiled a brand new ‘toposcope’ at the historic Adelaide Garden site this week.

Councillor Veronica Webster and Rosemary Gordon, Chair of the Friends group, marked the occasion on Tuesday 25th April by thanking an anonymous local benefactor who made a generous donation to help a produce the toposcope, as well as local residents and volunteers who work tirelessly to maintain the seafront gardens.

The original toposcope, which is a mounted directional plate and similar in appearance to a sundial – was removed from the seafront gardens in the early 1970s.

Volunteers were unable to locate any photographs of the original directional plate design, but with the help of Sefton Libraries service they were able to replicate the original size and shape for the garden’s centre-piece from historic photographs of the seafront gardens.

The directional plate shows the geographical distance between Adelaide Garden and a number of worldwide landmarks – including New York and Australia, as well as places of interest closer to home including the Liver Bird buildings and the nearby Burbo Bank windfarm.