Pub quiz at The Hesketh on Monday 21st May 2018

Last night six of us went to The Hesketh in Cheadle Hulme for dinner and their Monday night pub quiz.  We had previously done well in this and had high hopes of doing so again, particularly since six was not too many for one team.  Food wise, four of us plumped for the carvery while Matt had fish and chips and Daniel had the chicken burger.

Spotting an opportunity for a little free advertising we gave ourselves the team name "Manchester National Trust Volunteers"!  As the rounds unfolded and we wrote down solid answer after solid answer we thought we were acquitting ourselves very well.  So it transpired, because when the answer sheets had been marked the compere announced we were joint first with an impressive 93 points out of 110!  We won £15 in food vouchers and cashed those in against the bill as we left.  We would have won outright if only we had had the courage to go with Instagram as the answer to the question "Which social media site did Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger found in 2010?" in the Wipeout round!  Oh well, next time...

Thanks to Sue for organising the evening and booking the table.  We all enjoyed our success and the chance to catch up over food and in between quiz questions.

Daniel

(L to R): Megan, Daniel, Sue, Matt, Lisa and Ben

Removing deer fencing at Lyme Park on Sunday 20th May

Ten of us met Dan, the Ranger, in the main car park at Lyme today.
He took our rucksacs and tools to the worksite in his vehicle and we all walked to where we would be working, which was past where the MNTV 30th anniversary oak tree is planted with it's tree guard and plaque. We were pleased to see that the oak is growing well:-)
We were working quite far down the main drive, in fact it was at the first wooded area on the right as you enter Lyme Park just past the entrance kiosk.

The fencing before we started removing it

The area, along with many others, had a wooden posted fence all around it to protect it from damage by the deer. Having assessed the situation, the Rangers had decided to put smaller fences around individual trees that still needed protecting so the main fence could be removed enabling the deer to roam under the trees.

Work in progress

It was a lovely hot day and we worked hard removing the wooden posts, filling in the holes that were left by the posts and removing and winding up the steel wire fencing into large drum-like shapes so it would fit into the bucket of the tractor.

Making a difference

By the end of the day we had removed all but 4 of the wooden posts (the ones left were hard to get out so were going to be chain-sawn off later by the Rangers). We'd also taken out a couple of gate posts with the help of the tractor, which also helped us clear the whole site afterwards as Dan used the tractor to do many trips to the Rangers store, taking all the posts and fencing, for recycling/disposal later.

The tractor helping to remove a gate post

It was a lovely sunny day but we were able to work in the shade quite a lot, which helped!

Stopped for lunch!

Pathwork at Bosley Cloud on Sunday 13th May 2018

 

 

This Sunday seven of us travelled to Bosley Cloud on what turned out to be a glorious spring day.

We started slowly, hunting for a new signpost that had disappeared, then we made new ones for alongside the new path to discourage wandering off-piste.

We worked our way to the top and stopped for coffee and brownies in the sunshine.

Then Tim the ranger showed us the job for the rest of the day, continuing the path laying which we started earlier this year.  Matt and Neil started on making steps using sawn tree trunks and backfilling them to protect the path from erosion.

Neil gets handy with a mattock making a step

The rest of us hardy volunteers followed Tim who said he had found a nice tree trunk to continue the path. As nesting season is upon us the trunks have to be carried uphill by hand so the rest of us set to heaving it up using straps and mattock handles.

Martin holds the stake in place for Victor to give it a good whacking

 After a lunch break again basking in the Cheshire sunshine we continued our work bringing up another 2 trunks. To finish the day Tim found a longer tree that required a whole team effort to bring up.

Though hard work we had a lovely day and Tim thinks our section of path will last 20 years so we can go back many times to admire our handiwork.

2017 Yearbook

1 page listing the 50 people who volunteered with MNTV in 2017
1 page calendar of all workdays and socials in 2017
30 pages of photos with captions showing date, venue and work task
£16 per book

Front & back cover

Calendar & January

February & March

"Spring in Snowdonia" - April

May & June

July

September

November

December & Socials