Wombling Free

Great Uncle Bulgaria and Orinoco!!!

The Sun rose brightly on Friday 10 October to relive what had been the first week of autumnal deluges, one of the wettest on record that washed out many parks activities. 

The rain was welcomed by our thirsty lawns and drooping shrubs but it was lifting to be in the company of sunshine again. Closely followed was the arrival of two life size real Wombles all the way from Wimbledon Common – it was our very own Great Uncle Bulgaria and Orinoco.

Right on time, into the playing fields streamed in children and teachers from Kings Norton Junior and Infant School, Kings Norton Boys School and Kings Norton Nursery, Friends from Kings Norton Park, Waterside Care reps, Kings Norton Health Walkers in an exited buzz of anticipation. 

The promise of litter picking made fun, really worked – how great to be in such great company!   

 
  It was a super occasion, the children so eager and entertaining, they fully engaged in the health and safety briefing and looked ready for business in their Waitrose and Keep Britain Tidy sponsored overalls, gloves and litter pickers.  The children wombled across the playing fields to return displaying their finds proudly filling between them 12 handsome and very large green bin liners – excellent wombling!

The wombles mingled with everyone sharing cuddles, waving and shaking hands, posing in several selfies and photographs many of which have since appeared on twitter

To complement the litter picking session Friends of Kings Norton Park set up a water test on the wooden bridge of the lint brook to demonstrate another strand of Keep Britain Tidy’s work through Waterside Care, who have been teaching local groups how to TTAP test their water courses.  

TTAP stands for testing the water quality using Temperature, Turbidity, Ammonia and PH.    

Kings Norton Boys School helped in the demonstration and are keen to work in the future with us testing water this way and for fresh water invertebrate.

Following a snack provided by Waitrose the children ate lunch and chose their favourite womble sticker and badge and made up their womble masks – it was quite sad when everyone had to wave good bye… but you will be pleased to know that the Wombles are touring Britain to mark the 60 years anniversary of Keep Britain Tidy and a full length feature film will be at cinemas soon.

Thanks to everyone who joined in!

The wombles will hopefully capture the imagination of another generation, and allow the more mature of us to womble down memory lane.  It is learning by doing and enjoying.  

The wombles remind us of our individual responsibility to ensure we dispose of packaging and products in an environmentally safe way.   If we all adopted a ‘Bin it or take it home’ approach wildlife would protected from harmful effects of litter and our park would be a much more attractive and clean space.  Fizzy drink bottle and cans, plastic bags, McDonald’s cartons and chip are regularly left strewn around the park and playing fields.   We have installed additional bins over the last 2 years and will try to find funding for an extra bin next to the bench at the skateboard park and another by our new popular picnic benches

More pictures at 

https://m.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.935962726433350.1073741842.865436606819296&type=3

Twitter accounts to follow

@WatersideCare
@KeepBritianTidy
@TidyBag
@kingsnortonpark

Email us info.foknp@gmail.com