April 2016 - The land purchase completed, we met with Beswick Parish Council to discuss plans and the project commenced. East Riding Voluntary Action Services provided advice on setting up a Charity and Humber & Wolds Rural Community Council supported us via the "Village SOS" scheme. Organisational support flowed in and we were up and running... The land was barren agricultural land, but we could see the potential of the setting.
May - September 2016 - Little happened at The Park physically as were in the midst of meetings and planning. The Park, Kilnwick Charity was set up in August 2016 and Planning permission gained in September 2016.
November 2016 - Tesco "Bags of Help" funding allowed us to install a network of land drainage at The Park to maximise use of the land all year round. Around 70 volunteers attended our first voluntary event and excitedly helped us plant our first 420 Native tree saplings, donated by The Woodland Trust. John was on hand to serve hot soup and warm up the volunteers afterwards!
Feb / March 2017 - Destoning of the land was carried out by volunteers (both adults and our youth group "Kilnwick Parklings."). In March a further 420 Woodland Trust Native Saplings were planted along with 50 fruit trees (forming a community orchard) and 60 specimen native trees. The fruit and specimen trees are the trees that are available for adoption through our "Adopt a Tree" scheme.
April 2017 - The land was ploughed by Wayne - our amazing farming support (his voluntary efforts have been a huge support to the project). Grass seed donated by Kings Crops (Frontier Agricultural) was sown.... and The Park began to spring to life before our eyes.
April 2017 continued - Our Kilnwick Parklings events begun in earnest. Our first official event was the creation of scarecrows and the seeding of a wildflower meadow.
May 2017 - Parklings events continued with Jon Trail from Yorkshire Wildlife Trust coming to advise us on maximising Wildlife opportunities and enhancing biodiversity. We also had a fabulous stone carving event, led by Patrick Walls which was an incredible success. The stone carvings will form part of our "artistic / sculpture" area at The Park.
June 2017 - The Parklings activities continued with gabion seat making (from stones they previously helped pick from the land) and wildflower meadow weeding. The wildflower meadow and the park generally begun to establish and look incredible. The first grass cut took place!
July 2017 - A very busy month! The play equipment arrived, and begun to be installed by our team of skilled tradesmen from Kilnwick alongside their army of volunteers (all working on a voluntary basis). Parklings activities continued with insect hotel creation and Peckish bird food installed a bird feeding station as part of our outdoor classroom area. John "the man from Skidby" installed the fabulous owl wood carving he donated to The Park.
August 2017 - The final build up to the Grand Opening of The Park. Volunteers worked tirelessly in their evenings and weekends to complete the installation of the play equipment. We sailed through the post installation inspection - the inspector stated it was "one of the top five installations he had seen in 30 years of inspecting." This was fabulous news and showed just how diligently our volunteers had installed the equipment and safety surfacing. Parkling activities continued with landscape painting and rock decoration.
With thanks to our Funders in 2016 and 2017 whose generosity allowed the incredible facilities to be created:
The Grand Opening of "The Park, Kilnwick" 2nd & 3rd September 2017 Full details are under "The Grand Opening" section of the website.
An incredible celebration of an immense community achievement. A chance to showcase the educational and recreational elements of The Park to our visitors of over 2,000 people!
Since the Grand Opening....
September 2017 - The Wildlflower meadow continues to delight! The Parklings met in rather wet circumstances to plant 1200 narcicussus bulbs in the the native tree planting.