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Design A Dino
A 30 foot triceratops and one of the city’s most charismatic pieces of sculpture - the Peartree Bridge dinosaur requires a new look.
Inter-Action MK, Woughton Community Council and The Parks Trust are asking people to release their creativity and put forward their designs for the dinosaur’s new makeover. Last painted in 2009 the dazzlingly gold dinosaur requires a new lick of paint and local residents are being encouraged to come forward with their designs.
There will be an exhibition of the shortlisted designs and residents of Milton Keynes will be invited to vote for their favourite. The winning design will be painted on the dinosaur.
To inspire budding dinosaur designers a number of dinosaur-related events will be held in the Easter holidays, including:
Dino Art Day 1pm – 4pm, Tuesday 3 April 2012
An afternoon of messy prehistoric fun making sock puppets, junk sculptures, papier-mâché and much more!
FREE and all ages welcome! Children under 8 must be accompanied by an adult.
Interaction-MK, Peartree Bridge, Milton Keynes www.interactionmk.org.uk
Design a Dino 10am- 12pm, Wednesday 4 April 2012
Discover more about our pre-historic past and create your own dinosaur designs.
Peartree Bridge Dinosaur, Peartree Bridge, Milton Keynes
Dino Eggstravanganza 1pm – 4pm, Saturday 7 April 2012
Bring the family along and take part in interactive art activities, hunt for dinosaur eggs and meet the Dino Diva’s.Voluntary donation on the gate.
Peartree Bridge Dinosaur, Peartree Bridge, Milton Keynes www.interactionmk.org.uk
Design a Dino 10am – 12.00pm, Wednesday 11 April 2012
Discover more about our pre-historic past and create your own dinosaur designs.
Woughton Orchard, Milton Keynes
Dino Art Day 1pm – 4pm, Thursday 12 April 2012
An afternoon of messy prehistoric fun making sock puppets, junk sculptures, papier-mâché and much more!
FREE and all ages welcome! Children under 8 must be accompanied by an adult.
Peartree Bridge Dinosaur, Peartree Bridge, Milton Keynes www.interactionmk.org.uk
All events are free and children must be accompanied by an adult.
To enter the competition just download a triceratops template from the website, complete your design, with your contact details on the reverse and submit your entry to Dinosaur Competition, Inter-Action MK, The Old Rectory, Waterside, MK6 3EJ.
Entries must be submitted by Friday 4 May 2012.
Motorbike Magic At Mount Farm
Join The Parks Trust and Milton Buzzard Motorcycle Club to see riders demonstrate their skill and balance at the Mount Farm Trials Park Open Day on Saturday 24 March from 11am – 2pm.
At the Open Day the Club, whose members range in age from 6 to over 70, will be demonstrating their dexterity at clearing obstacles such as boulders, water, hills and logs at Milton Keynes’ only custom built trials’ course. There will also be trials demonstrations on bicycles and the Auto Cycle Union, the motorcycling sport’s governing body, will be on hand to give help and advice on how to get into trials riding.
Andy Martin, Secretary of Milton Buzzard, said: “Anybody who is thinking about taking up trials riding should come along to meet the riders, view the bikes and get some friendly advice on the sport. Trials riding is challenging to do and great fun to watch so the Open Day will be a terrific spectator event for families too.”
Briony Serginson, Head of Community Engagement at The Parks Trust, said: “We’re really pleased that the Milton Buzzards are enjoying their new facilities at Mount Farm and extend a warm invitation to members of the public who want to take a closer look at the course and this fantastic sport.”
Parking is available at the Trials Park, located off the V8 Marlborough Street by the Mount Farm Roundabout.
Try our tremendous trees event
Try our Tremendous Trees event. Join park rangers for a 'treeeemendous' event dedicated to discovering more about trees. Discover how to identify trees, what kinds of animals like to live in them and why trees are important to life on earth.
They'll be lots of hands on activities and the chance to take some creative crafty items home.
The event takes place on April 12th at the Tree Cathedral, Milton Keynes between 10.00am and 12.00pm or 1.00pm to 3.00pm. It costs £3 per child and booking for the highly popular event is essential
Children must be accompanied by an adult. Book online or call 01908 255379 to secure your place.
Time for tea in Campbell Park
A new café is opening on Sundays in Campbell Park. Visitors to the park will now be able to enhance their walk, cycle ride or family day out by enjoying a relaxing cup of tea, a homemade cake or tasty treat.
Café in Campbell Park will open on Sunday 1 April 2012 from 12 noon until 4.30pm.
The café will be run by Annie Reeves and Mo Williams and will offer a menu of wholesome homemade cakes and light refreshments as wells as a friendly place to visit.
Established at the Cricket Pavilion, Campbell Park, off Silbury Boulevard, the café looks across the cricket green and the beautiful formal landscaping of the ponds and city gardens within the park. It will be open on Sundays throughout Spring and Summer. Parking at the Pavilion is free.
Annie and Mo, said: “We’ve visited the park many times over the years and always thought that it would be a great opportunity to run a café in the park. We love to bake and believe that our homemade cakes and freshly made sandwiches will attract a regular following of visitors to the park.”
Briony Serginson, Head of Community Engagement at The Parks Trust, said: “Sunday afternoons are a great time to get together with the family and spend some quality time together in the parks. Being able to enjoy a cake and cuppa is a great way to round off your visit.”
For further information, to view the café menu and confirm opening times on special holidays please visit www.cafeincampbellpark.co.uk
Work To Start On Campbell Park Open Air Theatre
Planning permission has been granted to improve the open air theatre at Campbell Park. Construction will start on the new amphitheatre on 19 March and should take just over two months.
Briony Serginson, Head of Community Engagement at The Parks Trust, said: “These improvements will allow us to encourage a wider variety of outdoor events and attract more high profile performers and performances to Campbell Park.”
The existing stage will be removed and a new, larger oval stage will be installed. This will have a permanent canopy overhead to shield performers and their equipment from rain and sun. The plans also include creating a gabion wall behind the stage to provide screening and direct sound towards the audience. The wall will be hand filled with locally sourced natural stone, and the back of it will eventually become covered in climbing plants including hydrangea, roses and winter flowering jasmine. The existing low fencing and hedge at the top of the amphitheatre will also be extended in order to keep sheep from grazing on the terraced grass seating area.
Briony added: “A key benefit of the improvements is that we will be able to move virtually all music events from the events plateau, where the funfair is located, down into the amphitheatre, where we can better contain any noise. The plateau will then be freed up for event car parking so when we have events fewer cars will be parked in residential areas.”
The new amphitheatre has been designed by award winning Hinton Cook Architects based at Linford Wood, and will be developed by Jackson Coles Construction Consultants based at Caldecotte. The main contractor will be Miletree Construction based in Old Wolverton.
Health and Safety Manager
Health and safety is fundamental to our business and integral to our success and reputation. This is a rare opportunity for the right person to join our senior management team and help us provide the people of Milton Keynes and visitors to the city with inspirational parks and thriving landscapes that are safe, accessible and fun.
In a hugely varied role you will work across the whole organisation from ensuring our landscape contractors follow safe systems, use best practice and record and learn from any accidents, to seeing that our outdoor events are organised and run with due regard to visitors’ safety and enjoyment. You will routinely review the effectiveness of our health and safety policies and assess what changes might be necessary. You will guide and assist colleagues with the process of assessing and mitigating the risks of the wide variety of activities we carry out.
You will look out for the safety of our 45 employees, our 100 contractors, our 200 volunteers; the thousands of participants attending our events, visitors using our parks, sportspeople using our lakes and sports pitches, children using our play areas, tenants renting our commercial properties, and anyone and everyone coming on to our land.
You will need to be a coach, a guide and mentor to our staff and our contractors. You should be passionate and enthusiastic about the role that health and safety plays in our success and understand how critical it is to maintaining our outstanding reputation both as an employer and as a provider of high quality public open space.
Whilst we will look to you to take the lead on Health and Safety matters you must make certain that everyone recognises the responsibility they have for ensuring no one is put at risk from any of our activities. You will need drive and energy. You should be articulate and persuasive and at times you may need to be an enforcer. A powerful advocate for health and safety, you will ensure our culture remains conducive to achieving the highest standards of health and safety management.
Hours: Full time
Salary: Depending on experience
Closing date: Monday 23rd April 2012
Interview: w/c Monday 30th April 2012
Job description - to view a job description please click here
To apply: please send your CV and a covering letter by Monday 23rd April 2012 to Diane Liness, The Parks Trust, Campbell Park Pavilion,1300 Silbury Boulevard, Campbell Park, Milton Keynes, MK9 4AD or by email to d.liness@theparkstrust.com.
If you require any further information or would like an informal chat about the position, contact David Foster on 01908 233600 or d.foster@theparkstrust.com.
Award winning education in your parks
Teaching children in Milton Keynes to learn and discover more about bugs, trees, birds, flowers and the great outdoors has never been so easy. The Parks Trust’s education programme, offering an exciting array of activities from bug hunts and pond-dipping to natural arts and crafts, has been awarded a Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge.
All of the Trust’s education activities support the national curriculum whilst making learning outdoors truly fun and memorable. Nicky Saunders, The Parks Trust’s education co-ordinator, said: “For many children this is their first experience of getting close to nature. We hope every child leaves with a greater understanding of their local environment and how precious our parks and green spaces are.”
The quality award is made by the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom, and is designed to make it easier for teachers and community group leaders to identify providers of quality educational visits. This is the second award granted to The Parks Trust from the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom.
Nicky Saunders added: “We're thrilled to receive official recognition for the quality of learning experience we offer to young people and we look forward to welcoming even more children and young people from the local area to our parks”
Beth Gardner, Chief Executive of the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom said:
“Educational visits are among the most memorable experiences in a child’s school life. The LOtC Quality Badge offers teachers a guarantee that The Parks Trust is providing the sort of educational value that they can build on in class long after the visit. I congratulate The Parks Trust on being awarded the LOtC Quality Badge.”
Bunting World Record Attempt
Can you help The Parks Trust make Milton Keynes a record breaker by helping to create the longest line of bunting in the world? That’s the question Parks Trust rangers have put to local people, schools and community groups as part of this year’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Julie Dawes, Events Coordinator at The Parks Trust, said: “The current world record was set by Malbank Secondary school, Nantwich in 2010 with 2,737.72m of bunting or 1.7 miles. We’re aiming for 12,500 triangles (or 2.5 miles) so if every single child in MK makes just one triangle then we would beat the previous record by miles!
As it’s the Jubilee year the Trust is asking for bunting to represent the commonwealth countries of the world; this could be flags of commonwealth countries or pictures depicting the different country’s culture, national animal, sport etc.
Bunting flags should be sewn onto bias binding tape leaving 40cm clear at each end of the tape so that it can be attached to the record breaking attempt. You can download a bunting template here and further instructions here.
All entries should be handed into The Parks Trust Headquarters at Campbell Park Pavilion by Friday 25th May 2012. The bunting will be exhibited for everyone to see in Campbell Park on Tuesday 5th June 2012 2-6pm at The Parks Trust’s Diamond Jubilee Garden Party.
Passionate About Parks
It’s no surprise to find that people in Milton Keynes are passionate about their parks but staff at The Parks Trust were delighted when market research showed just how much people love their greenery here. One resident even went so far as to say “They’re (the parks) lovely places to go – Milton Keynes’ biggest strength.”
The Parks Trust commissioned the market research to find out how people use their parkland, what they feel about it and what they would like to see improved or different about it.
The research showed that 94 per cent* of people questioned think that their parks are well maintained; nine out of ten said that they valued them and 60 per cent were able to name an inspirational park.
The most inspirational park was Willen Lake North, followed by Willen Lake South, Campbell Park, Furzton Lake and Caldecotte Lake. Over half of respondents, 56 per cent, visit a park at least once a week. The main reasons were for walking (31 per cent), a family outing (20 per cent), walking the dog (17 per cent) or visiting a children’s play area (nine per cent). Other popular reasons were cycling, running or attending an event.
Three out of ten have experienced a “special moment” in a park, including celebrating a milestone birthday, going on a date, making a life-changing decision, falling in love, and proposing to someone or accepting a proposal.
David Foster, Chief Executive of The Parks Trust, said: “The Trust is celebrating 20 years of caring for the parks so it’s really encouraging to know that people value them and think they are well looked after. We invest almost £5 million a year in them and this is all funded through our commercial property and investments – making the parks completely free for residents and visitors to use.”
The survey also revealed that people would like to see more dog bins, litter bins and toilets, as well as more maps and information about the parks on signage.
David continued: “It’s very helpful to see people’s suggestions and some of them are already being addressed. We’re installing new signage which includes maps and information about what you can see and do in our parks and we actively work with parish councils who wish to put in dog bins. As a self-financing charity all our expenditure has to be carefully considered for its total benefits to enhancing and maintaining the parks and we have long term plans to introduce new features and facilities that meet the needs and aspirations of residents and visitors.”
The research was undertaken by Stony Stratford based market research company, Start Up Research. They held focus groups, conducted face to face interviews with 613 Milton Keynes’ residents in parks and in locations around Milton Keynes and analysed responses from 122 people who completed an online survey. Further technical information on the research can be obtained from chris.brookes@start-up-research.co.uk.
Volunteer Seasonal Ranger (May - September)
The Parks Trust is looking for three volunteers to help support its community work over the busy summer period. The successful applicants will be involved in delivering the Trust’s education programme, helping to run public events and co-leading conservation tasks. The post would suit somebody who is pursuing a career in countryside work and looking for valuable experience. A flexible approach is necessary as hours may vary.
Hours: 3 days per week
Salary: Volunteer position
Closing date: Monday 12th March 2012
Interview: Thursday 22nd March 2012
To view a job description click here
To apply: please send your CV and a covering letter by Monday 12th March 2012 to Diane Liness, The Parks Trust, Campbell Park Pavilion,1300 Silbury Boulevard, Campbell Park, Milton Keynes, MK9 4AD or by email to d.liness@theparkstrust.com.
If you require any further information or would like an informal chat about the position, contact Martin Kincaid on 01908 255376 or m.kincaid@theparkstrust.com.
