Mersey Basin Week Blog

Mersey Basin Campaign - The big School clean up week!

At the beginning of October, the Mersey Basin Campaign will be holding its annual Mersey Basin Week, and we want YOUR school to get involved!

If you have a pond, stream, river or canal close by that could do with a bit of a tidy up then now is your chance to make a difference.

We are encouraging as many schools as possible to get out and about during Mersey Basin Week (29th September - 8th October) and cleaning and tidying up their local watery spots. We even have some small grants to help you out.

If you are interested then please get in touch with Hazel Lord, Mersey Basin Campaign, Fourways House, Hilton Street, Manchester, M1 2EJ, or email H.Lord@merseybasin.org.uk

Once you are registered we will be able to send you an information pack, which will help you to plan your event.

Good luck, and have a good clean up!

sunshine supermen

Liverpool Museums

I've just discovered the Naked Museums blog from National Museums Liverpool. It's really interesting, with loads of information about what's going on at the various museums. Have a look.........

enquire within

More news! The blog has appeared on the Northwest Enquirer blogwatch today! Hooray.....

buttoned up

The blog now has a button on our homepage! It's never been easier to visit your favourite blog. Of course, if you subscribe to our RSS feed it'll bypass all that effort - click on the orange RSS logo on the right to add us to your feeds.

A daffy trip

You couldn't make this up - 29,000 bright yellow rubber ducks that spilled from a container ship in the Pacific in 1992 have become the object of academic research, gained a cult following and can change hands for up to £1,000 each.
Now about 10,000 of the hardy little critters are heading for the UK, having been frozen in ice for up to five years as they passed 6,000 miles from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Arctic and the North Pole. Scientists predict the Gulf Stream will send them bobbing to our shores some time next year.
When they arrive, they will have travelled a staggering 21,800 miles.
The remainder of the flotilla which stayed stuck in the Pacific will soon complete their fifth circuit of the great ocean, caught in a current called the Pacific Gyre, having travelled around 30,000 miles.
Scientists have been able to follow their journey and thereby track the ocean currents in a novel and unprecendented way. Meanwhile, Radio Four is broadcasting a programme about the ducks this Sunday.
The ducks have won a cult following and some people have started collecting them - or at least the ones that occasionally drift ashore and get picked up on beaches. It's not surprising really - the darn things are just so lovable. We all have fond bath time memories of them from childhood, and the mental image of thousands of little yellow ducks happily bobbing across the vast blue ocean is wonderfully appealing.
Personally, I'll never look at my daughters' rubber ducks at bath time quite the same way again.

Mersey Basin Week First Event

The first event for Mersey Basin Week 2006 - has now been registered. World Peace Day Community Clean-up and Celebration, will take place at Alder Grange Community & Technology School in Rawtenstall - on 21st September.

There will be a big litter pick during the morning and a singing event at 2.00 p.m. - everyone is welcome.

If you would like to know more about this event either contact Bev on 0161 242 8212 or Resma resma.patel@groundwork.org.uk

Congratulations to Resma who wins the prize for the first co-ordinator to register an event for the week. The rest of you can now take up the challenge!

Cradle of Industrial Revolution Uncovered?

The Campaign is working with St Helens Borough Council and Groundwork to understand the industrial history of a site near Blackbrook, St Helens. The picture below is from a community archaeology weekend. As you can see several members of the community joined Rick (foreground) from the Council and Liverpool University Archaeology Field Unit in 30 degree heat to uncover the secrets hidden below the surface. The results of the weekend will feed into the wider interpretation of the site. The work and preparation of a wider scheme is generously funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

archaeology
St Helens

dogs, birds...what more do you want

Stockport Riverside Park on saturday: sheepdogs (60% more intelligent than other dogs, and as for labradors...well), birds of prey, circus skills, bikes, chainsaw massacre (no, sculpture I meant), and a host of other delights in the brilliant sunshine. Magnificently organised by the Campaign's own Sarah Wallbank with the Rugby Club a fitting and fun celebration of the riverside environmental improvements and the creation of Stockport Riverside (the Mersey is the river we're talking about for anyone geographically challenged). Saving the world can be fun. Stop moaning and do something. I want a dog. Or a bird of prey. Or a circus skill. Or...

Speke and Garston Coastal Reserve

What beautiful weather we've had this weekend - and some of us have been making the most of it. 200 people came to the newly-opened Speke and Garston coastal reserve on Saturday to enjoy the new facilities. There was free food, and lots of fun and games, with a choice of a brisk walk or relaxed stroll around the site. Liverpool Sailing Club were on hand with blow-carting, and the whole event was captured for posterity by the eye-in-the-sky plane, which flew overhead with MBC's intrepid Sarah Wallbank and Lucy Burton on board. It seems there will be more of the same during Mersey Basin Week 2006, so if you haven't visited the reserve yet, that could be your chance.