Fun Palaces 2018, 7th October 2018

November 10, 2018

Fun Palaces 2018, 7th October 2018

9am - 6pm

In 2017, the Fun Palaces event at Morden Hall Park was a huge success. An incredible 1600+ turned up for the event, which was in the overflow car park - after spending most of 2017 working in the overflow car park, the Urban Rangers had transformed it into a more bio-diverse area, with numerous habitats for wildlife (the bug hotel, a small man-made pond, scrub areas as well as the Kitchen Garden and the polytunnel.) It's now known as the Paddock.

This year, the event was once again held in the paddock, and the day thankfully arrived sunny and quite warm. And once again the Urban Rangers were going to help run the event throughout the afternoon.

So from 9am all 7 of us arrived to help set up the event - by 10am everything was starting to come together, with stalls and areas for certain events, and by 11:30am we were ready for the first people.

After a quick lunch we headed to the paddock where we were all given certain responsibilities, from helping launch the doughnut-eating competition, counting and talking to the visitors as they entered, helping to lead certain events and much more.

I decided to help with the nature walks (2) led by a member of the MHP Nature Group, Philip, to introduce the visitors to some of the wildlife around the park. The walk started with fish and aquatic creatures, but moved on to mammals and birds. Notable sightings were 2 Kingfishers that I heard first, and then they flew by on the second walk as well as Grey Heron, ducks and Common Darter dragonflies. (A quick walk myself in between held 7 Chiffchaff and a Reed Bunting.)

Other than that I enjoyed talking to visitors, and trying to get them involved with nature, and to see it in a new way - as well as take photos of the events.

Here are some of the activities that took place - there's a timetable in the photo to the right:

Football
Cricket
Sketching and drawing
Watercolour Art
Doughnut-eating competition!
Bushcraft
Music Band
Ultimate Frisbee
Popcorn over a fire
Bee Education and much more

After the last visitors slowly dispersed at around 4:30pm the tidy-up began, and the paddock was quiet once again by 6pm. The final tally for the day was approximately 1300 visitors - although it wasn't as high as 2017 it was still a huge success.

Special thanks goes to Hattie, who - having founded the Urban Rangers - had her last session at the park with her dog Albus before starting to work at another position for the GAP NT. Thank you Hattie!