How to have fun in the wet and cold - A Young Friends Guide

Happy New Year! 2016 has got off to a wet and cold start but the young friends are still out and about and having fun. How???? Well at today's session I think we nailed it.

Our den in the woods

How to have FUN in the Wet and Cold

• Top to toe waterproofs plus wellies for children and parents
• Lots of layers of warm clothes
• Thermos flasks - hot tea and coffee for parents, warm juice for little 'uns 
• Keep 'em warm - Thermos can even be used for hot water for a small hot water bottle to warm up cold little hands
• Jump about! Song time is for warming up.
• Make the most of the weather - today we had such fun washing socks in the rain and pegging them out. We also made a super cool den to keep us dry and had our snack in there
• Keep it short - if it is really wet and cold we will keep the sessions short so we can all get home and warm up before anyone gets fed up

Wintery Days

The cold days are here and it seems to have done nothing but rain the last few weeks. That hasn't put off our Young Friends who have been out in the park every week and keeping dry under the story tree.

On the 5th of November we had our fire bowl out and loved watching popcorn pop in the pan while we all waved sparklers. 


Last week we began the festive season by making slippers to leave out for St Nick. And guess what? He filled them with goodies while we sang songs!

Join us next week for a magical Christmas Tree hunt and snowflake pancakes.




If you are still looking for presents for your little explorer the Young Friends highly recommend Collins Gem nature books.

Fungus Humongous

Today our brave Young Friends came out in the pouring rain for a speical mushroom hunt in the woods. As well as a trail of paper mushrooms we found some amazing real ones growing. Armed with pocket guides the little guys worked hard to identify the fungus.

The most humongous find was a mushroom growning out of the story tree. There was a fairy door in the stalk and inside were presents for Vicki and Albie! Vicki has done such a craking job of running this group and the young friends are very grateful for all the fun Thursdays we've had with Vicki.

Appletastic times and Yoga in the woods

It's all go for the young friends this autumn as we embrace the changing of the seasons. Today we had our own Apple Day to celebrate this years apple harvest.  Who knew how much fun we could have rolling apples down the story tree? We also made beautiful apple stars, dunked them in birdseed and hung them in the trees for our feathered friends. Our apple snack time went down a treat with apple pie, apple cakes, apple sauce and, well, apples.

Last week we had a special treat when Laura Potts, a York Iyengar Yoga teacher, lead a yoga session for the children. We all joined in moving our limbs and roaring like lions.

We have lots more excitement in store for you over the coming months. Our fire pit will be coming out for bonfire night (day) and christmas, there will be mushroom hunts, bird feeding, bug hotel building and lots and lots more!

The sun shone, the eggs stayed on the spoons and everyone had a lovely time in our beautiful park at the Young Friends annual Summer Party! Huge thanks - again - to Alex from Parties of Distinction and to all the people who helped put up our newly decorated tent, ran the crafts, brought tasty treats and helped pack everything away afterwards!
This will be my last blog post as Jen is taking over - along with Elly Ross who will be organising the group from now on. Contact Elly westbankparkkids@gmail.com if you would like to get involved with the group, help run a session or even if you simply have some lovely pics you would like to share on this page.

Super furry animals took over the park this week with the wonderful Alex and her huge pile of costumes. Despite near tropical temperatures, no one wanted to disrobe at the end, with one small teddy bear (sorry, Grizzly Bear) last seen padding off to the swings still in full bear garb....

The summer fair was also a roaring success with around £700 in donations and profit - some of which will go towards the Big Pond Pot. For those who don't know, we're putting the last of our Young Friends kitty towards renovating this at the end of the year - making it bigger, waterproof at last and more child-friendly (no more slippery sides!). If you happen to know any mini digger drivers, suppliers of pond liner or would like to help us out when we start work - please get in touch!

Sunshine and showers, butterflies and flowers: a lovely morning knee deep (and shoulder deep for some) in the meadows and on the Rose Walk with Jen's mask making session, glitter and of course, our weekly check on the tadpoles.
Please put Sunday June 14th - 12pm onwards - in your diaries. Meet by the Rose Walk for picnic, play and gentle knitting and crochet in preparation for the big Yarn Bomb at the Fair on June 28th. No skill needed as we can teach you the basics, the more experienced can help us cover the trees in wool art! We are also looking for teddies and soft toys who may need new homes for our Fair tombola in aid of the Friends of West Bank Park please contact Lucy King: lucyking.king1@googlemail.com if you have any you can donate. Lastly, we REALLY need some volunteers for the Young Friends craft tent on June 28th from 1pm to 4pm. Even half an hour will be fantastic and you will have great fun - promise! Please contact Jen a s a p on the e mail above (top right).

Woodland soup and worm hunting - all washed down with some magical bubbles and Ruth's incredible cake. A lovely session this week, made all the more memorable with another set of heart-stopping photos from Elly Ross.

How to make Woodland Soup:

Grab a bucket. Fill it with cabbage (leaves) carrots (fir cones), herbs (random weeds), peas (beech nuts) and plenty of gravy. (mud). Add the finest stock (water), stir (a lot), chant, sing, fling it around the woods and spoon it into baking trays. (actual baking trays or old plastic pots). Cook in the oven (on a log) and...enjoy....

Rolling, rolling, rolling, RAW EGGS! Actually they were hard boiled, and decorated, before we sent them down the hill at our Easter Special this week. Any upsets over smashed eggs were quickly alleviated by the discovery you could then eat them...
Huge thanks to Tanya for a lovely session and we're looking forward to Bird Feeder Fun next week with Lucy. A reminder that we need volunteers please for the Young Friends section of this year's West Bank Park Summer Fair. Please contact Tanya if you want to spend an hour or two in the Craft Tents - yarn bombing and Super Heroes are our general themes so far!
Please contact Tanya at: happyheart78@btinternet.com

Another amazing adventure with the wonderful Alex Hunt (http://www.partiesofdistinction.co.uk/). There were crocodiles in trees, treacherous shark-infested rivers and pirates on the prowl...but our brave and fearless Young Friends battled through and managed to find the treasure in the end... We are SO lucky to have Alex running these sessions - which she doesn't charge anything for - so remember, if you are planning a party, who you going to call???!!!!!

Those who went down to the woods on Thursday had a very big surprise indeed. Wonderful Alex (from http://www.partiesofdistinction.co.uk/) had planted cuddly friends all over the park- along with everything else you could need for a picnic - which everyone brought back to base for a Very Special snack time. It was a real treat Alex, thanks so much. I wish we could have you back again..OH WAIT! Guess who is running the group this week! (March 5). See you there!

We have a beautiful record of our fiery February session this week from Young Friend mum and professional photographer, Elly Ross - thank you so much for our treasured photographs Elly. So this week we brought pop up tents (largely ignored) plus popcorn (not ignored at all) and had frosty frolics and lots of fun! We also decided that since we have a bit of money in the kitty we are freezing (!) the usual £1 donation until March. So we are free, as well as frosty! In February. Enough alliteration... already....

We laugh in the face of frost! Who needs warm weather when you've got spiders to make out of beech nuts and pipe cleaners and Phil's spectacular fruit loaves? Thanks to Elly for a lovely session and PLEASE jot Saturday Feb 7th in your diaries. Its our next Park Action Day and we'll be carrying on our gentle clearing work by the pond/wildlife area to help make sure we all have plenty of space to play when spring finally comes along...Meet at 10am by the pond or playground entrance, shared picnic at 12 and all tools provided.

No snow for our Christmas party but lots of smiles and surprises with Tanya's decoration hunt and Tree dressing and great success with the firebowl I am pleased to report! Snowflake pancakes (genius idea from Lucy King: simply snip folded flat tortilla wraps as you would with paper snowflakes and fry in butter and cinammon) and lots of mince pies!
We start again on Thurs Jan 8th with bird feeding in the wildlife area - hope to see you there! Happy New Year everyone!

A heavenly Halloween (if there is such a thing!) this week with Lucy turning the Young Friends into Autumn Kings and Queens with leafy crowns and some lovely stories and songs. Next week get ready for some firework fun with sparkles everywhere and some crafty fire building....probably made out of orange and red tissue paper as none of us are brave enough to tackle the fire bowl just yet....!

A reminder that the simplest ideas are usually the best! No instructions needed, the children knew exactly what to do with a bucket of mud, some cake cases and a park full of interesting berries and leaves at our Mud Cafe!

Some news. As many of you know, the Young Friends have also become the Old Friends of West Bank Park. We have a web site: http://www.westbankpark.org/ and facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/westbankparkyork and if you would like to send in park pictures or some comments etc please do as they need filling up a bit!

As well as technological enhancements, we are starting to tackle the most needy areas of the park. At the moment, I am busy trying to save the beloved Truck in the playground. This was scheduled for demolition but the council have agreed to replace the side panel (where most of the damage was) instead. Will keep you updated. Once its fixed, we plan a bumper painting day to tart up as much of the equipment as we can. Let me know if you would like to get involved!

On the work front, we are drawing up a monthly "Learn in the Park" schedule. We'll kick this off with a pond clearance session on THURS OCT 23. This will make up the crafts activity section of our Young Friends session, in other words, everything will be the same with snack time, songs etc, but we'll de camp to the pond area (And a couple of kind mums will entertain the children in the playground) to join other volunteers to brush up the pond area. Catherine Heinemeyer will lead this and she is a bit of an expert so listen out for fascinating facts! Meet at the statue as normal, and if you are late, we will be by the pond! PLEASE WEAR SUITABLE CLOTHES!!!

We had a lovely summery party on Aug 7th with everything a very Young Friend could want really - crafts with Jen and Tanya (including an actual ice cream shop for making glitter ice lollies!), a groaning treats table provided by all of us, play tents, zooming scooters and fabulous games from Alex of Parties of Distinction (http://www.partiesofdistinction.co.uk/)!!, a little story from me and glorious sunshine. Just lovely.

And some interesting news about the park that just shows the power of Mums...as many of you know, the lovely Friends of West Bank Park, the (slightly older) version of us except that they look after the whole park, all stepped down a couple of weeks ago. After 20 yrs of keeping a watchful eye on everything from the gardening and maintenance down to the thorny issue of the Gates and toilets, they felt that they needed new blood.

Would you like to have a little guess who is on the new committee! Our own Lucy King is the new Secretary (take a letter Miss King), Helen Hoult who took over the West Bank Park Fair this year, is the new Chair, Big Young Friend Catherine Heinemeyer is also on the committee and I am the new Treasurer. Helen has already set up a Web site and we are poised and raring to go. I plan to focus mainly on work groups to try and keep on top of litter/bindweed/pond clearing etc so if anyone fancies tarting up the park, please let me know. Well done us I say!

At last a sunny Thursday and we had a beautiful morning chalking happy pictures along the paths and an extra special song session with the addition of a guitar! Thanks so much to Kate for organising and she is running this weeks fun and frolics so hope to see you there!

P.S Don't forget our Big Bash on Aug 7. We have a summer party every year and it should be lots of fun. There are no contributions required as its the Young Friends way of thanking everyone for their support, so you can spend your £1 on cake instead! Also, I just want to point out that although its Albie's birthday on this day, its simply a coincidence as I am running the session that day. Its not his party so please don't worry about cards or presents. Just bring yourselves. And the cake of course....!

A LOT OF FUN AT THE FAIR! 

So more than 2000 people came to the West Bank Park Summer Fair today.....twice as many as last year. They must have heard about the Young Friends fabulous craft tent (see picture) where Jen, Ruby, Penny, Hanzza and Tanya turned hundreds of children into pirates and fairies with their magic wands...and quite a lot of paper and glue...transformed a dull old beech into The Tree of Local Life and made a bit of bunting too. Over in our Story Tent, I chucked glitter about and warmed up the audience for the real stars:  Nettlefoot Kate (Catherine H!), the lovely Lara and fabulous Phil and his slightly naughty puppets.

We are prepared to admit the Bouncy Castle, Mini railway, Morris Dancers, climbing wall, ice creams and community stalls - oh and the face painting, thanks Carolyn! - had something to do with the record number of visitors too, but the best thing about it is that everyone got to experience our beautiful park at its best, all have an e mail to get in touch if they want to support us, and we made rather a lot of money to put towards the park and next year's bash.

Thank you so much to everyone who came to help, join in or simply anyone who comes to our Young Friends group as your £1 s paid for the crafts and story tent and by turning up each week,  we can keep going, rain and shine, helping our beautiful babies grow up to realise how much fun it can be to make soup out of twigs and sit in a tree and sing.

Huge thanks to Marilyn, Roisheen and Mavis from the Acomb Flower Guild who came armed with bouquets and helped everyone make lovely little cupcake arrangements under the Story Tree. We made a small donation from our funds to their charity, the RNIB and they have promised to return - thank you so much ladies. It was a magical event.

Don't forget the Big Day is coming up - please get in touch if you would like to volunteer to help in the Young Friends Craft Tent on June 29!