Christmas & New Year Greetings 2008

Another incredibly busy year bites the dust - so busy in fact that in October we forgot to celebrate the tenth anniversary since this web site was launched!

We kicked off 2008 on the 1st January with the launch of a brand new standalone web site featuring the Willows School Rambling Club diaries of Frank 'Pop' Mason. Frank's notes and photographs from the period between 1957 and 1974 sparked off great memories for many local people and has proved a very popular addition to our portfolio of special features. Our thanks go to Ann Papageorgiou, Frank's daughter, for sharing her father's diaries with us and the wider world.

Willows School Rambling Club

Once again our year was dominated by the Iron Bridge Restoration Project and it began as the previous year ended, with more delays. Things finally started to come together in February and once the gas main diversion was completed in early May it was relatively plain sailing to the opening ceremony in June, which was without doubt the highlight of our year. In fact it was probably the highlight of our decade!

Although the Iron Bridge is now restored, and our main aim achieved, there are still a number of things to look forward to before the project as a whole is completed. A large bronze plaque explaining the history of the bridge and the restoration project is still to be installed on the tree stump near to the bridge. This has been delayed by the weather preventing completion of the sculpture work on the stump but should now be done early in the New Year. Having our web site logo cast in bronze is not something we would have imagined 10 years ago but next year it should appear twice! There is also a new interpretation board to be installed covering the wider aspects of the park - this is still in the design stages but looks like an interesting feature that will be complemented by a new leaflet and the re-launch of the Brabyns Park Interest Trail. In addition to that we still have a listening post to install, CGI and 3D models to finish, a short documentary film about the project and displays that will be featured in the Stockport Story Museum to finalise too.

We've said before that we're proud of what we've achieved with our calendar sales, with the Iron Bridge and other heritage related projects led by the Friends of Marple Memorial Park and Marple Locks Heritage Society having benefited. In previous years we've not decided how to use the profits until after the calendars have been printed but this year we got our act together and chose to pledge them to the 'Find a Cure for Martha' campaign for Kidney Research. It was an easy decision and, having managed to include Martha's picture on the front cover, we were very pleased to present a cheque for £1,000 to Martha and the Marple Business Forum at the Marple Christmas Cracker in December.

Our associations with the Friends of Marple Memorial Park and Marple Locks Heritage Society have continued throughout 2008. The Friends of the Park have have had another successful year with the installation of new equipment in the infants play area, the construction of a French Boules Court, the completion of their BBC Breathing Places Reading Circle behind the library and an order placed for a new fence around two sides of the basketball court in the teen area. Their fundraising activities have included a special showing of the Railway Children at Marple's Regent Cinema and tombolas at the Food and Drink Festival and the Marple Christmas Cracker. The Friends have once again been given fantastic support by Marple's shops and local business community with the donation of numerous prizes for the tombolas.

The Lock 17 project being carried out jointly by Marple Locks Heritage Society, the Friends of the Park and Stockport Council has still to be finalised. The bronze plaque dedicating the display to the late Gordon Mills has been cast but it has been decided to mount it on a huge piece of stone that is currently located in the British Waterways Depot near to the aqueduct. This needs to be transported by BW using special equipment and will hopefully happen in good time for next year's Locks Festival. This is due to take place on Sunday 5th July 2009 and the Locks Society have already begun their preparations for this popular bi-annual event.

Returning to on-line matters we've been pleased to welcome The MacNair Trust, Mellor Art Society, Marple Writing Competition and Marple Aikido to our ever expanding Community Pages.

The popularity of the web site has continued to grow each year and with nearly 63,000 visits to the main site in 2008 we are now approaching 351,000 visits since our launch 10 years ago. The Virtual Tour also continued to expand and grow in popularity. Its images have now been displayed over 437,000 times and the milestone of the first half a million displays is rapidly approaching. The success of the Tour is largely due to the continual addition of new images from many sources and it is these that keep people coming back. A particularly significant contribution has been made this year by Marple Civic Society, who have given us access to their photographic archives. This has allowed us to make regular additional since the autumn and will keep us going well into 2009, if not beyond! So a big thank you to Marple Civic Society for their support and generosity in sharing their assets with us and with you.

A scan through the "what's new" page for 2008 shows that although we did manage to update and re-launch the pub guide this year we still haven't found time to reinstate the guest book that had to be shut down due to spammers a year or two ago. However, we did manage to rescue the Forum and Notice board from a major hacker attack earlier this year by converting it to a new format, which we hope you will agree is a big improvement.

Well that's our year in summary and all that remains is to wish all our visitors, both local and from all around the world, a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year for 2009.

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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