After the very successful Clean Up of Elder Park in April, when 32 community volunteers turned out, the Greater Govan Environment Trust, (GGET), followed up its programme of monthly events with a Teddy Bears Picnic in May.

The Trust had invited local nursery schools and parents to come along to the park with their under 5s for a morning of fun. On the day, over 20 under 5 children along with their teddies of course and their mums, dads or carers met at the park.

Ken Bussey, Secretary to the Trust explained, ‘Because of the inclement weather on the morning we were very fortunate in being able to use the facilities of Elderpark Library. This was extremely beneficial because the rain was continually off and on that morning and the grass was quite wet. We are very grateful to chief librarian Grace and the staff at Elderpark library for allowing the Trust to take this event indoors, as it really made a difference.’

The picnic started with a puppet show about the animals in the jungle, including the bears, and the children  were really enjoying it with roars of laughter competing with the roars and other noises coming from the puppet animals.

After the puppet show, the children had a surprise visit from ECO, Govan’s Environment Bear who led the children in a game about picking up litter and reminding them that they must never drop litter in the streets but always to either take it home or put it in a bin.

Trust Director, Liz Wylie was on hand to help ECO and she added, ‘The children really enjoyed the visit from ECO and were delighted to help him in his quest not to drop litter in the streets or parks in Greater Govan.’

After ECO had gone back to his secret den, the children enjoyed their picnic along with their teddies, and then it was time for story telling and of course it was stories about bears too!

Afterwards, the mums and dads and carers told the Trust how much they and the children had enjoyed the picnic and hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before there was another one.

After the event, Ken Bussey said, ‘We’re delighted that the children really enjoyed the Teddy Bears Picnic and we’d like to thank them all for coming and for being so well behaved. We’d also like to thank Elderpark Library for letting us take the picnic inside and especially the Library Service staff from the Mitchell Library who organised the puppet show and the story telling. Also, a big thank you to ECO for coming along to make the picnic really special.’

The next event in Elder Park will be on Saturday June 23 when there will be a Sports and Games Day for older children and their families. Ken Bussey said, ‘On that day there will be opportunities for youngsters to try out lots of sport including cricket, rugby, football and basketball. There will also be lots of other games and we hope to introduce the youngsters to a bit of fun called Bouncy Boxing. There will also be a family style Treasure Hunt in the Park with prizes.’

Organisation is also underway for the July event in Elder Park which will be a repeat of last year’s very successful fun dog show followed by a family picnic in the park where we hope to have music as well.

Keep reading this column for further details of all the trust’s activities and you can also hear about them on the Environment Show on Sunny Govan radio every Friday from 1.00 to 2.00pm on 103.5 FM.

 We hope to see lots of you in the future and if you want to get in touch with Ken Bussey the Trust Secretary then give him a call on 07948 046 846.

Byeeeeee!
Ken Bussey, 22nd May 2007