September 13th 2016: Pond / boardwalk / steps maintenance
After early doubts and reports that it would be totally pouring down, not a drop fell on us this evening. Amazing. Thanks to Gerry and the leaders and scouts from 9th West Lothian Scout Group who worked hard for two hours fetching gravel from the pile by the cricket ground (each run was over a mile!) and repairing paths and significantly cleaning the lower boardwalk and steps at the pond – it’s made a big improvement! Thanks to Alistair, Michelle and parents for help including fishing logs and litter out of the pond. Ian was in the pond with waders grabbing cans, bottles and logs. The rain didn’t get us. Maybe the midges did. The failing sunlight certainly did. Good effort by everyone – well done!
September 3rd 2016: Fun Day / Dog Show / Cake Stall / Children’s Crafts
The annual Livingston Cricket Club Fun Day took place from noon on Saturday, and MEG continued our tradition of dog show and cake stall. New this year thanks to the efforts of our new committee member Ainslie Jones was an area for children’s crafting – making forest crowns and planting ‘cress heads’ — this was a great new addition and something to entertain the youngest in the community. Staff from the nursery also did children’s face painting for MEG. The cake stall was superbly organised by Pauline, who supplied a variety of fancy baked items for sale. Joyce and Elise Morrison also brought cakes and helped run the stall on the day. Thanks also to the community members who supplied cakes to sell. The dog show kicked off at 2pm, and Ian and Arthur ran around trying to sign up owners and find them again when it was time for their show categories. Thanks to Graeme the DJ for calling our the categories and running the music for the silly Musical Sits category. Thanks to residents who supplied prizes for the dog show, and to Pets@Home for prizes and dog bowls. Billy was our expert snapper on hand to get some great pictures of the show, and the team from Groom at the Top in Polbeth were our judges once again — they also gifted the super first prize of a dog groom to the Best in Show dog, Morris. Despite worrying forecasts, the weather held out for the duration of the show and 12 prize winners were well rewarded for their entries. Thanks to all who came along to show their dog, buy cakes or enjoy the crafting. We hope to continue to run similar events next year, but desperately need your support, as there’s a lot to organise (and no current MEG members are actually dog owners!)
August 16th 2016: Pruning
Huge thank you to all who turned up this evening to help with our ad-hoc pruning event! A wee band of 6 spent a couple of hours walking along the Murieston Trail, pruning back overhanging trees and shrubs. The failing light and the midges were in effect by the end, and nettles and prickles had taken their toll, but the work is definitely worth the effort. Thank you!
June 19th 2016: Path building
The weather played ball and our path building day got off to a good start at 10am sharp. Despite a very disappointing turnout, our band of 5 and a quarter shovelled and raked solidly for 3.5 hours, shifting who knows how many tons of gravel to make a great new path where previously there was only a boggy trail. We received plenty of encouragement from dog walkers and cyclists, but unfortunately none stopped to help. We desperately need people to come along to our volunteer events to keep MEG alive, or projects like this won’t happen any more in Murieston. The path will need further maintenance once this layer of material has settled and stabilised – there’s quite a lot of material still yet to shift.