‘We will bloom again’ pledge volunteers - pandemic has affected county’s floral displays

The coronavirus pandemic has caused havoc across the country this year, and not only for those who want to go out with friends or visit their favourite restaurants - those who have been giving up their own time to make their community a better place have seen their plans scuppered too.
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East Midlands in Bloom, the annual competition to encourage local people to come together to improve their community and environment by keeping their town or village litter free and planting new flowers and trees, was cancelled for 2020 due to Covid-19.

For those who are members of their local ‘in Bloom’ committees, all plans to improve the environment in their areas - including organised litter picks, flower planting and clearing of local rivers - have had to be put on hold due to lockdown and social distancing restrictions.

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Not to mention, as many of the volunteers who make up the local ‘in Bloom’ teams are of retirement age, many have had to take a step back from their participation due to self isolating.

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Alison Fairman, chairman of the Boston in Bloom group, said: “Many of our volunteers are over the age of 70 so they’ve had to step back for a long time.”

But that hasn’t stopped the hardy volunteers from making the effort to give the town a spruce up where they can, to give the local people a bit of a pick-me-up and a sense of normality in these troubling times.

As the initial lockdown restrictions were lifted, Alison said that the team were able to resume many duties with safety restrictions in place, including bringing their own equipment and maintaining social distancing.

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“We’ve been working in groups of six to get things going, and we’re going to carry on until we’re stopped,” she said.

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Christina Melaugh is the driving force behind the Alford in Bloom, ably assisted by Glynis Docker, and this year she had many big plans for the competition, including bringing back the Great Alford Mouse Trail and joining in the nationwide Great British Spring Clean, but all these had to be cancelled.

Not to be deterred, Christina has managed to showcase some beautiful floral displays, using the 16th century Alford Manor House as her base, to keep a sense of normality in these troubled times.

Christina said: “There’s a lot of elderly folk in Alford and during lockdown, the town was so quiet and empty because people didn’t want to come out.

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“We’ve taken lots of photos of lovely flowers around the town and posted them on the Facebook page to give people something nice to look at, and also some hope that these troubled times will pass.”

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A team of hardy volunteers from the Sleaford in Bloom team have made use of their large polytunnel to store their flowers until they could be planted around the town when restrictions were lifted.

Becky said that being able to give back to the community and having something to take their minds off the pandemic has been invaluable to the team:

“We’ve been very lucky we’ve been able to continue one way or another. It’s been good for our mental health as well to be able to get together and talk about things other than Covid-19,” she said.

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The Mablethorpe in Bloom team have also been keeping going as much as possible, holding litter picks and weeding sessions around the town to keep the area looking fresh and clean.

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Over in Caistor, the in Bloom team had a huge programme of events planned to keep their excellent record in the East Midlands in Bloom competition going - including Big Tidy Ups, local garden competitions and a photography competition, but their plans had to be cut by half due to the coronavirus.

Chairman Michael Galligan said: “We had so much planned for this year, the best year ever I think, but then all of a sudden in March everything came to a grinding halt and we didn’t know whether we’d be able to do anything.”

Nonetheless, the team managed to plant plenty of flowers around the town, including Caistor’s landmark horse waggon, which Michael said gave the people a lot of cheer.

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“I’ve always said there’s a correlation between a person’s wellbeing and flowers, older people have been seeing our colourful flowers and seeing their faces light up is lovely,” he said.

“Even in these troubled times, people are still coming together to make the town a nice place to live and we’ve got a great community spirit here.”

GETTING INVOLVED

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Many ‘in Bloom’ teams are on the lookout for more volunteers to continue their hard work, in the hope of carrying out more events as social distancing restrictions are reduced.

To find out more, contact your local team:

l Alford in Bloom: contact Christina Melaugh on [email protected] or visit www.facebook.com/AlfordInBloom/

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l Boston in Bloom: contact Alison Fairman on [email protected] or visit https://www.facebook.com/bostoninbloom/

l Caistor in Bloom: contact Michael Galligan on [email protected] or visit https://www.facebook.com/CaistorinBloom/

l Louth in Bloom: contact [email protected] or visit https://www.facebook.com/louthinbloom/

l Mablethorpe in Bloom: visit https://www.facebook.com/MIBbers1

l Sleaford in Bloom: contact Becky Mayfield on 01529 305186 or visit www.facebook.com/SleafordinBloom