Free tai chi lessons will be held in the park this summer, at the basketball court near St Luke’s Road. Classes start on Saturday May 19^th from 9am to 10am.

Tai chi is a form of exercise based on an ancient Chinese martial art. It is excellent for improving balance and enhancing core muscles for stability and strength.

The lessons, which are suitable for all ages and levels of fitness, will be taught by instructor Ben Milton, from the Bristol School of Tai Chi, who has over 30

years of teaching experience.

For more information about tai chi, visit http://www.bristoltaichi.com/

As part of the recent Spring Clean in the park, VPAG members got the paintbrushes out to spruce up the balloon mural by the railway line at the bottom of the park. The wall was last repainted about five years ago and was looking very dirty and patchy before the touch-up. We would like to hear from any artists in the area who might be interested in adding to the mural to make it more interesting.

The Spring Clean was a great success, with a number of families turning out to help. By the end of the morning, people were struggling to find any litter to pick up. Volunteers bringing back their bags of rubbish were rewarded for their efforts with a free cupcake from Mrs Brown's Café, provided by VPAG.

Visit the gallery to see pictures of the event ...

Young people will get a chance to climb a 24-foot wall and get some professional basketball coaching during two activity days to be held during the school holidays this year.

The activity days will take place at the recently rebuilt basketball court near St Luke’s Road on April 15th and July 22nd from 11am to 5pm.

Coaches from Bristol Braves basketball club will be running the basketball coaching, which will be followed by regular sessions on a Tuesday evening from 6pm to 8pm.

There will also be a range of other coaching opportunities taking place at the basketball court. Last year local women took advantage of three free self-defence coaching sessions, and three more of these sessions will be run this year. There will also be a series of six free tai chi classes for people of all ages, and street cricket coaching run by Street Games.

All of the activities are free of charge and more details will be available on the VPAG website nearer to the time.

The £88,000 refurbishment of the basketball court was part of ongoing efforts by VPAG and Bristol City Council to improve all facilities in the park for children and young people.

VPAG raised £50,000 from the Big Lottery Fund and Bristol City Council contributed £38,000 towards the project.

Parents and children will be pleased to hear that the play area next to the Park Lodge is to be extended and improved, and work will begin on site soon.

This picture is an artist's impression of how the area will look when it is finished.

VPAG has been working on this project for more than a year, so it is good to see all the hard work bearing fruit at last. We consulted with parents and children in Spring 2011 and all the responses you gave us on the questionnaires have helped to shape the work that is about to take place.

The group was awarded a grant of nearly £60,000 from the SITA Trust to fund the revamp, and Bristol City Council is contributing more than £5,500 to the project.

The dog-free enclosure is to be made a lot bigger, with the fencing being extended both down the slope of the hill and North-eastwards towards the Bowling Club pavilion. This will give a much larger area to picnic and play in, which was one of the main requests during consultation.

A number of new items of equipment are to be installed, which will cater for the full range of ages up to eight years. There will be two more sets of swings, as these seem to be particularly popular.

There will be a hill slide, two mini-trampolines, a dish roundabout, a toddler train and three more items of climbing equipment. More trees will be planted for shade and shelter from the wind, and two new benches and another litter bin will be provided.

The play area has suffered from drainage problems and tends to become very muddy in the winter. Bristol City Council has now installed a land drain and will continue to monitor the problem until it is finally solved.

Spring in the park is officially here as Victoria Park's very own cafe Mrs Brown's has reopened for 2012. Mrs Brown's serves drinks, cakes and toasties which can be enjoyed on the picnic benches by the children's play area.

An area of the hillside above the water maze, which is already set aside as a wildflower meadow, will be planted with a specially designed mix of brightly coloured wildflowers. These will then be studied to see what types of pollinating insects they attract.

Urban areas have the potential to support large numbers of pollinators, but many common garden plants do not provide suitable forage for them. The introduction of pollen-and nectar-rich flower margins could be a simple way of helping to conserve valuable insect species.

The Urban Pollinators Project is being led by Professor Jane Memmott at the University of Bristol. Academics at three other universities – Edinburgh, Leeds and Reading – are also participating in the research.

The project got underway in Bristol last year, with a trial flower margin being planted along the edge of the M32 motorway at the entrance to the city. Not only did this create a beautiful floral display, it also provided a habitat for 11 different groups of insects, ranging from bumblebees and honey bees to hoverflies and solitary bees.

The planted area in Victoria Park will be managed and maintained by the University of Bristol and Bristol City Council, so it is likely to be more successful than the efforts so far to establish wildflowers on this same site. Planting will take place this year, but many of the plants will not establish themselves and begin blooming properly until 2013.

VPAG volunteers, working with Bristol City Council, first introduced wildflowers to this site in 2008, when Yellow Rattle and Ox-Eye Daisy seed was planted. The following year a wildflower mix was sown. The Yellow Rattle has become quite well-established, but few other wildflowers have yet begun blooming, so it will be good to see some colour introduced to the hillside this year.

VPAG will bring you more information about this project as it becomes available. For more details see www.bristol.ac.uk/biology/research/ecological/community/pollinators/ and www.bbsrc.ac.uk/pollinators

VPAG organised a woodland management day on February 18^th where volunteers turned out to thin and prune trees in an area of the park that has been neglected over the years.

The volunteers tackled the copses of trees on the hill between the St Luke’s Rd basketball court and the top football pitch. Without any proper management, these woodlands had become dense masses of foliage which no light could penetrate.

VPAG used its own funds, raised through events and donations, to pay the British Trust For Conservation Volunteers to help us for a day. They provided tools and guidance so that VPAG members could tackle the undergrowth.

The aim of the work was:

1. To thin the trees, taking out any dead, dying or leaning trees and let in light. This improves biodiversity by encouraging an under-storey of trees and low-growing shrubs and grasses.
2. To open up sight-lines through the trees so that the woods feel less threatening to people walking through the park.
3. To create paths and openings in the woods so that children, adults and dogs can explore them, adding another interesting dimension to the park’s attractions.
4. To make it easier for the park keeper and VPAG’s Spring Clean volunteers to get into the woods and clean up litter.
5. To stack the cut wood in piles or “dead hedges” and allow it to rot down into the ground. This rotting wood provides a habitat for beetles, insects and hedgehogs.

This is vital conservation work which the City Council does not have the funding to carry out. A small number of volunteers helped to make a huge difference to the woodlands and improve them for all of us, so thanks for your efforts.

Families will be pleased to hear that VPAG’s plans to extend the play area next to the Park Lodge are going ahead, and the project was put out to tender in February. Once a contractor is chosen we expect work to start in early April and be completed by the beginning of May.

VPAG raised nearly £60,000 from the SITA Trust to fund the revamp of the play area, and Bristol City Council is contributing around £5,500 to the project.

The plans are for the play area to be enlarged, with some of the existing fencing around it being taken up and extended, both down the slope of the hill and North-eastwards towards the Bowling Club pavilion. This will give a much larger dog-free area for families to picnic and play in.

Among the new items of equipment that are due to be installed are more swings, a hill slide and some mini-trampolines. More trees will be planted for shade and shelter from the wind, and new benches and another rubbish bin will be provided.

The play area has suffered from drainage problems and tends to become very muddy in the winter. After VPAG asked Bristol City Council to tackle the problem, a land drain has now been installed. This is a long trench filled with gravel, which should drain the water away from the play equipment. More work may need to be done before the problem is finally solved, but VPAG will keep working on it with the Council.

Once the new extension is completed, VPAG would like to plant flowers and shrubs in and around the revamped area, and we plan to raise £1,000 for this purpose. If you have any suggestions as to how we could raise this money, please email us or come along to a meeting and put your ideas forward.

This year’s BioBlitz will be held at Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3EW www.arnosvale.org.uk on the 25/26 May 2012.  Arnos Vale is a fantastic 45 acre site south of the city centre and holds over 150 years of Bristol's history.  The site has a spectacular landscape with many listed buildings and monuments of architectural importance and a haven for wildlife in an urban setting. Arnos Vale Cemetery is a quiet place of remembrance, a site rich in heritage and is Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI).  Friday 25 may will be the schools day and Saturday 26 May will be open to the public.

http://www.bnhc.org.uk/home/bioblitz/bristolbioblitz.html