Thank you to all the people who came along to the Fairland Park AGM. A report giving both a summary of the last 12 months and plans for the next year can be found below. It includes information on the re-development of the park as well as more detail on the £95,000 we raised.
Positions within the Friends Group are confirmed as;
Chair: Matt Burge
Treasurer: Deborah Peacock
Secretary: Steve Burdekin
Adam Coffman is Events Officer leading up the newly formed Events Committee which already has 5 new members. If you’d like to join please contact Adam.
Friends of Fairland Park AGM July 2009
Previous 12 months
The last twelve months has been a fantastic year for Fairland Park. The children of our local schools chose the new name and the council changed the status of the open space to a ‘park’. This gives us more clout with maintenance issues and keeps the park on the council’s radar more than ever.
The latest ‘working group’ meeting on July 13th was very positive. Karen Partridge of Groundwork praised the Friends committee for fund raising £85,000 towards the re-development project. The council has committed £150,000 on top of that to give us a total of £235,000. Groundwork has an application in with Veolia for another £35,000 which would basically pay for their project management fees. They will hear back by September. Update: (10/08/09) Groundwork have been successful with their Veolia bid so we now have all funding in place. That’s a total of 270,000.
The works on the park are scheduled for a December or January start and should be completed by March 2010. It has been a long haul but we hope to finally be there by spring next year. (Some examples of play equipment are attached with this summary).
On July 12th the Friends Group had their annual Summer Party which by all accounts was very successful with many people joining us for the day. We were successful in raising £5000 in funding from East London Community Foundation (ELCF) of which £1300 was used towards this community event. Donations of £120 were collected on the day.
Of the remaining ECLF monies a parks notice board, Gazebos, a badge maker and Dr Bike sessions have been funded. Year 1 monies totalling £4375 have been fully committed. Year 2 monies of £625 will be released by ECLF once they have received our final report for the year 1 allocation.
Make the Difference monies of £5000 has been assigned to an art feature for the park. This is being created by a local artist called Finn Stone and may well be installed before October.
Accounts: The Friends Group currently has £303 in the bank. Deborah has the detail on monies that have come in and out of the account over the previous year.
Next 12 months
There are currently two main areas of focus for the Friends Group. The first is the re-development of the park and the second is events.
The committee has raised £35,000 from London Marathon Trust (LMT) and £50,000 from Community Spaces (lottery money) which has been committed to the play areas. The current Chair and Secretary are required as named fund raisers to make sure the development of the play areas are completed as stated within the funding applications. This requirement of LMT & Community Spaces applies over the course of the park’s re-development. This will therefore be the first priority over the following months.
We want to see further success with events, particularly those involving other community groups. Once the re-development has taken place it is hoped the local schools for example will use the park more often. Youth led events would also be excellent as there are few youth facilities or events within the ward of Harringay.
On September 19th there is a film evening and next spring an opening day is planned once the re-development of the park is complete.
With the above in mind it is proposed that an Events Committee is set up to lead on the above planned events, as well as developing other ideas throughout 2010 and beyond. We would like someone to lead on this and to encourage other members to join on the Events Committee. The ‘Open Day’ in particular will be very important. We may be able to move on this at this AGM or develop the idea further at a later stage.
I’d like to thank Deborah Peacock and Ruth Edwards for their commitment this last year. Ruth is resigning as Secretary but would like to get involved with the Events Committee. Steve Burdekin would like to take this role for the following 12 months and should be warmly supported by members of the Friends Group.
I’d also like to thank Frances Walsh and Adam Coffman for their help with fund raising for the Summer Party and particularly Adam for all his work for the event itself. Thanks also to Sandra and Karen of Groundwork who have worked closely with the Friends Group taking the re-development project forward.
Looking forward very much to next spring and a beautiful new park for our community, something our area richly deserves!
Matt Burge
