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 13^th 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 12^th 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 19^th 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

Fairland Park AGM will be at the Falkland Centre 7pm, Thursday 23rd July.
 
The entrance to the Falkland Centre is on Frobisher Rd, by Harringay Passage.
 
Agenda
 
1. Re-development update
2. Accounts
3. Park events
 
Hope to see there
Matt Burge

The Fairland Park Summer Party is Sunday July 12^th, 12 – 4pm.

We are meeting Wed June 3^rd, 8pm at The Salisbury to organise the above event.

We would appreciate your help with this community event no matter how big or small.

If any musicians would like to come along and play please contact Adam or Matt via this discussion on HOL.

Hi all,

A number of items to update on;

1. We have had success with a funding bid for £5000 from East London Community Foundation. We put in for various activities & items including for more activities at this year’s Summer Fair. Monies are also there for a noticeboard, gazebos and a badgemaker. We are aiming to involve more community groups as well. The Friends committee will meet shortly to finalise the spending details.

2. Fairland Park Summer Party is  booked for Sunday July 12th, 12-4pm.

3. Re-development update: Groundwork have been appointed project managers by the council and have now gone away to arrange tendering and deal with a mountain of regulation & paperwork. Groundwork aim to have a chosen developer onsite by October.

4. This website has just hit 3000 views or hits since inception. The main interest is in this post. Locally, interest is of course more with our events and funding.

5. Will announce a date for a Friends Group meeting soon which will concentrate largely on organising this years Summer Fair in the park.

Matt

It has finally been confirmed that our little open space is now officially called Fairland Park. For visitors from afar it has been known as Falkland Fairfax open space as these are the names of the two roads either side of the open space.

In 2008 children at the local schools were given the chance to come up with a new name. They chose Fairland. Debate then moved onto whether we used the term ‘open space’, ‘common’ or ‘park’.

The council had to have their input as well, particularly on the legality of using the word ‘park’. In the end the majority of local people went for ‘park’ and the council have just given the go-ahead.

So there it is, a very small but important historical moment. The next generation will know it as Fairland Park!

The re-development of our local open space has been given a significant boost with the announcement by the council that council funding has been secured.

This is excellent news for our local community. Persistence has paid off with some very hard work from Paul Formosa (Community Development officer), staff at charity Groundwork and members of our Friends Group.

The £150,000 from the council adds to £35,000 secured from London Marathon Trust. A Community Spaces application has been submitted (stage II)  for £49,000. We hope to hear the good news from CS soon.

Update: 08/06/09

We have recently heard very good news from Community Spaces. We have been successful in our application for funds for £49,000. That takes our total for fund raising to £235,000 and means Groundwork will now move ahead to tendering stage soon.

The Friends of the open space have been successful in securing £35,335 in funding from the London Marathon Trust. This is great news, a very positive and promising start!

We have also been successful with getting through the first stage for the Community Spaces funding bid, which is for £46,000. There is a second stage still to get through on this one.

The main monies we await are from council funding decisions, which is not due till the new year. Will keep you posted.

Have a Merry Christmas.

Matt
FFFOS

P.S. See here for details of the open space re-development if you are not familiar with the plans.

GreenSpace are a registered charity which works to improve parks and green spaces by raising awareness, involving communities and creating skilled professionals.

The site runs a Community Network including a forum for all those questions about running events, fund raising and so on.

GreenSpaces advertises events, jobs and has a bi-monthly magazine with an online newsletter.

Take a look.

Punk salsa!

Sunny day!!

Thanks to Harringay online for these photos.

And thank you to Sarah Ninot for the following images, showing talented up and upcoming musicians … and the sack race.

It was a fantastic day, with wonderful food brought along by all, excellent entertainment from local musicians, a salsa class, comedy, face painting and art yurt. And didn’t that sun shine!

Thank you everyone for pulling it all together. Well over 300 people came along and I know that people thoroughly enjoyed themselves.