Friends of Canons Park

AGM – Thursday 15^th May 2008

Arnold House Activity Centre,

Donnefield Ave, Canons Park Edgware.

Chairman’s report:

I am very pleased to present the 5th Chairman’s report on the activities of the FoCP for 2007/8.

Firstly may I thank the Arnold House School or their permission to use this lovely hall. This is the 1st AGM the Friends have held here and we are very grateful for the support and cooperation of the school. This is just the sort of relationship the Friends want and need with the stakeholders.

I believe we have had a very active and successful year, having organised several successful events. I am confident in reporting that we have certainly attracted more people into the park. Our principal raison d’etre.

Committees:

The Steering Committee met regularly here at Arnold House during the past year which has proved very convenient for all members.

Rick Martin from Arnold House School, the manager of this Activity Centre has joined us, which has already proved very useful.

We hope that Sylvia Ring will soon be back with us soon to work on our local schools liaison, a most important area of future co-operation for the Friends.

Every one of the committee members has responsibility/interest for a particular area of Friends activity, and we continue to look for local people to join us to look after some aspect of the life of the park.

The stakeholders are now reformed under a new Chair – Ian New and are now called the Joint Management Committee and will concern themselves mainly with future issues for the park.

A list of the stakeholders in the Canons Park Restoration Project is available to anyone who is interested.

Steering Committee:

The work of the Steering Committee revolves around several issues.

I will make the Financial report after this. (item 3.i on the Agenda)

Elizabeth Bowen will make a membership report. (item 3.ii on the Agenda)

We continue to produce excellent Newsletters and Park Notices and are indebted to Sharon Graham, our publicity officer, who has set a thoroughly professional standard. Our new laminator is working well. The notices look so good that other organisations want to put up their own. Sharon also produced the new brochure, on display here tonight. She will give the publicity report in a few minutes.  (item 3.iii on the Agenda)

Sharon will also comment on the growing number of Events in the Park in the past year (item 3.iv on the Agenda)

Apart from Fun-day we are not currently involved in any particular fundraising activity. The member who did this in the past was Gerald Diamond. Gerald’s main project now is to pursue the Children’s Play ground with HBC and he will report on this a little later. (item 3.v on the Agenda)

Park Restoration:

The reason we were created, to monitor the park restoration project.

The restoration has now been completed and so the focus has changed to maintenance of what has been done. However there remain significant areas of dispute between the council and the contractor – The paths for example. Are they to be left as they are, or swept, or to be resurfaced? Many thanks to Ian New for pursuing this issue with HBC. As yet no decision has been made. Personally I feel the restoration has achieved its principal aim of attracting more people into the park. The new paths and especially the opening up of the Whitchurch Lane entrance have had a major positive effect. There are more families, dog walkers, cyclists and people etc. The Friends are now using the new Bothy facility regularly.

Neighbourhood Safety Team:

The Edgware and Canons Ward teams are now in residence, and can regularly be seen around the park and local streets. The Lodge is now a busy place as can be seen from the number of cars there on the average working day. They work a varied shift pattern which includes night shifts when circumstances demand it.  The officer in charge of the Canons Team is Sgt. Mark Manners-Jones. Do have a talk with him if you have any concerns about local policing.

Park Events - Funday:

We all enjoyed a most successful Fun day in 2007. More stall holders participated than before, representing a great variety of local interests and a good crowd attended. Moving the main location slightly was a great success, as was the creation of a performance arena. Many thanks to Ian New for that. We hope to make greater and better use of this arena for the 2008 event, and this will be the format for the foreseeable future. Our Fun day is a significant local event and requires considerable time and effort to ensure its continued success. We are developing a new relationship with a professional showman to provide and oversee carousel’s and bouncy castles, which is a big saving of time effort and responsibility for the committee.

Our level of organisation is much improved on previous years and we have already received two grants (totalling £1,000) from local organisations for this year’s event.

We have to apply more effort this year to organise a set-up/break-down team for the 2008 event, to try and save on committee member’s energy reserves. We do not want a repeat of the spectacle of committee members, literally on their knees, @ 8.00pm in the evening of the day.

Sharon Graham will bring us up to date on Fun-day. (item 3.iv on the Agenda)

We will also need volunteers on the day for stewarding, litter, the refreshments tent, the set-up team, etc. Please get in touch with any committee member if you want to join in making this event a success.

Any surplus from the 2008 event will probably be applied to the Friends list of future projects, possibly the Ha Ha.

Musical Evening:

These events require long and detail planning and it has not been possible to organise one for 2008. However Daphne Johnson and her team have arranged an evening of ‘Classics’ to be played by the young musicians from the Purcell School in Watford for Sat March 7^th 2009, here at the Arnold House Activity Centre, and I wish to express our profound thanks to Rick Martin and the School for their support for this event. That will be something to look forward to.

Bird walks:

The Environmental Group continues to run bird walks on the 1^st Sunday of every month throughout the winter and spring that go from strength to strength. The most recent attracted 20 plus people.

Some excellent sightings have been made and we have increased the list of birds seen in the park, including nesting Ring-necked parakeets. The group co-operates with the local RSPB Group in Mill Hill in running bird related events. Several of which have proved very successful. Through these bird walks we have improved relations with other local residents groups (CPEA), and now hold joint events with them, which is very pleasing.

Current Projects

I am very please to report that the Friends have moved several projects off the ‘Future Projects’ list and have started work on them.

Spinney Clearance:

The Friends are participating in a scheme with Groundwork West London. (This is the BTCV project mentioned in previous years) who are training FoCP volunteers and showing us the techniques for Spinney regeneration, by clearing out the under-story and creating conditions where the seed bank in the spinney might bloom again. A group of volunteers is in place and at work, but more are always needed. So far there have been 3, well attended, volunteer days with more booked for the autumn 2008. There will provisionally be an extra day on Sun 18^th June next, which we hope you will all support.

More about that from Matthew Rooum who looks after this project for the FoCP. Just recently we found an organisation that provides conservation volunteers for such projects and we may start a relationship with them.

This could become one of the Friends major ongoing tasks for the park, as this project may run for several years.

Please contact Matthew Rooum if you wish to join the volunteers.

Our speaker this evening will talk about his project in some detail

Spring Bulbs in the Orchard:

Several varieties of spring bulbs (daffs & crocus’) were planted in the Orchard area just south of the Memorial Garden in late Feb, by boys from the Arnold House School, organised by Rick Martin, and have flowered. Once we got down to it, this was a simple to organise, so we will do it again, each autumn, until we have a spring show to be proud of. The area of the orchard is much larger than initially realised, so there is still plenty of planting to do. Future planting will include bluebells the original idea for the project.

Two Bench Projects:

1)      The two old park benches found in the Bothy have been rubbed down and re-stained and now look as good as new. Many thanks to the Parks Dept for donating the time of Derek Roy the park-keeper to this task. The benches have been returned to the Memorial Garden and will be dedicated on Open Garden Squares day on Sat 7th June next. Brass plaques – one dedicated to the memory of Councillor Janet Cowen, are on order and will be fitted soon. Our thanks go to local benefactor Ashwin Mehta whose donation covered the costs of this work.

2)    Picnic benches for the Orchard area were ordered as part of the restoration expenditure and are in the Bothy. We are negotiating with Parks dept about getting them installed.

Future Projects:

Children’s Playground:

The Friends have always had a long-term plan for a children’s playground in the park. This will be funded by HBC from money the Parks Dept have been allocated as a planning gain, for which we are very grateful. However these funds may be rather slow in arriving because of planning delays. Gerald will give us an overview of the current situation in his report.

FoCP believes that HBC does intend to provide a playground. It’s a question of when it will arrive.

May I remind you that the Friends have decided to donate a piece of extra playground equipment to this project. We must raise the funds for this equipment ourselves.

Ha Ha:

The History Group (Ian New) continues to investigate the Ha Ha, and after more research we plan to restore it as a special and unique feature of the park. The Parks Dept helped us here, and Derek Roy the park-keeper has cleared the area so we can all see what is there. The next move will be to get some commitment from the Parks dept to do something about it, hopefully within an established maintenance budget. The Friends will probably have to support the funding need to pursue this project.

Jogging Circuit:

The Friends intend to mark out a jogging circuit in the park to attract the jogging fraternity, who are appearing in the park more regularly. Sharon & Robert Graham have already suggested a circuit. The police are keen to support this idea. We will need the permission of the Parks Dept to provide way/route-markers.

Website:

We have a new web site www.friendsofcanonspark.org.uk

And a new Email address, plus a growing number of visitors, with comments and requests for information. Please go and visit it, and if you have any ideas let Matthew Rooum our new web-master know what you would like to see.

Bit by bit, we will build it into a valuable tool for the Friends.

This AGM agenda is lodged there and this report will be available later on.

Call for Volunteers:

Finally, we are always looking for someone to take on responsibility for some aspect of the Friends interests. There are always a whole series of small jobs to be done and ideas for the park to be discussed.

If you think we are a worthwhile organisation come and join us.

That ends the Chairman’s report.

Many sincere thanks to you one and all for your support and hard work so far, and many thanks in anticipation to more to come.

As I said earlier this report will be published on the website.

Please do not forget to go to the membership stand and pay up for another year!