Update: 9th of November 2006.
A big thank you to all who attended the meeting. As I entered the hall I was taken aback by the enormous support shown for our Parks. The Beehive Centre was literally packed and as I found, broadly representative.
I found the advice by our council officers very useful and the positive comments made by the majority extremely helpful.
We were told of the many other parks that had organised themselves and found sources of funds ranging up to £100,000 in one year.
My special thanks to Stella, who organised the exhibit featuring the history of our park, Grenville, our esteemed retired local headmaster who I think spoke very eloquently about the park, helping us younger ‘folk’ (as he would say) to get some perspective on its heyday and our aspirations and thanks to our ‘tea ladies and gentleman’. Oh yes, and to the majority who offered their support either to steer or to help practically.
Mr Ben Sullivan our community beat officer sent his apologies as he was away training and filled in our survey on which he ticked every box and stated his full support.
We now have a rather healthy database and with the other identified groups that I shall contact we are on our way.
I do ask that we all spread the word and for all interested parties to get in touch.
Please post your comments. I will keep this blog up to date with our progress. I hope to have compiled the data and organised the interested parties within two weeks.
31st of October 2006
As we go to press we have organised the first meeting of a new "Friends of St Georges Parks" group for November 9th at the Beehive centre. This is in response to the large numbers of people willing to be involved and help look after our parks and green spaces as a result of our on going survey.
The council the police and local experts are all supporting this new group which we hope will not just sit around for years begging for money but organise practical things in our parks such as regular litter pick-ups, community events, campaign for improvements, liaise with schools and other community groups as well as take action to see that these services are supported by our council in the future. Already several local people have made suggestions of the kinds of activities and campaigns that the group could organize. Please contact me if you want to become involved, have your own expertise to offer or would like a copy of our survey.