Minutes of Meeting, July 2018

FRIENDS OF MARYON AND MARYON WILSON PARKS
Minutes of Meeting, July 2018

Date: Thursday July 12th 2018
Present (8): Christine (chair), Steve  (secretary), Gulle  (treasurer), Ronnie, Nigel, Alan, Jason, Anastasia.

Christine welcomed a small group, a number of other members being away.

1. Apologies: Catherine, Andrew, Mickey, Helen, Evelyn, Natalie.

2. Minutes of previous meeting and matters arising: Accepted. In item 2, there is still no information about starting time for a new tree inspector; and Helen had not heard back about the fence in the Guild Road garden. Both to be chased up.

3. Review of MWP Open Day, May 19th:
A successful day with good footfall, well organised (thanks here to Carol Kendall) and at no cost. The sheep-shearing was as popular as ever and so were the small animals in the bothy.
Our stall raised £63.52 and we had six new members.

4. Review of Picnic in the (Maryon) Park, June 24th:
This was jointly organised by the local Hub, the Friends and St Thomas Church. It also went well, on a very hot day, with lots of visitors including our local MP Matthew Pennycook, and councillors Jackie Smith and John Fahy. The Friends had a stall at the event and we raised £31.80 from the sale of bric a brac etc.
Final accounts for Picnic in the Park showed income of £1,251.89 including almost £500 from crowd funding, £400 from Lovell’s (developers of the new Morris Walk estate) and over £350 from raffles. Expenditure, mainly on the generator and insurance, was £782.74 leaving a profit of £469.15 for the St Thomas Church winter nightshelter.

5. Review of Get Together Community Festival, June 30th:
This year the event was on split sites on General Gordon Square and down the Arsenal.  The Greenwich Parks Forum stall on General Gordon Square was not the easiest to find.  Christine took a turn at the stall, armed with our leaflets.

6. Other Parks and Council news:

a) A group of us met Owen Davies from the Highways department for a walkabout in Maryon Wilson with a view to looking at preventing so much flooding of paths etc.
He was very enthusiastic and in a subsequent email described a plan for managing the area just to the south of the triangle that Liz and Steve have worked on and how “it would be the intention to create a landscaped area which could hold water in large events and would manage flows back into the stream into the deer park”. We would be able to do some of the work around the park ourselves although some would require a contractor.
The Greater London Authority have now released some funding for green spaces which may be available. He has a meeting shortly to look at the possibility of training.
Anyone interested might like to look at this website:  https://www.susdrain.org/delivering-suds/drainage-exceedance/managing-exceedance/managing-exceedance.htnl

b) There was a fire in the meadow behind the lodge at the top of Thorntree Road/Woodland Terrace that left a large area of scorched earth. Fortunately the path appears to have stopped it spreading any further.

c) A local resident had complained of burns and suggested it might be from Giant Hogweed in MWP but we could not find any.

d) We will broach the subject of a walkabout with Council officials in September.

7. Community Garden update:
The report is attached separately, with details of the next Open Day on Saturday September 22nd.

8. Future of website:
We were grateful to Matt for his assistance in the past but the meeting felt we could manage going forward with a WordPress website. We have been unable to update for a year because of technical problems. Ideally we would keep the same domain name of http://www.FriendsofMaryonParks.org
Jason will check any costs before going ahead.

9. Constitution:
An updated constitution needs to be agreed before the AGM in November. We will try to get committee members together to propose one before our September meeting.

10. Treasurer’s report:
As the takings from the two recent events have not yet been banked there is £112.69 in petty cash, with a balance remaining at £600.96.

11. Any other business:
Thanks to all who took part in the Clear-Ups on the first Saturday of June (15 people) and July (9 plus 7 children). We were able to clear some flytipping from the usual spot on Thorntree Road.
There will be no formal Clear-Up in August but do feel free to take a glove with you into the parks and place litter in the bins. Mondays are always a good day to do so.
Maryon Park has been particularly well used recently with a number of school sports days and an orienteering event arranged by the South London Orienteers.
Our congratulations to Richard the stockman and his wife, who had a son at the end of May.
Keep an eye out for ParksFest events at the end of July. Eltham Park South has a concert on Sunday July 22nd; Well Hall Pleasaunce has ‘Summer Sunday Music’ on July 22nd and 29th.

12. Date of next meeting and Clear-Ups:
We will meet at Kinveachy Gardens on Thursday September 27th and the provisional date for the AGM (venue to be confirmed) is Thursday November 15th. All welcome.
The next Clear-Ups are on Saturday September 1st and Saturday October 6th. Join us at any time from 10am-midday, at the gazebo (north end of Kinveachy Gardens).

Steve (Secretary)
Email: friendsofmaryonparks@gmail..com