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NEWS:
Café - mobile café
has been set up... but how long before we can get back a proper café
in the House?
HERITAGE LOTTERY MONEY - Here we go again! A new application to be
made, but much simplified, so fingers crossed...
Paddling pool and animal enclosure - Children's activities to be organised
for later in the summer. See below and on the website for further details
www.clissoldpark.com
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NEXT
MEETING
11
am Saturday,
1st June 2002
Red
Room, rear of
Clissold Park Café
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Mark White
gave his Park Manager's Report:
The picket fencing (+gates) has arrived and will soon be put around
the Rose Garden making it a dog controlled and thus picnic area. New fencing
is going up around the existing dog free area and in response to points
raised, Mark will look into putting a second gate there. Four new cast
iron benches are to be placed along the Green Lanes side of the
Park. The toilet refurbishment is now complete - go and try them out!
Tennis courts refurbishment is going well and without too much
disruption to the Park or people. A bollard preventing cars entering
the Park has been placed at the Queen Elizabeth's gate and there will
soon be one at the White House gate on Green Lanes. The drains
that block up have now mostly been cleared and a new drain has been installed
near the lakes which will hopefully stop the flooding of recent years.
Tarmacing of crumbling paths has been completed. New signs are
soon to be erected at Park gates giving information on location and features
of the Park. All newly planted trees are being watered and Trees
for London have inspected and found no signs of distress. One large unwell
chestnut is to be treated with crown reduction. Butterfly tunnel
is due to open in late April.
Events:
The events for this year in the Park have been agreed now and they
have been spread out to avoid the problems of 'bunching' them on lots
of successive weekends (see list at end). A couple of events have been
withdrawn recently and the Stoke Newington Festival will only be using
the Park for a Campsite event and a four day Art event (acoustic music
only and finish by 12.00pm). Stoke Newington Festival will attend the
next meeting of the user group (June 1st). An event organised by the Non
Violence Federation as part of a programme of events around London
has been proposed to take place in the Park (around the end of August)
and it would link with work with local schools on non-violence. It is
being organised in association with the GLA, the Met. Police, Blue Peter
and others and the day (ending at 8.30 pm) in Clissold park would be one
of four to be held in Parks in London. There was considerable discussion
and the organisers will send someone to talk to the user group about the
details. It was reported that some bids have gone in to charities that
would fund organised activities with children in the Park around the animal
enclosure and paddling pool later in the summer/autumn.
Café:
A temporary mobile café
is now in place and has an initial 8 week agreement. The leasing agreement
for a permanent café
to run from the House that was to have gone out to tender some while ago
has still not been completed and is currently with Hackney's legal department/Core
Properties (at Hackney Council). There was general agreement that the
whole situation is really dreadful. Mark is seeking to get it all speedily
resolved. But... in the meantime, complications for the current plans
for the café
could arise from the...
Lottery
Bid:
which is now up and running again, much to the cynical pessimism of some
present who have been here before, but also to the optimism and hopefulness
of others who feel that there is a different climate prevailing that might
get things done that will genuinely benefit the Park and its users. This
is the Heritage Lottery Fund and it could be a means of an injection
of money into improvements and developments in the Park, but it does mean
that there are certain conditions that pertain to the 'heritage' bit -
e.g. the House could have a lot of very necessary work done to it to make
it more functional and useable by the community but it would mean that
work would also involve a restoration of the House that would have big
implications for the café
for a start. (E.G. restoring the front part of the house where the main
room of the café
now is would mean reinstating the original walls, thus opening up to the
stair case inside the house and also dividing that room in half...) So
any lease now for the café
would need to take into consideration this sort of thing. Any future tenant
would need to be happy for this sort of work to be going on. But even
if all goes well, the work itself would not start for probably 2 or 3
years or so. Another complicating factor is that any Lottery funding would
require matched funding from Hackney Council... Enclosed with this newsletter
is a one page summary of the current proposals within the Lottery bid
- as those familiar with previous bids will see, these are a little less
ambitious than before. (on-line recipients, please see website www.clissoldpark.com
for this summary.) Other things like the value of using the house to provide
tennis club facilities, educational resources etc. will all be taken into
account in drawing up the application. It was suggested that it might
be timely to produce a potted history of the Lottery Bid with an idea
of the sorts of sums of money involved - Michele Guimarin said she would
do this.
Hackney
Parks Forum:
This is now a constituted body that represents all the various park User
Groups in Hackney. Ken Worpole is attending and is seeking a second member
of the Clissold User Group to join him in representing us.
One O'Clock
Club:
There are rumours that the one o'clock club is under threat of cuts...
the User Group will do all that it can to support the very popular, well
used and needed One o'clock club against closure. Larraine Worpole will
talk to the staff there to find out what is going on and what Park Users
can do to help. Cllr. John Hudson will also speak to Ian Peacock to clarify
the position.
Revenue
idea:
Lucy
suggested that one way of helping to encourage people to feed the animals
in the enclosure properly, which would also contribute to their upkeep
financially, would be if little packs of suitable food could be made available
for sale, say from the Rangers office. Parents could then buy these for
their children to use to feed the animals. Mark will look into the feasibility.
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Present:
Ken
Worpole(Chair);
Penny
Crick (secretary);
Mark White (Park Manager);
Bob Chivers,
Lucy Sommers,
Kate Last,
Michele Guimarin (Hackney Council), John Hudson,
Will Richardson,
Larraine Worpole,
Daphney Kemp,
Sylvia Anderson,
Don Giddings,
Hettie Sears,
Barbara Read.
Apologies:
Betty Manning,
Barbara McFarlane,
Anita Young
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