NEWS: Cafe - Short term lease being arranged - the cafe will soon be up and running in the House. HERITAGE LOTTERY MONEY the application is going in any day now and it is looking good... see our website for details of proposed work on the house and developments in the Park. Paddling pool opening this week. Children's activities to be organised for later in the summer.

NEXT MEETING

11 am Saturday,
31st August 2002

Red Room, rear of
Clissold Park Café

Park Manager's Report Mark White spoke about the events in the Park so far this year - the 4 big events to date (Carters, Mannings, Stoke Newington Festival and Damar) have gone well with very few complaints and easily repairable damage to grass due to heavy rain. He pointed out that the two fairs were not on consecutive weekends (as in June minutes). Some present said they had not been able to get through with complaints about noise at Damar. Events now generally finish by 8.30pm. The general feeling is that events are going much better than at times in the past. There has been an application from a local, acoustic band to put on a one hour concert in the bandstand. Also an application to do horse and pony rides around the Park at a reasonable cost. Mark is looking into this. Paddling pool has been maintained and will open next week. Some new benches have gone in and will be going in soon, the fence around the dog free zone has been fixed and will have gates fitted, new signs are going up at Park gates. Deer happy to announce the arrival of two babies recently.

The Cafe is now to be let out on a short lease (3 months renewable for 3 months at a time,) and letters are now going out from Nelson Bakewell to people (300 or so) who have expressed an interest. The hope is that the cafe will open within the next few weeks and run on this basis until a longer term lease can be negotiated, bearing in mind the developments that would take place in the event of a successful Lottery Bid application. Selection of tenant will involve CPUG.

Lottery Bid Penny outlined the main points in the bid that is now on the point of being put forward to do with developments in the House and the Park (as detailed in our June newsletter) The paddling pool will stay where it is, but have shrubs etc, planted between pool and road, bowling green and pavilion + toilets developed for use as children's event area, vistas in all directions are to be considered and protected in any developments and generally all our feedback has contributed usefully to the final plans. If the Lottery Board like what they see, the next stage will be that they will give a sum of money to Hackney for further and more specific development of the plans.

Councillors It is noted that we now have new councillors and that three wards have boundaries around the Park: Lordship, Clissold and Brownswood. Some of the new councillors have been contacted by Ken Worpole but we have not had any specific response yet. It was agreed that we would contact councillors, send them our newsletters and ask them to come on a walk around the Park so that we can introduce them to the issues concerning the Park. ACTION: Ken Worpole and John Hudson. Could anyone talking to a relevant councillor please mention the Park and our meetings and website?

Rangers There has been some concern amongst Park users about the visibility or otherwise of Park Rangers - are there enough Rangers around during key times in the Park and are they out and about in the Park, able to use their authority when necessary? The Rangers manager Margaret Elliott kindly attended the meeting and described to us the system for allocating rangers to the Park at various times, bearing in mind the necessity of moving rangers between Parks at times, managing with a relatively small total number of rangers (two of whom are on long term sick leave) and the large range of their duties and responsibilities (e.g. health and safety issues especially in playground and around paddling pool, litter picking, care of tennis courts, booking of courts, taking of money, dealing with enquiries, etc., patrolling the Park but also being regularly available in the office,) She explained that she has recently reorganised the rota so that there are more rangers in the Park and more in the latter part of the day. Agency staff are brought in to make up short fall - some present wondered if the agency staff are briefed well enough to give them the necessary authority and knowledge to be effective. There were a number of suggestions about how things could be improved - e.g. get Rangers out of the office more, but putting up a notice to say where they could be found. This all lead on to a discussion about Park Rules. There are the byelaws and these are formallyon display but what is really needed is a clear, informative notice of the central and enforceable rules, e.g. about dogs - clearing up mess and dog free areas, cycles, litter, feeding animals/ducks, vandalism etc. etc. It was felt that this would help Rangers to have authority and help the public to have a sense of responsibility to the Park. ACTION: Ken Worpole and Mark White will get together to draw up these rules and how they can be phrased and displayed. Similarly, we discussed the necessity of formulating and clarifying the policy about how acts of vandalism should be handled, what can/should Rangers and members of the public do? Phone number of Rangers office should be publicised around the Park, Police can be called. If you think a criminal act is going on, call 999. (Rangers number is: 020 7923 3660)

Any other Business Issues that people raised include: Sorry state of rose beds near Grazebrook Road entrance - the floods there have done the planting no favours and this should now be less of a problem since the drains have been cleared in that area but the planting is to be re done. Rubbish bins on the tennis courts are pretty but inadequate - more bins to be provided (Mark).
Trees along Queen Elizabeth's Walk - the runners on the 'grass' under the trees are not good for the tree roots and it would be better for the trees, and actually no less hard on the feet of the runners, if the running could be confined to the footpath and the path under the trees to be closed off for a while to let the tree roots recover themselves, with the help of mulching in the autumn. Mark will give some thought to putting up a simple and clear notice directing runners to the footpath while essential tree care and maintenance is carried out. ACTION: Mark

Present:
Ken Worpole (Chair)
Penny Crick (secretary)
Mark White (Park Manager),
Margaret Elliott (Rangers manager), Don Gidding, Hettie Sears,
Trish OÕHare, Bob Chivers,
Amy Godfrey, Geoff Wass,
Caroline Miller, John Hudson,
Daphne Kemp, Jonathan Shattock,
Ann McGinley, Louise Davey,

Apologies:
Barbara McFarlane,
Christine Disney,
Joyce Palmer,
Michele Guimarin.

NEXT MEETING

11 am Saturday,
31st August 2002

EVERYONE WHO USES CLISSOLD PARK IS A MEMBER OF THE USER GROUP.

EVERYONE IS WELCOME.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION www.clissoldpark.com or c/o Rangers Office Clissold House