Minutes September Meeting 2005

Friends of Hillside Gardens & Palace Road Nature Gardens

06 10 2025

The Woodlawns Centre

Present

Evan Lerwill – Co-Chair, Nigel Duckers – Minutes Secretary, Tom Stanbury, Nick Peacock, Robert Doyle, Eleanor Clough-Delaney

 Apologies

Andreas Kappes, Melodie Everett, Alan Walker, Steph Charambolous

WELCOME AND APOLOGIES   The Chair welcomed attendees and introductions were made. The Chair advised the meeting was no quorate – there was agreement to continue with the agenda and general discussions

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING   The Minutes of the previous meeting were agreed to be a true and accurate record.

CHAIR’S REPORT – see Appendix 1

MYATT’S FIELD VISIT   Nick has met with the Chair of Operations at Myatt’s Field to find out about their self-management of the park. The park remains – and buildings – are in the ownership of Lambeth but the Friends have leases on the buildings. The council pays £9k towards annual upkeep but the Friend’s have the income eg £50k from sports. They also raise around £50k from grant-funding. Overall takings are £280k. There are 14 staff, of which 5 are fulltime, including a gardener. There are 150 volunteers.   The meeting discussed what we could learn from this model. Myatt’s Field is a bigger operation and our focus centred on the One O’Clock Club which is now only used for 4 hours a week. It is under the control of Hitherfield School. Eleanor, in particular, said it was very under-used. It was felt that it could be more used as a One O’Clock Club and for many other community uses. It was pointed out that if the building was leased to us then Lambeth might get more revenue from a broader base of activities.   Nick agreed to talk to Kevin Crook about the matter prior to the next Park’s Forum meeting (7th October). Nigel suggested we might draw up a simple plan regarding usage.

GARDENING AND HORTICULTURE UPDATE – see Appendix 2   Robert reported   The tennis noticeboard needs replacing by LC.   There was a discussion around the removal of contaminated green waste ie largely compostable matter that has some litter in it. This is irregularly emptied because it is too heavy and needs a Lambeth team to get it on a lorry. It was suggested that we could put in in smaller bags of containers.   Eleanor is going to research the possibility of buying  two second hand Asgard sheds; one for tennis equipment, another for tools.   There was a discussion re siting hanging bins eg on the MUGA. Mered has said they would be a health and safety issue on the tennis courts and LC would not empty them. We agreed to trial one on the MUGA, situated safely.

PRNG   Nick Reported.   All going well. Froglife have agreed to another £1500 for another pond. Nick has £200 of pond plants waiting to go into the ponds at a suitable time. Nigel suggested we might have a sponsor a plant fundraising scheme. The signage – indicating 7 different habitat areas – has been a big success; we would like to make more durable signage.   Starbucks, who had a work activity awayday in PRNG – and provided some funding – have been contacted to see if they would like to do the same again. But the local branch has been unresponsive.   Nick mentioned the need for a management plan.

COMMUNITY GROWING SPACE   A lot of interest was shown in these during the Fun Day with several enquiries.

TENNIS/SPORT   Nothing to report

HALLOWEEN   The Hive have been very pleased to come aboard on this event, which gives us access to toilets and catering. We will need at least 6 volunteer stewards to ensure safe crossing of the road and other activities.   Wassailing: we are going to try and get the Tatterjacks and Duncan to hold a wassail in January.

DATES OF NEXT MEETINGS AGM 17th November