Roundwood Park Trust established

Individuals interested in founding a community group to represent the needs and wants of Roundwood Park users met last week to decide if they had the committment and drive to see the initiative through for at least the first couple of years. All attendees agreed they did.

The initial aims of the group are to be active in raising funds and gaining financial support to improve the infrastructure, amenities and environment of the Park and Annexe.

We also intent to help community cohesion and regeneration of the area by improving the amenities, putting the park to more creative uses and increasing use by members of the community who rarely use the facilities.

The group has set up a Facebook page and a GoogleGroup to enable people to keep in touch and get involved, permanent links are at the side of the page.

We Love Roundwood

We had a lovely day meeting everyone at the Brent Respect Festival, unfortunately I wanted to put some photos up of the stall on the day, but on the day we were so busy we didn’t have a chance to take any pictures so instead I’ve included the images we used to entice you all to come and talk to us.

As a reader of this blog you will know that I was a bit intimidated at the prospect of being on the stall by myself and was glad that my boyfriend and a couple of friends volunteered to help get me going. I quickly realised I had nothing to worry about as everyone we spoke to were really up for a community led organisation that could highlight the needs of the people in the area.

I have now had time to digest some of the information you gave us, which I’ll share with you. We have signed up 76 people who at the very least want to be kept informed of how the work of the group progresses, of these 19 said they would be prepared to volunteer some time to help us and 10 showed an interest in being involved with the management committee of the new group.

No surprises, you and your families love Roundwood Park and enjoy using the playground facilities, walking or dog walking, solitary or group sports, meeting friends, visiting the aviary and café, relaxing and attending the Brent Respect Festival. Some interesting uses were getting gardening tips from the parks staff and rollerblading!

Some of the key issues you are concerned about (not in order) are safety, cleanliness, expanding on what the playground has to offer and more activities/opportunities for children and young people, bringing the theatre back into use, better toilet facilities and concern about intimidating dogs.

We also asked what other creative uses we could put the park to and you suggested art in the park, shows in the theatre, open swimming pool, sprinklers and paddling pool, adventure playground, magic shows, BBQ area for families, dancing, wildlife area/woodland, city farm or zoo and more cultural festivals.

The next step will be to contact those interested in joining the management committee, create a constitution, set up a bank account, and create an equal opportunity policy and a child and vulnerable adult protection policy.

Representing at the Brent Respect Festival

I have secured a stall in the momentum/hobbies area of the festival. The aim of the day will be to raise awareness for the group and get some people signed up to support it.



The council got back to me yesterday about the other groups with an interest in the park. Unfortunately only one got back to them, so I'm meeting with one other group on Friday about how to progress the the group. The good news is that the group carried out a similar exercise at the Brent Respect Festival a couple of years back and collected a number of signatures, so we may be able to use these.


I also found out yesterday that I was going to get a stall, so I plan to organise flyers, stickers and a couple of A0 posters, so the stall doesn't look too empty, hopefully before the end of this week!


I will contact Cllr Powney to see if he is able to offer any support on the day.

Capel Manor Open Day

Capel Manor, Enfield had an open day on Saturday, I visited to research how people use public spaces for recreation and education.



Capel Manor is probably best known for its land-based studies college. The college has facilities for garden design, horticulture, animal care, floristry and arboriculture.

The Manor has 30 acres of land, which have established gardens and temporary plots which the students use.

Several alumni of the school were awarded medals at this years RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2010. The Upwardly Mobile (Gold medal), Plants against Crime (Silver Lindley Medal), Christian Before Dior (Bronze Medal).

The gardens are open daily to the public between March and October. There are admission fees, but these are waived on an open day if you print out an entry voucher, which can be found on their website.

Take part in the poll!

If you've visited Roundwood Park or are a regular park user let me know your thoughts on what you'd like to see improved! If what you want to add isn't in the list let me know and I'll update the poll! Use this post to add any additional thoughts.

It starts here ...

So here begins the journey! I thought a good place to start was to contact the existing Friends of Roundwood Park, but I couldn't find their contact details on the web, the only lead I had was to Brent Council's website.

The council staff member I spoke to was very helpful but told me that the groups was in a state of transistion, which was unlikely to be resolved until December 2010, it turned out the person who was behind group had moved onto other things.

The council people told me there are a lot of interested, but disperate individuals that they are keen to try to bring them all together. They told me it is easier to attract grant funding when the local community are actively involved in the process, but it needs an overall vision and plan.

We have agreed to meet up, I am waiting to hear back from them for a date, a key individual is on holiday for another week, it is difficult to be patient as I am keen to get cracking.

In the meantime my mentor has advised me to try and get some of my neighbours on board, I have to admit it is this part that I find a bit intimidating, I've never been a fan of doorstepping people, but I will have to put my reservations on hold while I get this started.

Some other good advice I've received involves speaking to my local ward councillors: Cllr's Lincoln Beswick, Janice Long and Helga Gladbaum represent the area covering Roundwood Park and the Cllr James Powney is the Lead Member for Environment and Culture. As they are elected by the community to represent them they will likey hold more sway/clout when research and engagement is needed, they may be able to assist with surveying.

My instinct is to hold off getting others involved until I've met with the council to see what the position is. Then speak to the councillors to see what support they may be able to offer me.

In the meantime here are some links that have been inspiring me this week:
Roots and Shoots - http://www.rootsandshoots.org.uk/
Royal Parks - http://www.royalparks.org.uk/
Floating Farm Shop & Tearooms - http://www.grannybuttons.com/granny_buttons/2006/05/the_floating_fa.html

Willesden Green not Harlesden!

I was just reading James Powney's blog and I have learnt that Roundwood Park lies in the Willesden Green ward and not Harlesden, which is different from the info I got from the council. No problem, just need to catch up with different councillors. According to Brent council's website the new contacts are: Cllrs Anne Hunter (Lib Dem), Lesley Jones (Lab) (Lesley's blog) and Gavin Sneddon (Lib Dem).

Roundwood Park

The lovely Roundwood Park, this morning when I got up. In the next few days I'll start adding more information about my area, so you can get a feel for the place.

Welcome

I live in Brent, London, an area of London that is very exciting and diverse. My particular motivation for starting this blog is to make the area more appealing to its locals by making the most of one of its main attractions - Roundwood Park.

The park itself is the star, it has green flag status, it has a fabulous cafe and beautifully landscaped gardens, well used basketball courts and a developing wildlife garden. I'll fill you in on the park more later.

What it needs is a boost to make the most of its assets that are either under-used, run down or dilapidated such as the summer theatre, the paths, annex and the aviary. I am really keen to work with other people to achieve this, at the moment I'm not sure what shape that will take, I need the input of more people to decide what they want from it and hopefully make it a reality.

Through this blog I hope to learn about how the park is used, what improvements locals would like to see, rally some support for the initiative, be a contact point for people interested in the park, learn from the collective wisdom out there, share my experiences and hopefully help improve my neighbourhood.

This is a learning experience for me so I've decided to call this blog 'workingprototype', until a time where the community wants to set up a dedicated Roundwood Park group and give it its own name.