The new committee are:

Tim Bartelot – chair

Will Boult – treasurer

Piers Sadler – secretary

Nye Harries – committee member

Tim is working hard on fundraising and designs for the skateable space at the rear of the new ballcourt, and will chair the group to see this project through.

Minutes from the meeting can be seen here.

Work on the ballcourt funded by the £50k from the SITA Trust must start by May 15.  There are some cost quote issues that have prevented BCC agreeing budgets, and this has delayed the start up to now.  We are hopeful that these will be resolved soon.

In the event that there is any money left after the planned ballcourt work is finished, we agreed to prioritise any extra spend for the ball court on crown-lifting the established trees on and around the slope, and on dog poo signs for the playground gates and in the back area.  Instead of spending on new railings on top of the curved wall, Simon will repair the existing fence and add pig wire to it.  We’ll look into willow for that corner to create more of a feature/space, and request that the additional bin funded by SITA be a dog poo one that is sited on the rear area.

We opted not to push for fencing across the top of the slope, at least until we know more about how the space feels after some clearance, nor for further benches as it was felt that there are sufficient seating options for the moment.  If additional funds are available, large stones or tree trunks could be used instead of formal benches at the top of the slope.  We discussed bollards for the path to block motorcyclists, but felt these would block the flow of skaters and scooters.  We also discussed a giant chess board in the skateable space, but felt the existing board in the kids play area was underused. A temporary boules area will be built by volunteers later in the year at a workday in the skateable space; Simon will speak to Tom about initiating further skate space grant applications.

We discussed the scrub slope in some detail and felt that the clearance cost could be saved by clearing it by hand on a volunteer workday. It may not be necessary to clear the whole of it, perhaps creating avenues or pathways to improve lines of vision, or clearing low level scrub only. The underlying concrete blocks are currently acting as a retaining wall, so it would be difficult to remove them or add much weight to them without potentially destabilising the whole structure. We’ll look at how we could clear the scrub on Saturday 7 May, with Piers and Will overseeing any work and the Urban Greening group sending across volunteers to help with any clearance.  Shiona will contact BCC to see if they can help with skips or shredders.  Simon will contact hire companies to see what it would cost to hire a shredder.

And here for our latest budget rundown.  If there is anyone with book-keeping experience who could help us keep on top of our cashflow, we’d really appreciate it!

The current tree planting map of Montpelier is here.

Next meeting will be Thursday 17 March at 8pm, 53 Ashley Road, to plan our involvement in the Park Launch on 26 March.  All welcome!

Regular admin group meetings now to be held on the 2nd Thursday of every month as this seems to suit the most people best

It’s quiet at the moment, so next informal meeting Thursday Feb 10th, 8pm, Cadbury, all welcome. There will be some open meeting planning, but random chat too (not enough of this we agreed).

• 24th March if Fairfield is available
• Ed to lead organising, Caroline to support
• Key areas for further development following on from previous initiatives / meetings:
  • Energy – needs new lead / reforming of group (original group became Green Doors with Dan at the helm)
  • Streets – follow on from the last open meeting
  • Heart and Soul – start to develop ideas
  • Beanfeast – opportunity to re-group and recruit new supporters
  • Use meeting to publicise achievements so far eg Urban Greening, Beanfeast etc
• Actions:
  • Dan – check / liaise with Fairfield, including arranging inductions for Ed and Shiona
  • Ed – start planning, mtg to be action-focussed, strong and large poster needed for publicity,
  • Dan / Ciaran – new energy speaker
  • Ed / Dan – ensure that people who have been interested in these topics previously are invited
  • Ed – ask Shiona if she wants to have a short slot for Urban Greening at the start, (and anyone else?)

Finances:

• Dan – pay Caroline invoice for Green Doors support (£114 presented at mtg)
• Caroline – Bank Acct to be progressed
• O/s debts: Ed – reimbursement of money paid to Jess for film night (£84), Bron – £35 to set up CIC
• Approx net worth after income and debts: £15

Next film ‘Chris Maretensen’s Crash Course’ – Ed organising

The above NP recently held an workshop-style event specifically target at the litter/graffiti and other state-of-the-streets issues.

The focus raged from very local issues such as graffiti on a particular wall and litter in a particular street to more strategic issues such as waste collection.

The contract for waste collection is shortly up for renewal so comments on the service were sought. For example, street cleaners do not separate any recyclables (and much litter can be bottles and cans), and this potentially could be built into a new contract.

It was suggested that Sita operatives do not often get much positive contact with the public, so do consider thanking your binman for what must seem like a thankless task. So, cheers binmen.

Jon
Ed
Jane
Ciaran
Richard
Caroline

Actions:
~~~~~~
Ed repay Jess film debt
Caroline reimburse Ed when possible
Ed do doodle for preferred day for admin group meeting
Caroline to research post office bank accounts
Caroline to check CIC details on address with Bronwen
Caroline ask Shiona if she would be a signatory
Caroline chase up personal details from signatories
Ed email and call: Steven Williams and Jon Rogers
Caroline put poster in UWE and ISHE and other mailing lists
Jane put posters in magpie and here shop
Richard ask Beanfeast to produce the list
Ed to send out ‘group opening’ mail to Ciaran, Chris G, Ralph, Mark, Claire
Ciaran and Ed to do another film in The Arts Cafe in Jan if possible
Jon to produce a little summary of Neighbourhood Partnership meeting
Jon and Richard to talk about Neighbourhood partnership representation but happy to keep that up availability dependent

Open event feedback:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- A reasonable attendance though a notable number from outside of Montpelier
- Downstairs worked well though with more people we would have struggled
- Needs to be a clear distinction between facilitating the evening and leading it. Facilitator needs to identify with TT Mont.
- The talks: Pity about the slides not working for streets talk. Be good to reschedule. Currency talk felt a little un-motivating
- Good collection of money. Just over £30 raised.
- There was some new young blood interested in the energy group. Hopefully they can be part of moving things on locally.
- This requested to be included in the minutes  http://www.theconvergingworld.org/news/startlivingevent
- Publicity – very short term -1.5 weeks up – More publicity would have been good
- Poster hard to read – need clearer posters
- Two should buddy up
- Big events are about pizzazz
- We could be being too self-critical – it went OK, and the general energy is low after beanfeast stuff, that’s how things go

Event timeline discussed by group:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 month ahead
1. Event is agreed (min one month’s notice): topic and date and owners (buddy)
2. Room booked
3. Speaker (s) booked – could be topical could be other initiative
4. Facilitator booked
5. Event information described and posted on website
6. Posters made
7. Posters put up
8. Lots of Word of mouth (don’t forget those people from previous meeting)
1 week ahead
9. Sort out equipment for speakers
10. Get presentations in advance
11. Facilitators in break out groups if necessary
12. Have food organised in advance

Business:
~~~~~~~
- CIC sorted as of 1/11 – next step bank account – hurray!
- Income/spending:
– Made 30.46 at open meeting
– Made 10 at film
– Received 114 from BGD
– Debt: film for Jess: £83.53
– After Ed repaid film debt, £70
- Ciaran – spent £20 on open meeting on printing
- Caroline repaid Ciaran
- Bank Account:
– Co-op: free banking for community groups – but slow to set up
– Post Office: possible – to research
– Credit Union: don’t do suitable accounts – still in committee
– Triodos: do accounts but do charge for transactions
– Caroline not too keen on using same bank as personal accounts, but Co-op looking OK
– Need address for bank account – need to check CIC details
– Decide who are signatories: usual to have directors as signatories, doesn’t have to be them though
– 4 signatories: need two for a signature: Caroline, Ed, Jon, then to check to see if Bronwen/Shiona would like to be one?
- Discussion about turnover – Caroline put £10K down in case funding is sought successfully
- Offer to, and discussion about, using Transition Bristol bank account
– Caroline prefer to have TT Mont bank account, general feeling that it was better /easier to manage

Shift Bristol involvement?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Ciaran delivering teaching in the Shift Bristol courses next year and talking at The Big Shift
- Ciaran recommends going to the Big Shift
- Ed having stall at Big Shift asks for stall help – Jane could help am, Richard pm

Nicole Foss talk planning
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Sold out (free) talk about financial crisis in Hamilton House
- Donations to go to speaker and venue and costs
- Two people coming from bristol pound
- Some Local Authority folks coming – deputy leader and head of finance

Beanfeast AGM and what’s going on:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- AGM: formally adopted constitution with 3 officers being a committee, proposal to run one beanfeast every year, therefore could benefit from moving into an umbrella organisation (TT Mont) which will hold the organisation  while there is a quiet period. All keen to do another beanfeast but not run the ‘organisation’. Very likely that, in time, the Beanfeast group will take on running the event.
- All Beanfeast accounts are agreed as closed
- Beanfeast would like to donate money to Transition Montpelier
- Beanfeast ask Transition Montpelier to be an umbrella organisation in quiet period
- Beanfeast would like to consult on spending remaining cash for mutually useful items in recognition of support received by Transition Montpelier (Tom was going to produce a list of suggested items)
- Transition Montpelier can help (as any sub-group) publicise, support at events, encourage volunteers, review annual accounts, re-invigorate in spring 2011.
- Transition Montpelier would like clear recognition that Beanfeast is part of the Transition groups.
- Richard notes that there is ringfenced money in Beanfeast bank account for future Beanfeast set up costs helping to facilitate to activity.
- Caroline says this is a Beanfeast decision not Transition as Beanfeast is currently separate – there could be a greater community advantage if some profit is available to kickstart other community activity rather than dormant funds?

Trees update:
~~~~~~~~~
Free Trees will be distributed to all who have ordered them on Saturday 4 December (if you’ve not yet ordered yours, the deadline is Friday).  On that day and/or Sunday 5th, we will also be running another, much larger community planting event.  It will cover 6 sites, and include filling and planting the new community planting space in Montpelier Park.  We will encourage people collecting trees (55 homes so far) to give an hour of their time back to the community, and hopefully get over 300 trees into the ground that weekend. Eleven of us planted 83 trees on two very tough sites this weekend, so it’s doable!

Start of a inner transition group
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Interest in this – start to invite potentially interested people

Thinking ahead to other future public activity
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Last film a success – agreed to do more
- Next film?
– Power of community?
– Story of stuff?
– Ciaran sending some round via email

Good Ideas for next event/ open meeting in Feb/March
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- This should be the big topic for admin meeting in jan
– chats in the meantime
- Richard – consumption and waste?

Christmas Fayre?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- No thanks
– agreed that it’s best to let Beanfeast settle down

Chestnuts event in picton square?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Dan suggested, Ciaran offered to help on email
- Richard can provide BBQ drums and sell hot spice apple drink
- All profit to Transition Montpelier
- Ciaran to follow up

New regular day for meeting in 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Wednesday – some like
- Tuesday – some like
- Doodle to decide

Neighbourhood partnerships meeting: litter and waste
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Jon visited – well attended – council want to know what issues are – contracts coming up for renewal
- Very local feedback – from graffiti to recycling

Indulge évent: 11/12:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ciaran recommends: Attic: 3pm onwards
Talks, groups, bands, funky cool stuff going on, Ciaran talking

Here are some links and contacts for local activities and a recording of her talk in the summer for those that missed it:

Automatic Earth Blog

The Talk as a DVD: ‘A Century of Challenges’

Download the audio of the talk from the summer

Just for The Love of It

Bristol and Bath Pound
Stephen Clarke: s.clarke@btinternet.com
Ciaran Mundy: 0117 923 2116

Amitabha Buddhist Centre

The Community Farm
hello@thecommunityfarm.co.uk

Bristol Wood Recyling Project
info@bwrp.org.uk

Sims Hill Shared Harvest CSA
simshillsharedharvest@googlemail.com

Bristol Green Doors

Positive Money

Happy City Initiative

Practical Sustainabilty Course

Avon Organic Group (and Horfield Organic Community Orchard)
info.orchard@avonorganicgroup.org.uk

Kebele Community Co-op
14 Robertson Road, BS5 6JY
kebelesocialcentre@riseup.net

Free Bus

Food Mapper

Transition Bath

Some quick notes on the Streets discussions for reference:

• We *think* we know what the situation is, but do we? Lots of talk about ‘too many cars’ but we don’t really know how many, owned by who, why, etc. etc.
• Get knowledge of area and situation through a survey – door to door, online, in the shops
• Leads to meetings and discussions to explore the topic and frame the situation in a reasonable way (ie not just ‘give up cars’, but ‘we all want to use our streets’)
• Start practically mapping the streets to get an idea of what can and can’t be done
• Need community buy-in to get formal council support (which will be vital to any significant change)
• There are alternatives to car ownership – city car clubs, neighbourhood hire schemes
• Need to find benefits for individuals to give up their cars, not just demonise them

The ‘Streets’ ‘group’ has struggled to find a path to finding its feet, and this may be a way to mix small actions with getting the neighbourhood’s input while finding out more about Montpelier. In a parallel group, the ‘energy’ group were interested in doing an energy survey to find out how much energy the neighbourhood is using – maybe we do a big survey in 2011?

Here is Pete’s presentation:

Present: Sue, David, Karen, Claudia, Rachel,  Shiona

Free Trees – 50 orders so far, closing date 19 Nov.  Delivery and distribution on Sat 4 Dec.  Engagement and fundraising activities to include mince pies, cakes, spiced tea, plant sale, creating bird feeders, tree planting in planters. Planning meeting for this on Monday 29 November.

ACTION: Shiona to create ‘subscription form’ and email to UG list along with flyer pdf file.

ACTION: All knock on doors with subscription form to get neighbours’ orders on the spot.  Could pair up to do this, making it more sociable.

ACTION: All to approach ‘market stall’ in Picton Square if seen to let them know about distribution date to avoid clashing.

Community Tree Planting – 2 deliveries, 2 planting days.  First Saturday 13 November, second 4/5 December.  First day will be with donations from the Woodland Trust, with unknown number (of hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn, oak, rowan and birch) and to go into known ownership sites.  Second with donations from Forest of Avon Trust, ordered specifically for each site, and can include Station Path, Rainbow Bridge (both sides), Picton Square.

Issue with Woodland Trust is unknown number of hedges vs large trees.  Hedges at 30cm distance apart are relatively easy to find planting sites; 105 oak trees would not be! Four potential sites under negotiation for first planting day: Apsley House, Kwik Fit, Scrapstore and Montpelier Park.

ACTION: Claudia to continue liasing with Apsley House to identify how many and which type of tree, what support they want/need from community, when is good to receive delivery.

ACTION: Sue/Shiona to scope out Kwik Fit substrate and potentially negotiate for compost cost.

ACTION: Rachel to liase with Scrapstore to agree planting plan.  David to inform Ivy Church.

ACTION: Shiona to chase BCC agreement for Montpelier Park planting.

ACTION: David to contact St Barnabas’ school, Shiona to contact Lucy re allotments, Shiona to contact Montpelier Industrial Estate, Rachel to contact Health Centre at same time as putting up posters.

ACTION: Karen, Shiona and Rachel to bake for volunteers on 13 Nov.

ACTION: Shiona to write a blog piece detailing planting event, to include poster.

ACTION: Shiona to email Steve with wording for community tree planting poster.

ACTION: David to register planting event with Woodland Trust.

ACTION: All to forward details of free trees and community planting events to all known local/school newsletters.

Montpelier Park – BTCV agreed to take on project and running workdays on 16 and 20 November.  Building planters, filling and planting, and details of volunteers needed to follow.

Meeting closed 8.45.

Dan
Ciaran
Jane
Richard
Ed
Caroline
Apologies: Sally, Shiona, Ralph

Actions
~~~~~~
CM to finish paperwork required by council for venue asap
CM to provide DW with text for poster Mon 25/10
DW to create poster based on previous posters
CM to print posters by Wed 27/10
JD, BM to put up (DW has location list)
EM to send newsflash about events
JD to print out local neighbourhood map
ALL to read ‘open events’ section for responsibilities
CB let EM know how much debt remaining from Food film
EM to re-pay JL event insurance debt
CM chairing Beanfeast AGM on 9/11
CB to meet SM to talk UG budgets
CB to meet SJ to talk Beanfeast budgets
CB to invoice DW for Bristol Green Doors grant (£114 for local neighbourhoods)
EM email Ralph, Claire Mark about Inner Transition group potential

Albany Green support
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SM and JD have discussed it
SL offered to take the Halloween procession down to Albany Green
Council charge fees of 50% of the grant, which was a surprise for Monteplier Park
No need for any design work – it’s already done in AG
All previous AG activists not active on this issue any more, so need new ones
AGREED: include a space in the open meeting (10/11) for an announcement
ACTION: CM add into open meeting agenda
ACTION: JD to do a short announcement about this in open meeting

CIC document signing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TT Montpelier has been trying to ‘officialise’ in order to have a bank acct for a while
People signed the forms
Well done BM!

Open event planning
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CM to finish paperwork required by council for venue asap
CM to provide DW with text for poster Mon 25/10
DW to create poster based on previous posters
CM to print posters by Wed 27/10
JD, BM to put up (DW has location list)
EM to send newsflash about events
JD to print out local neighbourhood map
ALL to read ‘open events’ section for responsibilities

Date: 10/11 approved by venue, but needs paperwork finished asap
Time: 6pm set up
Supporters: EM, DW, JD, CB, all there. BM if possible.
Stuff: tea making – Urn (DW), tea, coffee (JD), sugar, milk (EM)
Stuff: maps for groups – JD
Stuff: Mugs – add on poster ‘Bring your own mug’
Stuff: TT Mont donations bucket – DW to bring and decorate on night
Facilitator: Ali Crowther
Agenda:
1. two speakers: DIY streets (Alex Allan), Bristol Pound (Mark Burton)
2. announcements: Albany Green, UG group, Energy group needs energy… Anyone else? Tracey from Neighbourhood partnership?
3. breakouts: Streets (Albany Green, Picton square, fac by Alex), Bristol Pound (fac by Mark), Others? Energy? Inner Transition?
4….?

Budgets tidying
~~~~~~~~~~~~
CB let EM know how much debt remaining from Food film
EM to re-pay JL event insurance debt
CM chairing Beanfeast AGM on 9/11
CB to meet SM to talk UG budgets
CB to meet SJ to talk Beanfeast budgets
CB to invoice DW for Bristol Green Doors grant (£114 for local neighbourhoods)

Caroline received full budgets from Bean Feast (2009 closed by group, SL found one van hire cost from 2009- suggests donation?, 2010 final resolution at AGM) and UG group, and one sheet from Winter Fayre 2009.
None of budget holders in meeting, so it was not possible to answer some bits, obviously
Sheets different format (not a surprise, group agreed on similar formats a while back, so this will be tidier in future)
Film debt – JL took out insurance for whole year for film showings and other events – EM agreed to re-pay her and take on debt
Some discussion of Beanfeast
TT Montpelier, were it to have resolved the finances around Beanfeast, would have firstly supported other non-profit making groups’ costs in order to support neighbourhood-wide activities.

AGREED to ask Beanfeast to contribute a proportion of profits to a central pot for non-profit making activities for the benefit of the wider community (e.g. groups, films, clear debts etc.)
AGREED until now, the non-profit making TT Montpelier events/activities haven’t been ‘tight’ enough on their own costs and need to ‘tighten up’
AGREED to keep budgets for all events from now on (to cover insurance, refreshments, films, venue, printing etc.) – our time is voluntary, but need to cover costs
AGREED to set event spreadsheet in advance for events and explain costs at event itself (‘this event costs £xxx, so ideally, we’d get a £xxx donation from everyone)
AGREED to settle budgets asap after events
AGREED to be more forthright about donations at all events