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.

Thank you to the very kind plant fairy who left us loads of lovely seedlings last month, and also to Simon who collected a vanload of free plants from the council nursery.  Kate’s team have made a fantastic start on clearing the land outside the Kwik Fit garage opposite the new Bath Buildings flats, so if you live near there or walk past it regularly and would like to lend a hand, let us know.

Hope to see you next Friday!

Hugh Holden of the Bristol Parks Forum kindly forwarded on our email to the main political parties in Bristol.  Their responses were:

So, even if Whitehall decides to revoke the statutory provision for allotments nationally, in Bristol it seems all parties are committed to defending our current stock.  Many thanks Hugh!

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.

Can you spot the hamster crossing?

And if you can put this poster up in your window, that would be grand!

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!

An added bonus with the lottery award is a further £3,500 sustainability grant, to deliver items or events that encourage future use of the facilities.  We hope to use this towards two large lockable toolboxes, complete with community gardening tools, table tennis kit, spare BBQ racks and a gazebo for community events.  Alongside this we’re planning to run a programme of free workshops all through the summer, to encourage Montpelierites to see the park in a whole new light and use it as much as possible.  Workshops will include tai chi, photography, painting, building green roofs, music jams, wildlife walks, gardening for small spaces, and ping pong tournaments.  The program of events will be run by Montpelier folk and will be launched at the Picnic in the Park on 26 March.

Following on from the park group meeting on Monday night, we met with the council today to discuss the ballcourt redevelopment.  Work on this must start by May to secure the £50k funds from SITA Trust.  BCC have offered to give their landscape design and project management time for free, so this work will now be able to start by April.  As the Biffaward grant bid for the spectator seating between the ballcourt and playground failed, after discussion within ourselves, with SITA Trust and with BCC, we are proposing to remove the floodlighting installation from the ballcourt development (for now) and spend the saving on delivering all the other capital works, as well as clearing the steep slope between the playground and ballcourt, seeding it with wildflowers and installing safety rails at the top and along the curved wall.  As further funds are pretty uncertain, we see this as a way to make the best use of the money.  If you have any thoughts, please do let us know – it’s not an ideal situation to be in, but hopefully we can agree on some form of compromise.

We have submitted another lottery application to fund the skateable space at the base of the rear slope and are waiting to hear if we’re successful.   A volunteer has kindly come forward offering assistance for both securing funding and neighbour consultations to get the cut-through path to the station going in the top corner of the park.  If you would be willing to help us get this off the ground, please let us know.

The current agenda is:

• Trees – progress and next steps
• Finances – review status and grants
• Windowbox gardens – new project planning
• Existing projects – 2011 plans
• New projects – ideas and owners

If you have anything you’d like to add to the agenda, please let me know.  We can try to plant seeds for the community beds as we discuss, so if you prefer to do this with gloves, please bring them along.  If you have any large flat boxes that could act as seed trays, please bring them too!

Over 40 volunteers planted 430 new trees, 300 bulbs and 150 bedding plants across 8 different community planting spaces in Montpelier. You baked over 200 cakes and donated nearly 100 plants to sell, and made £99.10 towards this year’s growing season.

What a grand place we live in.  Big thanks to the Forest of Avon Trust for providing all the trees today too.

If you have any photos of the community planting, or can send us a photo of your Free Tree in its new home, please send them through. We’ll be meeting soon to plan and plant seeds for this year’s veg, and we’d love to hear new ideas for projects too.

Cheers!