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.

Can you spot the hamster crossing?

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

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.

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!

We ran out of time to discuss the lottery launch party; £500 for this has been secured as part of the grant, and we need volunteers to help organise the event on 26th March.  If you’d be interested in helping out, we’d welcome a hand!

Beanfeast poster

After the success of Montpelier Bean Feast in 2009 celebrating local heritage, local harvest and local genius, the event is being held again on Sat 18th Sept 2-9pm in Montpelier Park on St. Andrews Road.

There’ll be plenty of fun for all ages with live music, mock elections of Montpelier Mayor and Queen Bean, crafts workshops and procession, local produce exchange, giant freecycle, ‘homemade’ stalls, chef’s bean cook-off, tea and cakes and lots of neighbours getting to know each other.

Transition Montpelier are hosting a magic marquee with a series of surgeries in Energy, home improvements, street life, food and environmental Q&As.

The event is free to attend, although donations towards costs are much appreciated.

The event is organised and run by unpaid volunteers from the local area.

We need lots of us to make the feast a success.  Can you help?  If you’re able to offer a couple of hours on the day to join the team, please get in touch with Sally 07866 748193 or montpelierbeanfeast@yahoo.co.uk.

This phase is expected to take about 8 weeks, during which the playground will still be accessible, but the ball court will not.  For those living next to the park it will clearly be unpleasant to be next to a construction site, and the contractors have committed to working co-operatively with neighbours wherever possible.  They will need to ensure parking doesn’t obstruct plant entering, but machinery will not operate before 8.30am, and is unlikely to operate on weekends.

Two further phases of work are dependent on two further funding applications; to SITA Trust for the ball court, and Biffaward for the spectator seating.  We have been accepted through to their funding boards and hope to hear from them both by November. Funding searches for the skateable space in the corner have not been started (about £15k); if you have any ideas for where we could look that would be great!  The Council have also just sent the landowner of the strip across the middle of the park an offer for his land, so hopefully all the park will shortly come into community ownership.

There will be an info board at Saturday’s Beanfeast in the park with a large map of the different phases and if we can get hold of a key, we hope to keep the phase plan on the noticeboard in the Park, so you can see it even if you can’t make Saturday.