Minutes of Meeting 04 May 2023
16:00 at Albyns Depot
1. Attendance/Apologies
Present: Raymond Randall (RR), Sheila Clarke (SC), Brian Breeze (BB), Liz Hawthorn (LH), Richard Cottam (RC) LBH Parks
Apologies for absence: Jeff Stafford (JS)
2. Minutes of previous meeting - Minutes of the previous meeting (6 April 2023) agreed
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3. Matters Arising
Insurance Money – Last year’s insurance money has been received from LBH
Nature Booklet – 200 copies have been ordered via Dave Bender.
Work Parties – RR has contacted our volunteers
Green Street Volunteers – JS contacted Gina. They couldn’t help this time.
Bridge Lips – Carry forward to nearer summer.
4. Chair/Vice Chairs reports – Nothing that is not covered in Agenda.
Chair - 21 people attended the cycle ride on 16 April. The Residents Association had a stall at the start point. JS was pleased with the turn out and may do similar in future.
Vice Chair – nothing to report.
5. Secretary’s Report – LH sent a response to London Friends of Green Spaces Network for their Climate Resilience Survey. It concerned matters such as wild fires, flooding and the drying of marshes.
6. Finance Report
Balance held £3,076
(This includes the insurance rebate from LBH received 20 April 2023 and will be in next year’s accounts as the financial year end is 1 April).
£1,321.88 is reserved under Capital grants.
Balance of unrestricted funds £1,754.63
SC is going away and does not have time to have the accounts audited so requests that the AGM be delayed until August/September
7. Park Officer’s Report
Work will start on the play site next week. The Zip Wire will be removed as it was frequently broken and unusable. 2 multi-play items, a large slide and an obstacle course will be installed and all remaining play equipment will be repaired. Works are expected to last 2 – 3 weeks.
HCP has been entered for the Blue Flag Award and London in Bloom.
Wild flower seed has been obtained and some will be placed in the Memorial Woodland and around the Roundel.
Hard core is to be placed around Albyns Lake, in the areas where the waterfowl are fed, to provide a better surface.
8. Nature Booklet – We have received 200 printed booklets which were available at the meeting for everyone to see. We have still not heard from EWT regarding the possible selling of these and cannot set a price to sell them ourselves until we have heard from them.
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9. Events and Cycling – Nothing to report.
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10. Work Parties
8 people attended the work party on 12 April 2023 and helped the rangers clear more of the Epen.
The work party planned for Wednesday 3 May 2023 to continue work on the Epen was cancelled due to the lack of volunteers. It was decided to leave work on the Epen until the end of bird breeding season.
A work party is planned for Sunday 14 May 2023 to clear a blockage in the river. Our volunteers have been Emailed and posts put on Hornchurch Country Park Life and Green Street Volunteers Facebook pages to see if we can attract more volunteers.
More work is needed on the Epen banks and another work party is planned for 12 April. RR will contact our volunteers regarding this.
It was suggested that Green Street volunteers, who have a Facebook page, may be able to offer help. JS will contact Gina (Admin for the Facebook page) regarding this.
11. Web page - up to date.
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12. Other Business
RC has received an Email from BIFA (land fill) about grants. He will send it to Friends Groups.
SC reported that at a U3A meeting on 18 May 2023, 2 woman were speaking about the Quarry Proposal and confirmed that no planning application had yet been received.
Date of Next Meeting – to be confirmed.