Thursday, 2 October 2008

Minutes from meeting held on 17th September

Go to the comments for this post and you will find the minutes from the meeting on the 17th September.
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Pete said...

Minutes of the Ordinary Meeting of the Committee held at 7.30pm on 17 September 2008

Committee Members Present

Tony Major, Chair
Cynthia Lamptey, Secretary
Tony Rich, Deputy Chair and Treasurer
Lara Alden, Communications and Events Officer
Eleanor Thompson, Deputy Communications and Events Officer
Pete Thornton, Membership Officer

Others in attendance

John Keidan
Em (Junction Express Drycleaners)
John Ducker


1. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Apologies were received from Robert Sheppard and Angela Overington.

2. MINUTES OF THE ORDINARY COMMITTEE MEETING HELD ON 16 JULY 2008

These were agreed as a correct record.

3. MEETING WITH MAYOR ON 15 SEPTEMBER

Tony gave a brief summary of the meeting he and Cynthia attended with the Mayor and his Executive Director for Regeneration, Malcolm Smith. Points discussed included:

Nominated Council Officer to liaise with LVIG
This is likely in the long-term to be a Regeneration Officer from Malcolm Smith’s team. Short term he will try to arrange to allocate some hours of the Town Centre Manager for Lewisham, Liz Bannister’s time to us. In the meantime, Malcolm will be the contact.

Guardrailing by the Station
Malcolm expressed a dislike of guardrailing too and promised to investigate immediately with Highways Dept whether some could be removed.

Playtower
The Mayor pointed out it was very expensive to do anything with the crumbling building and said he was very keen to hear any plans anyone had of what to do next. He may well be a sympathetic ear to the Playtower Working Group’s activities.
Funding
LVIG were keen to get a commitment of financial support. Here the feedback was very positive along the lines of matching funds raised by LVIG for specific purposes, e.g. Christmas Tree lights or providing the materials to assist a project e.g. decorative flowers – LVIG to raise funds to buy bulbs, Council to provide the planters etc.

Meeting the Group
Dates have been pencilled-in for the Mayor and Malcolm Smith to attend LVIG Committee meetings - November for Malcolm and January/February for the Mayor.

4. REVIEW OF EMPTY PROPERTIES IN LEWISHAM - FEEDBACK

Lara made a submission on behalf of LVIG to the Review of Empty Properties by Lewisham Council's Sustainable Development Select Committee.

Eleanor attended the Committee meeting, 2nd September to observe and to ask questions on Lewisham-specific issues. Eleanor filled the Group in on the main points covered at the meeting. She will issue meeting notes shortly.

5. FUNDRAISING FOR LVIG

General discussion on how to raise funds for LVIG:

• Ask local businesses for contributions – need to identify spend requirements first in order to attract contributions.
• Maintain contact with Lewisham Council and ask them to match funding raised for a particular spend.
• Look at bidding for local funding. Again we need to identify items for which funding is needed.
• Localities Fund – this will be raised at the next Local Assembly, 8th October. It was suggested that we start a discussion on the blog to see what people might like done with the £10k available to Ladywell Ward.
• Hold a Benefit Night to raise funds – at Mason’s or Ladywell Tavern
• LVIG would like to extend a big thank you to both John Ducker, and to the Embleton Road Resident’s Association, of which John is Treasurer for generously donating funds remaining in their now closed bank account to LVIG. The total donation amounts to some £500!





6. TOWN CENTRE MANAGER PETITION - UPDATE

This was raised at the meeting with the Mayor earlier in the week. See 3 above. We may yet get a share of the Lewisham TCM. We should follow up and pursue this via Malcolm Smith initially but keep the petition live.

7. PLAYTOWER GROUP – UPDATE

Tony R reported that this Working Group had held a first meeting to discuss the potential for development of the Playtower as a community resource. The Council is in the process of making a bid for funding under the Government’s ‘My Place’ programme for establishing centres for young people. The working group is due to meet Council officers to discuss the Play Tower on 1st October and a report will be made to the next meeting.

8. LINKING WITH LOCAL BUSINESSES - UPDATE

No progress as yet. John will press on with this together with Em. They will formulate a questionnaire to use as a means of opening discussions.

9. FARMERS MARKET - UPDATE

Since the last OCM Cynthia contacted both London Farmers’ Market and City and Country Farmers’ Market. LFM promised a feasibility study but have yet to find a time slot to do this and are currently tied up with promoting their latest market in Kingston. They expect their markets to run weekly.

CCFM who also run the local Manor House Gardens, Telegraph Hill and Hilly Fields Markets, on a monthly basis were much quicker to respond. Chris Elder from CCFM and Cynthia did a walkabout to check best possible sites for market Two sites were surveyed – outside Ladywell train station/Railway Terrace and Ladywell Fields.

Although Ladywell Station is an ideal site, close to the Ladywell Village area in terms of gaining the appropriate permissions, disturbance to nearby residents, the need to maintain access to the station, and the lack of immediate facilities e.g. toilets, electricity it was felt that Ladywell Fields is more promising as it has a flat area of land adjacent to the café with easy access to toilets and electricity points. There would be no inconvenience to residents at this location.
CCFM already have a good relationship with Glendale through the operation of farmer’s markets in Telegraph Hill, Manor House Park and Hilly Fields. CCFM would be responsible for organising all of the relevant permissions and licences.

CCFM would be able to supply between 12 and 20 local producers of food, drink and crafts.
They currently have an empty slot on the fourth Sunday of each month that they are looking to fill and would be keen to start asap. Since the walkabout he has canvassed their opinion about doing a market in Ladywell and the reaction has been positive

10. EVENTS

Christmas Market
A working Group have met to progress this. Likely partner will be CCFM – See 9 above. There is a lot of work to be done and very little time to do it. Proposed dates are 13/14 December. CCFM have now firmed up that they are free these dates. Anyone interested in getting involved in this market should contact Eleanor or Cynthia.

Beer Festival
No action on this as yet. Ladywell Tavern have expressed interest in being the venue for some time early 2009

11. COMMUNICATIONS PLANS

Lara distributed a strategy document summarising the main points of the core brand idea; visions and values; structure; objectives and the methods of communication internally and externally. Copies of this summary are available if required.

12. WEBSITE - UPDATE

The website has been updated to include the new LVIG motif and the fonts used changed to match the LVIG trebuchet. There are plans to include more photos and visuals but we all think it looks great. Well done to Pete and Lara!

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

There was no other business of note.


The meeting closed 9.10pm

2 October 2008 at 09:39

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