Workday

Hi All.

Just to let you know that our next workday is on Saturday 2nd July starting at 10am-midday.

If you would like to come along and help out please meet by the entrance to the bowling green which is just by the tennis court car park you cant miss us.

If you require further information please email Christine at:- friendsofcoedbach@gmail.com

See you there.

Next Meeting

Just to let you all know our next meeting is on Thursday 30th June at 7.00 pm it will be held in Pontarddulais Cricket Club.
Everybody is welcome.

The minutes of the last meeting dated Thursday 26th May are now available to read you can email :-
 friendsofcoedbach@gmail.com 

And request a copy from Christine.

Pontarddulais Carnival.

Hi Everyone.

First of all a big thank you to everybody that helped out on our stall at the coed bach park carnival field on saturday 25 june.
The weather was against us but we soldiered on and made over £160 for the Friends Of The Park funds.
And we also were able to sign up a few new members to our ranks so please keep spreading the word so as we can continue to expand our organization and go from strength to strength.

I would like to thank all our volunteers that took the trouble to spend a few hours in the wet cold wind asking questions and of course Gaynor for her painting skills which were appreciated by everyone concerned and was kept very  busy by plenty of requests for face paintings.

The following photographs are copyrighted to friends of the park.

Meeting and greeting new friends

Gaynor practices her skills before the crowd turns up

The finished job

Our chairman joins in the fun

Guess my name

Pin the tail on the donkey

A young customer raises to our challenge

We have a winner

Oh!!!!! nearly

Answering our questionnaires

And of course the winning name to guess my name

Hi message to all our members from Chris the Sec.

Plans are going ahead for the Carnival Stall that we are having in the Park on the Pontarddulais and Hendy Carnival Day Saturday 25th June and we are having a practise at putting up and setting out the stall on the Thursday (23rd June) in my garden so if you want to came along you will be most welcome.

Minutes of the last meeting.

Friends of Coed Bach Park

Sec. Chris Thomas 8 Park Close 883195

Here are the minutes of the last meeting and as suggested by Adam Mason the points raised have been put down as a separate Questions and Answers page. Also I enclose two membership forms and if you know of anyone who would like to join - only £1 for the year then please get them filled in and bring them along to the next meeting.
Vyv has come up with an Agenda for the next meeting it is as follows:-
1) Update on actions from last meeting.
2) Discuss means of communication with members going forward.
3) Discuss and clarify what our objective is for the park. What are our ultimate goals for the park.
4) “Brain Storm” to identify areas of the park we would like to improve short and long term.
5) Compile a list of realistic and achievable suggestions derived from (4) above, with approximate dates/timescales we could achieve them by.
6) Discuss an immediate action plan of work in the park that we can get involved with as members and “get our hands dirty”.
7) Discuss ideas on increasing awareness of our society and promoting our cause, with an aim of increasing membership.
Any other business
So here are some things that have happened since the last meeting…
We have joined with Keep Wales Tidy and put in a bid for a £200 B&Q Voucher for hand tools and thorn proof gloves. If successful we will be holding a Wild Weekend event 20-22nd May. This will mean that we help the Bluebells to regenerate by thinning out the undergrowth and we must take before and after photos of the activity as proof I suppose.!. Anyway through putting the bid in I came across The Woodlands Trust Web site and it features Coed Bach Park as a place to go to see Native Bluebells which are a protected species but as there was no picture of the wood so Martin has up loaded 2 photos to it and very good photos they are too. Thanks Martin However, we do have Spanish bluebells growing in the woods and so we really need to find a good home for them somewhere else in Pontardulais – we can’t have these species taking over from our native plants.
We have joined with Swansea CVS and they are holding a briefing event about the Big Lottery Community Voice Programme on Tuesday 14th June at 9.30 am at the Scout and Guide Headquarters in Brynmill. This will provide an opportunity to find out more about the programme and for SCVS to consider a way forward for developing a portfolio of Swansea projects that can be submitted as one bid. It might be possible for us to be part of this bid with a project in our area so I have put my name and Gaynor’s name down to attend thes event and we will report back at the next meeting in June..
I went to meet up with the Swansea Bay Orienteering Club on Wed evening 4th May when they were Orienteering around Mumbles Hill. No I did not go around the hill I stayed in the car park talking to Dave Mitchell who runs the club and who was most kind explaining to me what exactly was involved in Orienteering.. He did say they would probably run an event in the Park in the Autumn. What I hadn’t realised is that some of the Club Members actually “RUN” the route as the competitive side of the event is timed. The actual course is laid out on the day and although the aim is to get from one marker to the other as quickly as possible you have to get all the markers. The Fixed Marker posts like the ones we have in the park are just there as … well fixed points in case you are getting lost to help you Orienteer yourself. It was a little too energetic for me but the youngsters who were arriving back seemed to love the challenge. Dave said that one of his group members was in his early 80s and that sometimes speed isn’t everything especially if you go too quick and miss out a marker ! Anyway they seemed a nice bunch of very healthy energetic people
The Annual Pontardulais Carnival is on the last Saturday of June and again it might be a good idea to have a presence there and maybe a float ! If we had a stall with Gazebo then perhaps if we could spare an hour to man it we could give out membership forms and recruit volunteers. Anyway this can be discussed at the next meeting on Thursday 26th May at the Canolfan Y Bont at 7pm The good news is that we are being given 75 programmes to sell at £2 each and what is really good about this is that we get to keep the money from the sale of the programmes so this is a great way of raising money and helping to promote the Carnival.
One of the things the group hasn’t got yet and that is a Group Logo for headed paper or promotional materials should we ever go down that road. Ideally the logo needs to be reasonably cheap to print as colour photo graphs look great but take up a lot of computer file space and printer ink. It may be an idea to hold a competition for people in the community/schools to submit a design for a logo. Perhaps this is something we can promote if we have a stall in the Carnival. Maybe we can get Tesco to donate a £30 Tesco Voucher for the prize winner ! What is their slogan every little helps !!
So please have a think about things and see you on the 26th May at Canolfan Y Bont if not before, All the best. Chris

A letter from substainable swansea.

sustainable swansea

The Environment Centre

Pier Street

Swansea

SA1 1RY

Telephone: 01792 480200 Email: Delyth@environmentcentre.org.uk

Dear

I am writing to let you know about an exciting project that we will be undertaking in Pontarddulais shortly. It focuses on raising awareness about environmental sustainability in a variety of ways, which will help people understand the impact that we all have on the environment.

We hope it will involve the whole town and the plethora of groups, societies, schools, chapels & churches etc. that exist there, and would like feedback on what types of information and advice the people of Pontarddulais would find most useful to have during this time. We are proposing to address different themes (for about a month each) including energy, waste, food, transport and travel and biodiversity. It will culminate in a Green Map being produced for Pontarddulais, which will be the latest in a series of community green maps for Swansea. They usually include entries such as green areas and parks, social resources, culture and heritage sites, recycling points, places to buy organic or local food, public transport information and so on.

There will be a variety of events and activities through the year and we urge you to get involved a much as you can. We would like to tie in events or meetings you have organised during the year too as part of your group, and so would you mind providing the following information please:

- Any ideas on what type of issues you would like to see looked at in a project like this. What subjects do you want more information about that would help you live in a more ‘green’ or sustainable way?

- If there are any particularly keen individuals from amongst you who want to be more involved, please let me know and we can discuss options.

- Any particular activities / events that you will organise during the year that we could build an activity around or come and have a presence at?

- What are your normal meeting times, days, venue etc?

- Would you like me to come and speak at your meeting/ group to explain more?

I look forward to hearing from you

Best wishes / Cofion

Delyth

Delyth Higgins

Community Outreach Worker

Sustainable Swansea