2019 Carnival News

Following a second public consultation meeting at Hendy RFC on Wednesday 30th January the Festival committee have agreed to discontinue with the traditional Carnival Parade and hold a community Summer Fete instead at Coed Bach Park.

The main reasons behind the decision are as follows:

Organising the parade requires Road Closure Orders and a minimum of 18 Persons to man the road as well as stewards to walk with the Lorries.
It also requires at least 10 Personnel to man the entrance to Coed back park due to the volume of people entering and pushing their way in behind the lorries.

Every year we struggle to get assistance for these tasks. The committee as it stands does not have the resources. Marshals are then brought in at a cost to perform these roles.

Road closure orders and Policing / Marshal cost in the region of £600.
Currently we utilise the Soccer playing fields at Coed Bach hired from Swansea City Council at a cost of £450. Insurance almost £900
Due to the litter left we then organise a complete litter pick £75
These are just some of the costs.

In fairness to the Haulage companies who provide the Lorries free of charge they find it more difficult each year to assist with drivers and Lorries.

The number of floats being entered has dwindled making the parade shorter each year. The float organisers themselves find it hard to get people to help prepare the floats. An example; we used to have 5-6 floats from the 3 schools Last year we had one.
This is not a criticism but a clear sign of the times.

The work involved in organising the Parade and the application forms that have to be completed are getting more complicated each year.
Although the festival Committee have adequate public liability insurance for the event it is impossible to get insurance cover for the Floats. Should an unfortunate incident occur whereby for an example a child falls from a lorry then who is held liable ?? (The Festival Committee !!!)

Although this decision has not been taken lightly, for several years we have noticed more and more separate events being organised locally on Carnival day obviously benefitting from the number of people coming into the area. As a result this has reduced the number of people attending the field and taking an active part in the Carnival field events. Whilst this is not a criticism of those organising the events it is inevitable that if people don’t support the Carnival with their attendance then changes need to be made. In essence the success of outside events has contributed to the demise of the Carnival in its current format.
Currently Pubs and Clubs make a lot of profit from Carnival day with the parade but unfortunately the Festival Committee does not get any contribution from them apart from one pub despite the huge costs laid out to put on the parade.
It has been decided that a summer community fete be held as an alternative to the traditional Carnival.
For ease of costs the Pontarddulais Rugby Club have offered their ground free of charge and their events team have indicated that they would like to take over the long term running of this event.
It has been stipulated and agreed that the income from the event is retained in the Community fund to sustain future events.
The festival committee are happy to continue to help with this and to continue with the Christmas Parade as usual as long as the funding is secured which currently comes from both Llanedi Community Council and Pontarddulais Town Council. (Last year the cost was nearly £900)

The Christmas Grotto will be retained as well as the inter schools sports competition. These events are totally none profit making as they are free.

The committee are all volunteers who have worked tirelessly for many years in bringing these events to the community. For that I thank each and every one of them. I also want to take this opportunity to thank all our Patrons who have given generously over the years to support us, the advertisers, local traders and the hauliers for the lorries, not forgetting the Stalls from various organisations.

Although this may be disappointing for many we have had to face the reality checks on the whole event and realised it was no longer sustainable and safe to continue as it was. I hope we all as a community embrace the new format and support the new event. More details will be published later.

A further meeting to set a New committee has been arranged for Wednesday 20th February at the Pontarddulais Rugby Club

Thank you for your continued support

Lyn Anthony
Chairman. Pontarddulais, Hendy & District Festival Committee.

Friends of Coed Bach Park Facebook Page

Twitter

Lyn Anthony Pontarddulais and Hendy Carnival Committee 

Tesco Park Benches.

A big thank you to the Tesco 'bags of help' grant and to the Parks Department of the City and County of Swansea for the 3 picnic benches which have now been installed in the park. Something we can all look forward to using when the weather improves!

Friends of Coed Bach Park Facebook Page

Twitter

FOCBP Facebook Page

Seasonal Ponds February

Click on image to enlarge.

Merry Christmas

We at Friends of Coed Bach Park would like to wish all our supporters and Park users a Very Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year.

In January 2014 we will begin Phase 2 of the Seasonal ponds project.

Please watch this space for further events and feel free to join us.

Meeting/Holiday and Future Events

We are having our regular monthly meeting this Thursday 7.30 in the Cricket Club and the posters and flyers have gone up and out about the Tennis Activities for 5-10year olds which will be starting next Tuesday 30th July and then every Tuesday and Thursday mornings 9.30 to 11am  throughout all of August - there is a small cost of £1 per session and help would be appreciated from 9.30 till 10am each morning to take  the register and the money. 

The Pontarddulais Partnership will be having their Play Scheme in the Park for the first two weeks in August from 5th to 9th August and from 12th  to 16th August and we are joining in with them for National Play Day on Wednesday 7th August 1.30pm - 3.30 pm with Sarah Holden who will be leading a workshop on Green Masks and Butterfly/Moth Paper Puppets and Sarah will be back on Friday 16th August 1.30pm - 3.30pm doing Mini Sketch Books and Simple Willow Weaving.

On Saturday 7th September from 2pm - 4pm  there will be Building Bug Houses and Muddy Pond Dipping led by Dawn Thomas and Dawn will be leading a Bug House Inspection on Saturday September 28th from 2pm - 4pm.

Friday 6th September Familly Bat Walk in the Park with Detectors at 7.30pm led by Steve Lucus and on Sunday 6th October 10am -12 there will be identify the Fungi in the Park led by Teifion Davies.

From Friday 2nd August throughout all of August we will be having an exhibition in the Library about our activities in the Park and the future activities in the Autumn such as the creation of the seasonal ponds. 

Sunday 4th August we will be joining with the Pontarddulais Partnership and having a Stall at the Gower Show, they did a nice article in the Bont Bulletin about the Park and getting the QEII status.

Hope to see you on Thursday.

all the best

Chris 

Also this article appeared in the online Evening Post.

http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Parks-important/story-19562427-detail/story.html

Tesco Staff Paint The Childrens Play Area

A big thank you to the  Pontardulais TESCO staff members who along with Christine and new FOCBP member Steph volunteered to help us paint the play area in the park today.

Every Little Helps......And this helps the community in a big way "Thank You" (Liam Chloe and Paul)

2013 Pontardduais and Hendy Carnival

For the third year running we had a stall at the Carnival.

A big thanks to everybody that helped out through out the day.
And thank you to Pontarddulais Partnership for allowing us to use part of their stand.

Pontarddulais Partnership Stall

A busy Carnival field

Young FOTP member Gethin hands us a picture of the park he has made

Gethin's Picture :-)

Wyndsor sorting the paperwork out (Or plotting world domination????)

The first few attempts at pin the tail on the Donkey did not go well

Our Blogger with the printed Blog

                     Filling out the questionnaire

A family letting us know what they would like to see more of in the park

News Update.

For the last few weeks we have been busy laying the wood chip paths around the children's play area into the 2nd woods.
This is all going very well as it is linking very nicely to the pathways going through the 2nd woods and people are commenting on how much easier it is to walk that route without getting too muddy.
Swansea City Council are still laying wood chip and are heading towards the pathway that brings you out by the entrance to the show field.

We have obtained some fencing for our flower bed by the tennis court car park this was donated to us by the King Hotel so a big thank you to them.


And we have been given a key to the notice board by the tennis court so keep your eye on that as we are going to be posting a lot more in there from now on.

Again our resident photographer Martin has been out and about with his camera capturing these images from the park on Sunday11th March 2012 you can view them on his blog at:-
http://mph-photo.blogspot.com/2012/03/another-misty-morning.html




If you have any images of the park you would like to submit please email them to us at:- friendsofcoedbach@gmail.com and we will put them on our flickr site and give you a mention.

Weekend of March 3rd/4th News Update.

We have had a couple of busy weeks around the park as we have started work on putting wood shavings on the pathways around the 2nd woods and by the swing area.


As usual a big thank you to the City and County Council of Swansea for laying the pathway from the rugby club car park into the 2nd woods.
And also for putting a small footbridge across the stream in the 2nd woods allowing the water to flow into the old boating lake.

Footbridge across 2nd woods stream

Wood chipping path around the swings towards the 2nd woods

We have also cleared a little area behind the swings so we can allow wild flowers to grow.
Several people remarked that the shape of the clearing reminded them of an eye so we are thinking of placing a sign in the middle with a quote on it.

A sign will be placed on here with a suitable quote.

Also a wall which has been buried under years of overgrowth has re-emerged after a bit of clearance work, It is believed to be part of the old jetty from where the old boating lake used to be......Needless to say we are looking into it.
Again this is visible from the children's play area.

Part of the Jetty?????

Football Container

Over the last few days FOTP and Geraint Thomas a coach for the Pontarddulais FC juniors have been in discussion over what colour to paint the white container at the side of the football changing rooms.
A professional painter has now been found and hopefully he will start work within the next 2 weeks.

The container in it's current condition.

How it will look.

Images taken and obtained with kind permission from Geraint Thomas.

Friday 27th January News

Today Gareth Davies a Community Development Officer  and Helen Grey a Countryside Connections Officer came to the park to meet us and to discuss us putting in for a grant  for the Ecology Survey which needs to be done before we can start work tidying up the old Boating Lake.
Five members of FOTP turned up to meet them and to guide them around the park.


As FOTP members we showed them the lie of the land and what our long term plans for the park and woodland areas were. And we are pleased to say that we have their support and will be working very closely with them in the future, as there is a lot of GRANT money out there and they can help guide us in the right direction to obtain some.

                              WILDLIFE NEWS


While on our walk around the park we noticed that 2 mallard ducks have made the lake their home which is great news and we also observed that a blue tit was using one of the newly installed bird boxes by the swings. Unfortunately we could not obtain any images of these events as my camera lens was not long enough for me to keep a good distance from them and not disturb the birds. 

Pointing out the park boundaries.

Win (left) Gareth (middle) Viv (right)

Viv explaining to Gareth that the car park was once part of the lake.

Helen joins in the discussion.

Another bright glorious morning around the 2nd woods.

Standing at the lake edge. (NOT HAVING A PEE!)

The lake.

Image Gallery

We are now on flickr.

Please Click on the link below to follow the photostream.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/friendsofcoedbachpark/

Or click on.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/friendsofcoedbachpark/sets/

Also here is a link to Keep Wales Tidy Photostream.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/keep_wales_tidy/sets/

Saturday 21st January Clearance

Just to let you all know that on Saturday 21st January a few members of FOTP will be doing some clearance work in the woods by the tennis courts. If you would like to lend a hand then someone should be there from about 10am until 2pm.
Weather permitting.

Reminder of January Meeting

 We are having our meeting a week early on the 19th January at 7.30 at the Pontarddulais Cricket Club all welcome.

17 January 2012 Bird Box

The 1st of the Bird boxes is places on the trees.
We would like to thank the lads (Owen and Jimmy) for their efforts as this is a very physically demanding job.
If you see them around the park feel free to offer them some carbohydrates, I am sure they would appreciate it :-)  as they need to keep their energy levels up.

Getting the ropes around the tree

Beginning to climb

1 always gets the easy job :-)

The 1st box

Nearly there.

Another box ready to go

Please note that the trees and any cut wood is the property of Swansea City Council and removal or cutting of trees is a criminal offense.
And the use of  unlicensed chainsaws or hand saws is considered a criminal offense

17 January 2012 Rotten Trees removal

We are happy to announce that at long last our bird boxes are finally being put up.
For the next 2 weeks a team will be working on the trees in the park making them safe and getting rid of any rotten ones.

Ready to be chipped 2 rotten trees

Rotten to the core.

Please note that the trees and any cut wood is the property of Swansea City Council and removal or cutting of trees is a criminal offense.
And the use of unlicensed chainsaws or hand saws is considered a criminal offense.

Park update

On the 5th November 2011 we had a Chat and Chop session in the park, During this session we placed some plants in the roundabout by the rugby club car park.

In the last few weeks these new additions have started to flower......Let us hope they survive the frost.