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