• 1 Apologies
Wilf Day, Sam Gildert, Stephen Cudworth, Sue and Geoff Heaton, Danny Allen, Paddy Marriott, Shelley Carter, Rachel Hadj, Mother Penny
Present
Iain and Jo Blair, Simone, Rachael Gildert, Julia Barrow, Janet Meleleu, Cherry Hughes, Natalie Ashworth, Nicky and Andy Frankel, Shirley Suthers, Peter Fell
Special introduction to Roger Grimshaw and Chris Blomerly from Civic Pride Rossendale, attending to give us an insight into their activities and details of how to get involved.
• 2 Matters Arising
• Carol event - see below
• NVCA Dinner – see below
• Dark Lane Development – see below
• RG to ask Paddy Marriott re buses in Newchurch. Is there any news or update on the possibility of rerouting buses to Newchurch? RG to chase.
• 3 Presentation from Civic Pride
A few key facts from the presentation:
• Group have been going 18 years, started with 1 person!
• One single objective to start with – simple aims. Council gardens and persuading schools to get involved.
• One single objective to start with – simple aims. Council gardens and persuading schools to get involved.
• Used to just be litter picking. Over past 7/8 years they have expanded considerably
• Bacup, Weir, Haslingden, Helmshore, Edenfield, Waterfoot all have a Pride group now but don’t quite reach Whitworth.
• Chris Blomerly – Chair
• Roger Grimshaw - Vice Chair
• The group have several key posts - Project officer litter and gardening; Finance officer (£24K expenditure last year!)
Established a layer of managers to support officers including
• Sponsorship manager
• Social media Manager (facebook, twitter, Instagram etc)
• Litter Manager – arranges sessions and looks after the lone rangers. They get hi vis and litter pickers and bags, H & S/Risk assessments etc. They report into a Quick Topic Page website to update rest of group on what they have done.
• Similar system in place to look after the gardens. Secret Gardeners Manager, similar to Lone Rangers. One person per garden.
• Stores
• Group who are the Rivers team
• Outreach Team who go into schools and organisations
• Waterfoot Group – Liz and Ian manage this area.
Suggestions to move forward:
Manageable goal - Civic Pride suggested that we select a manageable goal rather than spread ourselves broadbrush to concentrate on doing one thing better. Civic Pride have an annual development plan which is discussed each year at the AGM and set simple targets.
Push sponsorship (as in our Friends of NVCA) – CP suggested this was a good way to start. They use a document to show what work they do when they go to local businesses to demonstrate what good works they do in the area.
Tools and equipment – NVCA have a decent amount of equipment but issue is storage. Perhaps RBC would have somewhere we could store it for peppercorn rent.
Push social media much harder. Especially Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Hi Vis jackets and vests - Chris suggested they might be able to provide us with some vests with our name on. To look into this.
Civic Pride At Work sign is on display at each event to further highlight the activities of the group.
Roger to forward a health and safety document for us to look at and work from. roger@civic-pride.org.uk. RG to let him know what we want on the back of our jackets
Litter pickers – try RBC, they might have some.
Just Do it! This is the Civic Pride motto.
Estimated they collected 18 million tonnes of rubbish in 2016. This equates to1.2 million pieces of litter or 3000 bags of rubbish from around Rossendale in 2016.
RG to make poster re cleaning event this weekend ASAP and put in noticeboard
Upcoming activities
• Friday 3rd March 10am meet outside Boars Head till 12 noon to litter pick in Newchurch Area Look at Top Barn Lane and They Heys. Some kit to be provided – hi vis, litter pickers and shovels. Welcome to hang onto the vests and litter pickers if they will get used.
• Saturday 4th March at the Royal in Waterfoot and onto Warth Old Road by Fielden Factors.
Mutual Support would help everyone out. Rossendale gets cleaner and CP are happy to share equipment.
Sign up to monthly newsletter and/or Weekly Witterings and also check out the website regularly.
Liz and Ian who do the Waterfoot area live on Burnley Road East have noticed a positive effect since they started litter picking last year. The amount of rubbish collected from each area has significantly reduced since they started which is reassuring.
Flytipping@civic-pride.org.uk – email this address with photos if you spot flytipping. If there is any evidence at all of details then the individual can be prosecuted. Civic Pride have a link with the Council to follow this up
Q. should we do it? Why aren’t the council doing it?
A. Since 2008 their budget has been cut in half. They had 30 park staff and now they have 6! They physically can’t do it. New Operations Manager is efficient so it’s worth reporting things even if you have tried in the past and got nowhere.
Q. Recycling
A. Group do very little. Two of their gardens have recycling litter bins that they funded and installed but in terms of litter picking, it isn’t possible when you have a bag in one hand and litter picker in the other so it would take forever to sift through so much rubbish afterwards. It is time consuming and not practical when on site and not best use of volunteer times.
It was suggested that cans could be collected as they can raise 40-50p per kilo. Something that NVCA could potentially look into.
• 4 New Kirk Fair – 9th September 2017 2 – 5pm
• Date we have chosen is the same as the 1960’s weekend so why don’t we coordinate with them and dress up! Barry Hyde is the contact for this so we could contact him directly. There is ScootFest in Bacup that weekend too so perhaps they could drive past Newchurch?
• Decided to hold the event in the second weekend in Saturday 9th September 2017 to coordinate with Heritage Open Weekend.
• Between 2-5pm
• Possibly at St Nicks so we can get visitors to explore the Church and tower. SC to speak to Rev Penny
• RG to email Barry directly and see if we can coordinate with their existing events and cross promote. Have they anything they would like to include that we could help out with? We could have a traditional fair but with 60’s theme.
•Ideas – coconut shy, bobbing for apples etc….. TBC
• 5 Gardening Update
- RG to check if there is a camera we could borrow from the Council
- In the meantime, put up a CCTV camera warning on a couple of trees which look official. RG to order a couple of metal ones from Limelight Signs.
- Signs with eyes on are most effective. Ask RBC if they have any.
- St Nicks to arrange an after school event with parents to plant some of them then we will arrange to do the rest. SC to liaise
- RG to get soil conditioner such as manure to spread in advance of planting. B & M Bargains – RG to purchase.
- Appeal for plants in the noticeboard and at St Nicks too.
Tidy up session
General tidy up – Sunday 12th March 2-3pm. RG to leave manure
Planting session – TBC – after 8th April
April 8th Cherry and Julia to buy the plants.
RG to notify the funders about a slight delay to the planting. Or could we get gift vouchers from the garden centre to evidence spend? RG to ring LEF
• 6 Dark Lane Development Update
Presume it has been passed at Development Control on 28th February.
Wait to hear more from the developer regarding future detailed plans
• 7 Treasurers Report
Year ending 31st Dec 2015
These have been sent out for approval and have been approved externally by accountant.
Year to date 2016
Accounts have been produced; just need double checking by Chair then
We have a new Friends of – Maza on Dark Lane. To put a photo on our website in recognition.
• 8 AOB
• Rachel Hadj’s daughter is May Queen at St Nicks School at end of May. Mia has to raise funds as part of her ‘reign’. So Rachel asked if NVCA would work with Mia and vice versa to raise funds etc. Could she have something ‘May Queen’ themed in the garden at the planting event and the 60’s festival? Group agreed that we could do this and involving Mia in the garden might be a great way to help her and promote NVCA too.
• RG to set up Instagram and Twitter accounts for NVCA. Speak to Danny about linking in with Facebook
• NVCA logo – hold a competition to design a logo. RG to dig out the old template and revive and contact St Nicks and St Peters. Nicky has contacts at St Peters so will ask if they want to be involved
• 9 Date of next meetings/upcoming events in the area
Regular meetings:
• Thursday 25th May 2017 at 7.30pm
• Tuesday 12th September 2017 at 7.30pm (AGM followed by regular meeting)
• Other Events
Saturday 9th September 2017 NEW KIRK FAIR