Friends Of Poole Park

Dear All

 Eight Years in the Life of Poole Park.

It will be a sad day, Monday 30th March, when I finally leave my Chairman’s post and the committee of Friends of Poole Park at our AGM at 7pm at the Civic Centre, Poole.

This has been a time consuming, often very frustrating period over the last 8 years, but with some great highs!

We have all achieved much, from the early days under Doug Chick; he battled to get a Management Plan, Constitution and Charity Status, crucial in our initial days.

The first major achievement was the Cygnet Play Area, an area well utilised by the young, we are adding more items for toddlers as time and money allow.
Working with BoP very closely on these projects offering our resource, enthusiasm and money has achieved wonders, with great support particularly on a day-to-day basis from Ranger, John Marter.

The Miniature Train has provided a much improved and popular seasonal themed attractions, owned and run by the ever-happy Chris Bullen, I thank him for his constant support.

The Boating Lake dredging created interesting Islands, these are a wonderful spectacle to behold with prime watercraft provided and expertly managed by Rockley Water Sports.

The addition of the Mezza Luna restaurant and major improvements to the Cygnet Café including a real Ice Rink, was without doubt very challenging at the time, we are indebted to Adrian Forte, to his foresight in providing such excellent award winning facilities and his continued patronage of our FEST events.

We formed a special relationship with The Arts Institute Bournemouth and Phil Beards, they very kindly provided talented students to assist in creating a Friends website, on today’s date we have had over 40,000 hits, credit to the creative input and Phil’s supervision.

Terry Smith and I were approached in early 2004 by BoP Leisure Services to consider holding a small event on August Bank Holiday, Terry worked tirelessly, usually with his parrot on his shoulder, booking attractions, I approached Mr Kyp’s Live Music Venue to provide the music and arranged the publicity, Terry did the real hard work of selling space, getting forms out and money in, the Friends fundraising owes much to Terry’s initial determination and grit.

We both worked hard with many other volunteers for the next four years Fest events, building up to achieving Poole Tourism “Event of the Year” award, with some 20,000 people attending the event.

The Friends are indebted to Mr Kyps for providing in those early years the main attraction totally free, without doubt one of the reasons of the success of the Fest.

The continued support and positive reporting from the Daily Echo team of Neal Butterworth & Diana Henderson has been much appreciated.

We outsourced last year’s Fest 08 to Big Bear and Mr Kyps, who produced an excellent result for our fifth consecutive event; we have contributed some £80,000 to date, to provide improvements to the Park. There are many people who have contributed greatly recently, Elaine Lawford, Bill Deans & Myrna Chave from our present committee plus many others without whose hard work these events would not have been possible, Moira, Tony, Rosemary, Sue, Barbara, Val, Eunice especially and hundreds of volunteers and councillors from all parties and the various Mayor’s who all gave their time freely.

We really need as much help and support for Fest 09 as we can muster, to continue in the same strong tradition.

Always working modestly the other continuing founder member, Vice Chairman & Treasurer Mike Heckford, who possesses a very stable, sensible head and pen, generating many newsletters, traffic surveys and forms etc, he is held in very high regard from those around him.

We should really list some of the other achievements, Picnic tables, Bike Racks, Bird Nesting boxes, Bat Boxes; DWT provided great help with these.

The introduction of a series of Park leaflets on General Attractions, History, Trees, which were distributed to Schools and provide an excellent source of local knowledge. We are in the process of generating a Fitness & Sports leaflet next, featuring the new Fitness Trail

Without doubt one of the best additions is the Information Kiosk, kindly refurbished by BoP Leisure Services, and equipped for the Friends by Bill Deans and Elaine.
Barbara Plumbridge did much in introducing many new volunteer helpers for the kiosk.

Green Flag status was achieved for the first time last year, due to the hard work and commitment from Clare Freeman, BoP Greenspace Manager.

We are lucky to have Bill Deans on the committee, he was tasked with the Illuminated Fountain project, and we are pleased to say this is working superbly, with an official opening soon.

Many of us have been involved for 4 years with a concept provided by Jo Rainsley from the Green Gym Company for an outdoor Fitness Trail, we are pleased to report that phase one is open and phase two is under completion, with much hard work and determination from Martin Whitchurch, BoP lead officer Leisure Services,  www.leisureprojects.net

The last remaining project under my tenure is a free WiFi facility in the Park, this will be of great benefit to the many school, college visitors to the Park with their laptops, but many other users, especially events and sporting attractions will benefit greatly.

I must extend my gratitude to the various Councillors and Portfolio Holders, Peter Adams etc who assist, guide, cajole on many occasions.

To the hard working devoted Continental Ground staff, who take a real pride in the Park. Last but not least, to Clive Smith and BoP Leisure Services staff who really care and do help contribute much to the park, very many thanks.

Kind Regards

Bob Lister