Audrey Shorer, Secretary to SKNPRA, writes:
Our AGM held on the 16th July was well attended and we were pleased that PC Jackson-Plume was able to give us a run down on activities in Newbury Park & Seven Kings. He explained the recent restructuring of staff in Redbridge which left 1 Sergeant , 1 PC and 1 PCSO for each ward.
Although crime figures were down in Newbury and Seven Kings, those in Chadwell & Clayhall have risen.
He urged members to attend the 3 monthly Police Ward Panels to raise local issues. The next meeting is on Monday 15th Sept. 7.30 at Barkingside Police station. If you are interested, please contact
newbury.snt@met.police.uk address to FAO Ward Panel.
NEW CHAIRMAN.
The Rev Jonathan Evens has been our hard working Chairman for 6 years. Due to his three month sabbatical and heavy work load he asked to stand down as Chairman. We were most grateful for the untiring support he gave us throughout our activities.
We were pleased to welcome David Stephens as our new Chairman. He has been a Newbury Park resident for 39 years and is Chairman of the Civilian Committee of 4F (Ilford) Squadron Air Cadets also the East Sector representative on the civilian committee of the London Wing, Air Cadets.
He has already put in much time and effort as acting Chairman since Jonathan stood down.
SECRETARY’S REPORT. Audrey Shorer.
We have been involved in 3 main projects this year.
The first was to petition TfL to install step free access at Newbury Park & Seven Kings stations. You may remember that work was started on a lift shaft at Newbury Park Station in 2009, but TfL ran out of funds for the project and the hole was filled in.
In July last year we held a protest meeting at Newbury Park which was well attended and reported. Since then we have continued to badger TfL and Mayor Boris Johnson with support from Redbridge Councillors. Recently Boris indicated that SK might receive funding for step free access.
We would like to thank committee member Peter Robinson for all the time and effort he has put in with letters, e-mails & phone calls on this ongoing project and I ask you all to sign the petition here tonight.
The second project is for a permanent swimming pool in Ilford. We have been campaigning on this issue since 2003 when the old pool was threatened with demolition. Since then we have seen many plans and been given many promises, the last one that a pool will be built in 2018 but no indication of the cost or where it will be built.
I would like to thank committee members Martin Clinton & Kate Kennedy for their efforts in contacting Redbridge Councillors, Boris Johnson and local swimming groups with an ongoing demand for a pool.
The third project was to object to a proposal by Redbridge Council to close St Johns Rd and put a mini roundabout at the junction of Aldborough rd Sth and Meads Lane.
Our Chairman, Jonathan, Mark and myself spoke at Area 5 & 7 committee meetings to point out the futility of this plan. The proposal was rejected by both committees. We continue to press TfL for traffic lights at this junction.
Our Chairman, Rev Jonathan Evens has set up the Sophia Hub Timebank at St Johns church which is a community network to help and advise local entrepreneurs wishing to start new businesses. They have regular meetings with speakers on a variety of subjects such as business planning, e-safety and customer service. The use of internet is available at St Johns church where the meetings are held. The next meeting is on Tuesday 26th August 7pm. If you are interested, contact
ros.southern@sophiahubs.comIn between times we have dealt with issues of parking, fly-tipping, lighting and planning.
I have produced 3 Newsletters since the last AGM. The last one sent by e-mail to all those who have given their e-mail address. The rest have been hand delivered or posted. I would like to thank all those who help with the hand deliveries.
TREASURER’S REPORT. Jayanti Parmar.
Our bank balance at 31 03 2014 stands at £ 2,815.03 Expenditure over the year was £749.85.
A full account report is available on request.
MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY’S REPORT Mark Kennedy.
It has been a busy twelve months for me in this role. I promised you as members (households) last year that I would with my committees support increase the membership to 200 members by the end of December 2013. I have to say that I owe you all an apology I was unable to hit this target in December, which I hope you will forgive me for. However, I did manage to increase the membership to 200 a short time ago in 2014 and I have to say that it is with great pleasure that I can report that the membership number for this association has now reached 222 members, an increase of 60 members. Our membership of roads where we have members has increased as well from 50 roads last year to 60, an increase of 10.
As far as I can tell, judging by other residents membership numbers that exist in the London Borough of Redbridge we can proudly boast to be one of the biggest if not the biggest residents association in Redbridge. We are certainly one of the few residents associations that can say that we are adding new members almost every week. If I do not personally recruit a new member every week, I feel disappointed. My mandate in this role is to increase the membership base and broaden our coverage of roads. So far so good, but the hard work and journey must continue.
Why do we need a big membership base? It is important that we continue to grow and recruit new members so we become or are more representative of the areas we serve as a residents association. The more members we have the louder our voice is, the more united we are as a community in tackling an issue and a force to be reckoned with in the Seven Kings and Newbury Park areas.
My target for 2014/15 is to increase the membership form 222 to 272 over the next 12 months. To do so, I need your help! We all know, a neighbour or a friend that lives in Seven Kings and / Newbury Park. I would like to encourage you all to speak to your neighbour(s) and or friends and ask them to join us. I can email you copies of membership forms for you to forward on to your neighbours/friends/contacts. I cannot recruit NEW members all on my own. The increase in membership is a credit to this committee in their support and to some of you in your support in the local neighbourhoods and at community events in raising our profile and recruiting new members, to which I thank you all. Just think, if we recruited one NEW member each, we would double the membership to 400 members at a stroke, now that would be an achievement!
PRESS & PUBLICITY REPORT. Mark Kennedy.
I have covered the role of Press & Publicity for the last 12 months. During this time the following has been achieved:
· Sponsored Newbury Park Lift Campaign Sheet –
Printed and distributed to all residents association members.
· Working with Peter Robinson, lead Campaign Co-ordinator on our committee, together he and I managed to persuade over 80 people to come out in support of the Lift campaign at Newbury Park station. Amongst those present was local MPs Lee Scott, Ilford North Mike Gapes, Ilford south Roger Evans, GLA member for Havering & Redbridge and of course the VIP’s our members. All came out for our protest in July 2013 last year for a photo shoot. I was a great turnout and demonstrated a united community spirit.
· Press Release and Photo re: Newbury Park Tube Lift Campaign featured in Ilford Recorder, Yellow Advertiser, Woodford Recorder and Wanstead & Woodford Guardian in mid July 2013, which was great publicity for the association.
On the Letters Page for Community comments of the Ilford Recorder we received a name credit as a SKNPRA residents association from Ron Jefferies, Chairman of Aldborough Hatch Defence Association, which is another local residents association serving residents in Aldborough Road North where he wrote in support of us on the Newbury Park lift campaign.
Local Radio station, TIME 107.5 FM also covered the campaign story and interviewed myself and Roger Evans, GLA Member for Havering & Redbridge which was broadcast on Saturday 13th July 2013, the day of the photo gathering at the tube station. The interview was broadcast to listeners in Barking & Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge.
A Poster promoting the SKNPRA was very kindly displayed in the shop window of Creeds Ironmongers shop in Seven Kings to attract new members for a few weeks.
A photo gathering promoting the non-access for lifts to Seven Kings Rail Station was held on Thursday 29th August 2013 at 09:30 am organised by Transport for All, Lianna Etkind, Campaign and outreach coordinator. I popped along for this 30 minute event and took part in the photo shoot alongside Cllrs Bob Littlewood and Stuart Bellwood and a handful of supporters. The BBC London Tonight camera news team were invited along to film the event which is centred on persuading Crossrail to perform a U turn in their policy and install lifts at the station. Lianna invited me to make a speech which was filmed to be broadcast on the Thursday London Tonight News alongside Bob’s speech. Sadly, my and Bob’s speech was not broadcast on the news, but it was exciting to take part and to highlight the non-lift issue at Seven Kings and Newbury Park stations.
Press Release and Photo re: Newbury Park Tube Lift Campaign featured in Ilford Recorder, as an updated story featuring in this paper in early 2014.
Ilford Swimming Pool Campaign – Photo Shoot outside the former Swimming pool site on Saturday 28th September 2013 – both I and my youngest daughter, Isabella took part in this event, which led to the photo being published in the Ilford Recorder, sadly my quote for the SKNPRA was not published.
Table Top Sale – Saturday 10th May 2014 – Venue: St John’s Church, St John’s Road – our committee booked a table for this event and through their efforts, we were able to recruit x10 NEW Members and raised our profile at this event. Well done to all that took part!
St Peter’s Church – Craft Fayre and Flower Festival – held on Saturday 28th June 2014 - we had a stand at this event for the first time and recruited x3 NEW members and again raised our profile in the community. This event showcased our display table display board, put together by Audrey and I must give her full credit for her efforts as the display caused a great deal of interest in our association and questions too. It was a great crowd puller and this helped us engage with the public, so thank you Audrey. Additional thanks for the helpers on the day that manned the stall, Ray Alavoine, Patricia Alavoine, Peter Robinson, Jayanti Parmar, Gill Gough, Shy Choudhary, Mosharaf Ashraf, Darrell Arjoon, Masaeb Ahmad, Rodney Foster, Bob Greenfield, Christina Greenfield and Susan Samuels.
Ilford War Memorial Day Gardens Open Day – Saturday 2nd August 2014 – We had a stand booked at this event Stands included exhibitions of library activities and displays by the Ilford War Memorial Action Group, Western Front Association, Royal British Legion. We are took part in this event to recruit new members and raise awareness of our association.
Planned - Future Publicity
· On-going campaign for Lifts at Seven Kings and Newbury Park
· General publicity promoting the association
· Leaflet Deliveries to recruit new members.
YOUR COMMITTEE. We were pleased that members of last year’s committee were all willing to stand again. We welcomed new member Andy Walker onto the committee. You will know of Andy’s untiring work in the ‘Save King George Hospital’ campaign ever since the threat to close the A&E department was imminent. We will continue to support this issue.
OPEN COMMITTEE MEETINGS. Our Chairman David Stephens wishes to invite all members to our regular committee meetings so that you can see how we work, put forward suggestions and hopefully, volunteer to help in the many activities with which we are involved.
Our next committee meeting is on Monday September 1st 8pm at St Johns Church Hall. We hope you will join us !
LONDON BOROUGH OF REDBRIDGE COUNCIL MEETINGS.
As you may know, the new Redbridge Council has discontinued Area Committee meetings at which members of the public could voice issues during the Public Forum. We have made good use of this contact in the past by speaking up on your behalf, with successful results. An alternative Forum is being discussed and we await a decision in order to continue our good relationship with Council.
Now it just remains for me to wish you all a happy holiday time wherever you are going or if you are staying at home, enjoy and relax in the sun (even when it rains it’s good for the garden).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
