Future of Friends of the Park

Sadly our Chairman Mark Whittaker and his wife Gill (head gardener and the real boss) will be winding down their involvement in Friends of the Park over the next two to three months after 20+ years at the helm. This is primarily driven by family and health matters necessitating a reassessment of priorities, but a number of other frustrating park-related issues have influenced this decision too. You can read more about this in the minutes of our last meeting held on 8 February 2024.

We are hopeful that Friends of the Park will be able to continue without Mark and Gill but it will be a formidable challenge to operate at the same level and it's likely that the group's activities will need to be scaled back to just focus on the core activities of looking after the flowerbeds, gardens and benches, at least in the short term until new leaders find their feet.

Would you like to get involved in running the group?

In order to remain active the group will need a mix of existing volunteers prepared to step-up and new volunteers who would like to get involved in running the group.

A small committee of at least 5 people, including the roles of Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary will be needed for the group to continue.

The committee currently meets monthly in the library but this could be scaled down in the future.

We will also need extra volunteers prepared to lead the task days and cover formalities required by the council to support us with their insurance etc. To lead task days volunteers must be "Task Leader Trained" by the council. We have a few trained volunteers already but training is available for new or existing volunteers wishing to get involved in this way.

Please don't be put off by the thought of council training, it only takes a day, and is only required for those leading the task days.

Although gardening expertise is useful, it is not essential and volunteers can do as much or as little as they wish.

So if you are interested in getting involved in the running of Friends of the Park please use our contact form to get in touch.