Annual General Meeting 2011

Residents Association 2011 AGM

Held at Bedminster Cricket Club Pavilion, Clanage Road, Bower Ashton, Bristol. Starting at 7:00pm on the 15th of September 2011.

Guest: Nick Christo, Bristol Council Area Coordinator Neighbourhoods.

For BARA I would like to thank Philip Clark for the photos of the community planting day in January 2011 and also thank Jill Carwardine for the Eco Sculpture photos and all the large prints produced for the AGM.

Peter Frost, September 2011

Alasdair Groves: Chairman's Introduction

Alasdair opened the meeting by thanking the residents for attending. He also thanked Bedminster Cricket Club for allowing the association free use of the cricket clubs pavilion for our AGM.

Nick Christo, Bristol Council Area Coordinator Neighbourhoods

Nick explained his role as community coordinator for the 14 Neighbourhood groups in Bristol, they include Bower Ashton's neighbourhood group the Greater Bedminster Community Partnership or GBCP.

Nick detailed some of the funding now available to community groups, including '106 funding', money raised from new developments and put aside for community use.

Peter Frost: Secretary's Report

"I just briefly intend to run through some details about the association and how we communicate with you.

Membership of the association has increased over the last year, mainly thanks to Keith Sawyer's efforts in contacting everyone over the proposed phone mast in Kennel Lodge Road, and we now have 87% of households in Bower Ashton as members.

For the important stuff we or I should say Jill Carwardine, print leaflets for residents without online access but mostly we communicate by email with our local newsletter going out to over two thirds of households in Bower Ashton.

We send out the newsletter more or less monthly, with details of local news and events which also includes information from other local groups in the area. I welcome contributions from residents, so do get in touch if you have some local information for the newsletter.

I want to thank those who print out copies of the newsletter and pass them on to their neighbours without internet access. If anyone wants to print out a copy for a neighbour, talk to me after the AGM or email me.

In the next newsletter I will ask for details of any problems with the Balloon Fiesta, one resident has written and several other cases of vandalism were noted at the last committee meeting, so we will be contacting the Balloon Fiesta over these.

Moving on from the newsletter, there are now two Bower Ashton websites:

• The residents association now has its own website 'bowerashton.co.uk' this has comments, news, events, email contacts and a online form you can fill in to report a problem.
• There is also an older website 'bower-ashton.co.uk' with more general information about Bower Ashton, that includes information on local services, local history, details on the school, UWE, allotments .... and quite a lot more actually.

If you can't remember those names do a search for Bower Ashton and you should find the websites, it was a pleasure to push the University out of the top spot on searches for 'Bower Ashton' last year."

Keith Sawyer: Treasurer's Report

"Period covered 24th Sept 2010 – 15th September 2011

Balance brought forward as per statement 26th January 2011 £2904.16

Cheque issued 28th February 2011 £2000 (Trees)

Cash Donations
Sainsbury's Voucher £20

Balance as of 15th September 2011 £924.16

Donations from BCFC were also received of Match day Tickets that were not used as no offers received. BCFC Match Day shirt signed by all the First Team players which will be auctioned at the next street party.

Despite numerous letters being written for support for the tree planting and roundabout funding nothing apart from Sainsbury's and BCFC was received.

£1000 has been offered by GBCP to help fund the roundabout artwork.

No expenses were paid out in the last year. All work, printing / distribution costs were paid by BARA members as was all the work on the Bower Ashton website by Peter Frost.

My thanks go as usual to all the members of BARA who carry out a lot of time-consuming work on behalf of the residents.

Bulb planting donations would be welcome on the night of the AGM to finish off the excellent tree planting work."

Alasdair Groves: Chairman's Report

Alasdair outlined some of the work done by the committee, the changes that had occurred and opportunities for the coming year. Alasdair -

• Welcomed the new Clanage Road Crossing and reduced speed limits but asked residents if the speed limits had decreasing the speed of traffic.
• Noted that the proposed phone mast on Kennel Lodge Road has gone to appeal with the results of the appeal still due.
• Described the January 2011 Tree Planting as 'a community effort and a positive legacy for the area'. Each tree cost £400, with trees specially prepared for outdoor planting and includes watering for 2 years. The 47 trees planted puts BARA's donation of £2000 into context.
• Alasdair thanked Roger Scarrett for the work put in on retain the temporary access road from Ashton Park School, sadly the results of this were somewhat frustrating.
• Traffic and Parking continue to be a problem, but the arrival of a new head teacher at Ashton Park School (APS) is an opportunity to work with the new head on these issues.

Rupert Newman: Autumn Bulb Planting & Roundabout Artwork

Rupert informed the AGM about the Autumn Bulb planting event around the new trees, planned for a Sunday in September. Bulbs are being bought in bulk to reduce cost but BARA are asking for a small contribution to cover costs.

Matched funding for a Bower Ashton themed artwork/signage, to be visible to visitors entering or leaving Bristol via Bower Ashton has been agreed with -

• £1,000 of funding agreed by the GBCP.
  
• £1,000 of funding agreed by the University of the West of England, Department of Art and Design.

Rupert added that a further £1,000 of funding is thought to be available and is currently being investigated.

Roger Scarrett: Ashton Park School (APS) Update

Retaining the Ashton Road temporary access route to APS: Roger Scarrett noted the very limited response from the school, over BARA's proposal. BARA had responses from our councillor Sean Beynon (who agreed to liase with APS) and very late in the process (weeks before the wall was rebuild) from our MP Dawn Primorolo. Delays in the process however ultimately led to the temporary road being removed.

Access to APS via Parklands Road:

Roger raised the concern that a hard core covered area inside the school will be used for parking cars, this is still to be decided.

Roger and Keith Sawyer, meet with the new school head teacher (Tessa Thomas), the deputy head, security head and a sixth form teacher representative to discuss this and other issues in early September.

Other Issues

Roger reported that the school gates on Blackmoors Lane and Parklands Road are now closed at lunchtime. Only six formers can now leave the school during lunchtime.

Election of the Committee

Standing for re-election: Peter Frost, Jill Carwardine, Jo Foster, Roger Scarrett, Rupert Newman, Darren Hayes & Becca Robinson.

New members standing for election: Sue Soni.

Proposed by Sheila Westlake and seconded by Nigel Atwell.

Any Other Business

1. Roger Scarrett thanked Alasdair Groves for his work as chairman over the last three years.
2. Darren Hayes asked for any problems that occurred during the Balloon Fiesta & Kite Festival to be reported to him by 15th of Ocober 2011.
3. Bedminster Cricket Club to celebrate its 100^th aniversary at Clanage Road, in 2012, with world class players are due to attend!
4. Discussions on Traffic and Parking problems:
   • reclaiming the verges in Parklands Road
   • lack of cones in some places during BCFC home games
   • access to Parklands Road by wide vehicles (including fire engines) not possible at times due to inconsiderate parking
   • parking restriction options

Discussions on these and other issues continued after the meeting concluded.

2010 AGM notes

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