Directors, Maintenance

Directors Update 24.09.2022

This is the Directors update for September. Both play areas are now up and running. Phil and Barb had volunteered and gone in to the Willow Drive play park to clear away the leaves and muck from the ground and made area safe. The replacement Duck on East Drive is taking a while re installation due to keeping costs down but should be installed soon now.

The Contractor to do both internal and external painting work is to start on 3rd October. There has been a frustrating delay with this due to the agreeing of costs happening just as previous Board finished; this caused a delay then with contractor who had to take on other work until this was decided.

Overdue Debts were reviewed and are reducing. 

Suzanne Lawson stepped back as a director and the board co-opted Carl Evans to fill the position. Carl was nominated very recently in last round of votes and was next ‘in line’. We all thank Suzanne for stepping up and the voluntary time she had put in.

Woodland Management – Phil & Andrea Walker have sponsored 12 bird boxes which have been bought from a local man. We will be setting up a work party in October to put the boxes up on deciduous trees in lower & upper woods. Volunteers would be appreciated.

The three-fold work on rooves and gutters should be continued next week with the cherry picker back on site.

There are a number of paving stones around St. Edwards Hall that need replacing and should be completed in next few months.

A Surveyor has been engaged to set out work required for a 10 year plan. This plan has now been received and the Board will have a separate meeting in next couple of months to look at this. 

Barb Davis has typed up the schedule and details for the grounds according to specifications from previous Park tenders. We agreed to use the schedule to ask Company’s to tender as soon as possible, ready to start in April 2023. The grounds are looking good and a number of members preferences have been addressed too.

Work is due to start on the summer house off the top of Willow Drive. This will be used as a ’template’ for structural repairs for the remaining summer houses.

The new intercoms are now all finished and will be tidied up after a short period of use/testing ie filling gaps and sealing them where the old units were larger.

Members Meeting

Many Members seem happy with the monthly updates from directors and all directors will make an effort to provide information from their areas for the website and Facebook page. A date will be arranged for a Members meeting mid/late November.

There are also a number of other works requests that are addressed relating to individual properties that are not reported which includes many conversations, visits and research by the volunteer Board of Directors. 

wildlife, Woodlands

August & September ’22 Nature Sighting Around St. Edwards Park 

10 Comments

What a good start to our wildlife reporting.

Do you love nature – walking in the woods and looking for wildlife?

Please add in the comments sightings of any wildlife you’ve seen – where and what. Hopefully, you can add pictures to share. 

Tell us what you’ve seen, a description of where and who you are. This will all help towards providing the best environments to meet the needs of our wildlife and the members of our park.

wildlife, Woodlands

July ’22 Nature Sighting Around St. Edwards Park

8 Comments

Do you love nature – walking in the woods and looking for wildlife?

Here you can add in the comments sightings of any wildlife you’ve seen – where and what. Hopefully, you can add pictures to share.

Tell us what you’ve seen, a description of where and who you are. This will all help towards providing the best environments to meet the needs of our wildlife and the members of our park.

Upper & Lower Woods

Even a child knows how valuable the forest is. The fresh, breathtaking smell of trees. Echoing birds flying above that dense magnitude. A stable climate, a sustainable diverse life and a source of culture. Yet, forests and other ecosystems hang in the balance, threatened to become croplands, pasture, and plantations.

There has been a red kite spotted in the area. Who will be the first to post a picture of them?

Please note that comments will not appear straight away as they have to be moderated.

Directors, Maintenance, wildlife, Woodlands

Directors Update – 26.07.2022

Date of meeting 29.06.2022

We considered a quote for jet washing the Park. It was only for the paving stones on paths, not drive ways or tarmacked areas. We all agreed £8,000 was too much money and asked for more quotes.

The gutters have now been cleared and members would have seen the ‘cherry picker’ machine on site. Assessment was made of gutter repairs, missing slates, growing plants and re-pointing. Quotes for these have now been received and will be considered this week. It is difficult to do both jobs at once because the contractor doesn’t know what they are going to find and/or which equipment and tools they need with them in the confined space of the basket on the picker. We will see if anything can be done differently on the next rotation in 2 years time.

Quotes have been received for replacing broken paving slabs to commence after all the repairs to the gutters and rooves has been completed.

There is damp in one of the stair wells in St. Edwards Hall. Gaining access to apartments to examine and repair has proved difficult but is still being pursued.

The starting of the external painting is taking longer than we would all like. It should have started at the beginning of the year but with the change of management board, the contractor took on other work to fill the gap in his diary. We should have more about this this week as our next meeting is 29.7.2022.

Garden Contractor – we met with them earlier this month and they advised a gardener was joining the team to tackle all the smaller items on the estate e.g. weeding, pruning etc. This is starting to make a real difference. The query over Wall Lane Terrace has still not been resolved.

Website additions continue to be made: www.stedwardspark.org . Further suggestions for additional pages were: historical information about the hospital, downloads of formal documentation/ members area, woodland and nature spotting blog where members and their family can record and share nature sightings. This will also help form a record of wildlife on the Park to help with the grant received for the woodland area. With the paperwork available to us, we believe the matters in relation to the previous grant over 5 years were met and work carried out. The existing grant is paid annually 2021-2025. A few of the directors are starting to work with this and the grant maker with a view to determining exactly what is required, record wildlife species, establish a bird watching area, put up bird boxes in the autumn. We may be looking for some help with this from members.

Summer-Houses – It was noted that the council meeting on 26 July 2022 was to consider the grant, CM confirmed that the regeneration officer required no further information.
To enable the surveyors to complete their report, a builder would be needed to confirm the roof construction of the summerhouses, as they were all different. The roof would need to be peeled back and tiles take down baseboards from the eaves. It was agreed that a quote to repair the first summerhouse would be sought to determine
whether to proceed regardless, this was approved unanimously.
It was also agreed that a display board showing the history of St Edwards Park in the first summer-house would be a useful addition.

Date of next meeting: 29th July 2022.

Directors, Maintenance

Directors Update – 24.6.22

In this Directors Update we would like to tell you that we now have a website up and running: www.stedwardspark.org . There will still be features to add but we wanted to have a place where all Members can see our updates on information about the Park. It is also a place where we can celebrate our home too. Please have a look.

By now, you should have received the minutes of the General Meeting by email, or will receive them shortly by post.

Next Directors Meeting

We have our next Directors meeting this Friday, 1st July. (For those who are just finding this website and don’t do Facebook, the other posts on here are a summary of that meeting).

After next weeks meeting, we will again update here on the website, on Facebook and will arrange for emails or letters to reach all Members so they know about the new website together with an matters discussed. We will also provide further clarity on the Members questions that have been raised.