Friends of Pinner Village Gardens
Summer 2021 Newsletter
by Antonia Savvides
As we reach the summer months, we are able to look forward once again to holding events in the park. The first one to take place, following the removal of gathering restrictions, is our children’s fun run on July 25th, followed by our main summer event on August 1st. Further details about both are below.
There are many new and exciting projects to come but one that is almost complete is the new mural near the Rayners Lane entrance. This is thanks to local fine artist Sarah who created various designs which were then voted on by park users. The mural has been funded by one of our very generous members and the final result is amazing.
The 2021 Summer Event – 1st August
We are once again able to hold our yearly summer event after it was cancelled last year due to the pandemic. The 2021 event will take place on Sunday 1st August from 11 am to 3 pm.
The Mayor of Harrow, Cllr Ghazanfar Ali, will be in attendance to open the event at 11 am. We will have live music both from our band from previous years and women’s chorus Capital Connection.
The stalls/attractions will include children’s rides, a face painter, nature-themed craft activities, a nature trail, as well as both a huge plant and woodwork sale. We will also have two book signings from local authors, and a representative from MMorris Dancing who will be looking for new recruits.
There will be catering provided, with teas/coffees and doughnuts and candy floss available.
As always, members of the Committee will be around to answer your questions and encourage you to join us in the Friends of Pinner Village Gardens. Also available will be our new 2022 calendars, which will be on sale for £10 each. The winning photos can be previewed here. If you are unable to make the summer event and would like to purchase a calendar, then these can be bought from our online store here.
Our Children’s Fun Run – 25th July
In conjunction with Nower Hill School, we are holding a 2-kilometre children’s fun run in Pinner Village Gardens on Sunday 25 July at 10 am. This is part of the fundraising effort to enable a weekly Junior Parkrun to be set up in the park.
So feel free to get involved, and even if you haven’t got any children running, all those taking part in the event will want as many people as possible cheering them on as they do their laps of the course!
Members of the committee will be around and in the control tent, ready to answer your questions on this, the Junior Parkrun, and all the other projects we have coming up in the park.
Volunteering In All Its Forms
We are lucky to have a strong core group of volunteers who help on projects within the park, and in recent weeks have helped with planting, weeding, and of course the all-important watering in the recent warm weather, both as part of working parties and individually.
However, we are always looking for any form of volunteering. For example, we have to give a shout out to Jay who recently organised a leaflet drop to encourage more local residents to become involved with the Friends. We also have to thank several local residents for lending their skills and power tools in refurbishing some replacement benches that were collected from Holland Park.
Those benches were a result of a contact from a member, and we were especially pleased with these as they matched existing benches and allowed us to restore missing benches to the rose circle.We now have a volunteer specific page on our website, which includes a routinely updated volunteering specific calendar. You can see this here: https://www.pinnervillagegardens.org.uk/volunteering/
What is the Direction of the Park?
Following a discussion at July’s Committee Meeting, it was raised that we have not conducted a wide-scale consultation exercise with members of Friends of Pinner Village Gardens in some time. We would like to commit to greater involvement and feedback from our members in the Committee decision making, and therefore we will be conducting this in the next couple of weeks.
This will be an online survey, asking members of the Friends to score on various aspects of the park, so that we can take these into account when considering prioritisation of work undertaken. It will also be an opportunity to forward any general thoughts or ideas either about the park or FoPVG in general. This survey will be limited to members of FoPVG, so if you wish to join us ahead of this, in order to be involved, then details of how to do so can be found here.
Restoration of the Drinking Fountain
Those of you who have been members of the Friends for a while will know the length of time it has taken to organise the restoration of the drinking fountain near the children’s playground. This water fountain was installed early in the life of the park by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association based on a cup-less design introduced in 1929.
At some point, the fountain fell into disrepair and lost the cap that sat on top. We had been in touch with the Drinking Fountain Association (the modern incarnation of the original Association) over several years with the view to getting an official cap installed but without conclusion.
Then our volunteers came to the rescue, with our thanks to Jonathan Simons and Ray Langford and others involved, they installed the internal plumbing, added two new outside taps and finally a capstone at long last, meaning that one of the early features of the park is now, once again, in use.
This will be a great boon in our yearly efforts to keep the park suitably watered during the summer months. If you’re walking around the park, do feel free to grab a watering can by the drinking fountain, fill it up and water anything that looks in need and particularly new planting and new and young trees. Watering in hot weather is most effective in the mornings and evenings.
FoPVG Annual General Meeting 2020/21
Following up on the article in the previous edition of the newsletter, we are pleased to announce the Friends of Pinner Village Garden Committee for the forthcoming year:
- Antonia Savvides – Chair
- Brian Chapman – Secretary
- Stephen Spiro – Treasurer
- Sarah Brook – Events Coordinator
- Glyn Watkins – Funding Coordinator
- Simon Braidman – Environmental and Education Advisor
- Jackie Lindop – Committee Member 1
- Helen Ryan – Committee Member 2
- Natalia Kuznetsova – Landscape Advisor
The posts of Volunteer Coordinator, Communications Lead, and Junior Ambassador were left vacant with no one standing for those positions. Do contact us if you feel you would want to apply for these vacant positions.
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