Category Archives: Green Spaces

March Community Meet Up – a few notes

Green Spaces, News, young people
Shelly shares the backstory to the newly refurbished Village Hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the challenges Community Associations/Organisations face

  •  adopting local phone boxes
  • running a community centre – its management can suck resources leaving little time for the community üüü (Pinhoe have a community hub and a community Association, in St David’s there is the St David’s neighbourhood partnership and the Exeter Community Centre Trust)
  • acquiring a new community building
  • involving a diverse community üü – how to consult and young people – identifying needs and involvement
  • handovers when people leave e.g. leases and managing ongoing responsibilities
  • measure impact
  • engaging students who are transient
  • how to engage other community groups
  • help to set up and promoting what we do
  • growth of communities – new development

Feedback on Parks and opens spaces strategy development to ECC

  • needs to integrate into everyday activity
  • how will it link to Exeter’s Community Strategy?
  • have a round table discussion on parks and open spaces – informal and in depth
  • start with ‘what we like’
  • how does air quality consultation feed into this?
  • and relate to other strategies?
  • how to involve those who find it hard to be active? How does it rely on those who can’t get round easily?
  • how to be involved in the strategy drafting – with community organisations?
  • youth strategy – tie to this activity and involvement in design and implementation
  • land ownership – kept in public ownership – a community land trust? to hold land in perpetuity and generate income?
  • definition of a green space – what’s involved? – gardens? evaluation of trees – what do we have?
  • access to green spaces – increasing restrictions e.g. Ducks Meadow, university and developers are closing access and parking restriction
  • Transport, consistent polices on issues e.g. permissions by both Council e.g. memorial benches need to be consistently applied
  • Need reply to emails and access to information and permissions – names contacts would be helpful
  • no green space is ‘pinched’ until there is a policy for the area – developers think they have rights over any green space
  • new estates – how to mobilise community to look at it and communication
  • income generation to be financially viable – look at case studies e.g. NESTA
  • events and café on Parks
  • heritage features in parks and gardens are important.

New home for Exeter Green Partnership worker

Green Spaces, News

Stella Cahill has joined Exeter Community Initiatives as the Exeter Green Partnership Project Worker. This is a continuation of the role started with Exeter Parks Watch to promote community engagement in community parks and green spaces. Stella has been working with a number of groups across the city and supporting the It’s Your Neighbourhood project in Exeter.

We have to thank Sue Lawrence and Exeter Park Watch for getting communities more active in looking after parks and open spaces.  ECI is keen to involve more community groups in the Green Partnership to share skills, ideas and resources. We will looking at dates at the end of May to follow up the meeting in February of community groups involved in looking after green spaces http://exetercommunityforum.net/green-spaces-meeting-feedback/

Stella can be contacted on exetergreenpartnerships@gmail.com

To find out more about the Exeter Green Partnership visit: https://exetergreenpartnership.org/ or follow via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ExeterGreen/ or Twitter @_ExeterGreen

Celebrating Exeter’s Green Spaces

Green Spaces

Thursday 16th February 18:00 – 20:00

Co-lab, Wat Tyler House

Exeter Green Partnership (on behalf of Exeter Parks Watch) and Exeter CVS would like to invite you to a networking event to celebrate the groups who look after the green spaces in Exeter. We hope this will be an opportunity to talk to each other about your successes and the challenges you’ve met, a chance to share knowledge and find out about the activities going on in other areas of the city.

As well as talking to each other at this event, we’d like to talk about whether a permanent network would be useful and what shape that might take. There will be a suggestion box, so please bring your ideas!

Refreshments will be provided, please  RSVP to Stella exetergreenpartnership@gmail.com  by Friday 10th February so we can confirm numbers.