CHAIRS REPORT 2015 – 16.

We have had another successful year in many respects. We have had a full committee and a new Acting Treasurer, Rob Murphy, joined us in the Spring.

The Talks at The Pearson Centre have on the whole been well attended and of varied interest to our members, we try to keep as near to our interests as possible but will always welcome suggestions for a speaker new to us. We have had representatives from the Planning Department, Nigel Adams from the Hope Church also a Transport Talk where 13 different companies were represented; we try to keep people informed as to what is going on. Other talks included Ian Harvey from Civic Voice coming along to enthuse and encourage us in our endeavours to keep track of what is happening in Beeston and James McCloskey gave a very interesting talk on The History of Chetwynd Barracks. The Coffee Mornings are sometimes well attended and sometimes not. We had a very successful  one when the Broxtowe Parks and Open Spaces Officer, Chris Riley, came to speak to us about upgrading the Children’s Play area at Broadgate Park, about 40 people came along, it was a very lively morning, this was followed by him joining us at The Carnival on July 9^th to do a paper consultation with the general public. We intend to invite people possibly twice a year, to come and talk to us at the Coffee Morning as this attracted a different audience who may not have attended an evening meeting, the Highfields Ranger has expressed an interest in coming one Saturday.

Many Congratulations are due to the Blue Plaques Group, officially called Sothern Broxtowe Blue Plaque Group, who have been working hard for the last 7 years to get the magnificent publication out to great acclaim. The small group was initially Peter Robinson, Steven Wallwork and Robin Phillips and other Societies joined in later. The initial print run of several thousand is just about gone having been distributed mainly locally to Libraries, Council Offices, Shops and Cafes, the Nottingham Tourist Office, and other areas that have requested them. A very successful Launch and Thank You party was held at the Town Hall in July and attended b y the Mayor and other dignitaries and also Sir  Neil Cossons attended and made a speech.  I still hope that we may yet get a trail board organised and placed somewhere in Beeston, a tourist attraction.

The HOD weekend was once again an amazing success somewhat spoilt on the Saturday by the morning rain but very well attended everywhere. It stretched from Thursday to Sunday and there were many taking in venues. The local HOD event is one of the largest in the country and we should be rightly proud there is so much to see here in our area. The HOD team comprising members of a few different Societies deserve our thanks for organising this major event in our calendar, which keeps growing and growing each year. The booklet is always very well received and this year 10,000 were printed and distributed all over the County. This year two of the team are stepping down and we need new people to come along and help, we do have a jobs list split down into sections so if you might be interested please contact us. This is not a year round job, it goes from late January to September, you do not have to be a member of any committee, just interested in HOD.

I would like to thank Prof John Beckett for his organised walks, always popular, always very interesting and a highlight of our summer programme.

There is always space for some fresh ideas, trips for instance? Would any people be interested in trips or are some of you too busy with U3A? Any ideas you may have for events we are always happy to hear them.

We have updated the website a little bit, it now has a calendar you may find useful. We have also set up on facebook our own site called Beeston Voice, this is where people can post and we can interact with them, make comments etc. We also have our Website on facebook too.

Some members have attended workshops put on by the Council and we continue to have a good relationship with Council Officers.

The Planning sub- committee continues to monitor and comment on planning applications within our area of interest .Although we may seem to place particular emphasis on those in conservation areas, on listed buildings such as the Grange and the Parish Church, and large scale developments such as at Boots, Plessey we also look at those in residential areas, the Green Belt and protected open space such at Bramcote Ridge and of course those in the Town Centre.

Thank you for your input to everyone standing down from the Committee. We have had new publicity materials made this summer and they look very professional with banners and new stands, also a feather flag so you can see us in the distance, particularly useful at the Carnival. Our Membership continues to grow and we invite anyone who is interested enough to join us as a member to consider getting involved in any organisational capacity, not necessarily as a member of the committee .A small but important job is for a note taker at our Public Talks so we can put this information into the Newsletter. We hope also to be asking members to help in a joint project with the U3A  and Broxtowe  Council researching possible  additions to a list of non designated heritage assets.

After a full year at our new venue, The Pearson Centre, we hope you are all happy with it, we have used a variety of rooms commensurate with the size of our expected audience.

NOTE  The AGM will be proceeded by a 15 minute update of what is happening in Beeston by the Broxtowe Council Estates Manager. This does not include Phase 2.( The Square and old bus station)

Chairs AGM Report 2015

We have a had another good year! Many new members have joined us, We have spent a lot of time promoting the Civic Society at various events, the Carnival in July being a major event when we advertise the Heritage Open Days and begin to give out the HOD booklets, people are always happy to receive them to see what there is to visit this time round. Something new I started this year was the Coffee,Chat and Cake mornings at The White Lion on Station Road, a very popular place for community events. This gives members and indeed visitors a place to come informally to chat about things and just to one another, it has been very popular. We had John Delaney from the Planning Department one Saturday to talk about the consultation for phase 2 and we had over 40 people attend, this happened a couple of times and we also had a stall in the Square twice.

Planning and Conservation.We are still very active in looking at planning applications and this year have made many representations to the planning committee. With the advent of the internet those meetings between CS and the planners do not happen now as the plans are emailed weekly (anyone can sign up for this) and remarks can be emailed back. From this last years AGM, we have formed 2 subcommittees, overseen by Caroline, for a)Planning and b)Conservation, more people can get involved in these sub committees, without having to be a committee member, if they so wish and should contact Caroline through our email.

Phase Two. I was very disappointed that after all the hours we put in encouraging the public to complete the consultation forms regarding what the public wanted, only just over 130 were completed online or sent in. We had 3 coffee mornings about it and twice had a stall in the square. A poor show indeed.

The Pearson Centre. We are now in our new venue and I hope you are all pleased with it, it is large and bright and easy to get to. We have only of course had 2 meetings there so far and we are still having slight teething problems with refreshments but I am sure these will be sorted out. I hope everyone is happy with it.

Heritage Weekend was a triumph yet again and many thanks must deservedly go to the small band on the subcommittee. Two members are now standing down, Barbara Selwood and Joyce Brown and we owe them a debt of thanks for all the hours they have put in to make every year better and better, the sub committee as a whole have achieved great things and have received much praise.There was a very comprehensive booklet printed and we distributed 11.000 copies of this across the county. Once again the Chilwell Barracks visit was oversubscribed as was the trip to D10 at Boots also the visits to Strelley Hall, a new addition to our list. There were over 50 venues across many parts of our area including Wollaton and Bilborough, which asked to be included. Help is always wanted to man events and also visit and make reports on venues, if anyone is interested please contact us by email.The sub committee would welcome more people to join in to help with arrangements, we have people involved from other societies initially but you can never have too much help for occasions like these. I am sad to say that the event at The Pearson Centre was not a big success simply because of its position, having no passing public and being out of sight, a great shame because it is an excellent venue for most things, hopefully next year the event will be able to return to Bartons. Please see attached report from Barbara Selwood.

Magazine. Many Thanks to Karen Attwood for the quarterly magazine, always full of interesting articles and comments. Now in colour it has brought many compliments. If any member would like to contribute anything please contact Karen Attwood via our gmail address.

Blue Plaque Scheme. Peter Robinson and the editorial committee are currently working on the Blue Plaque Trail booklet which it is hoped will be published in the new year and given away free, it will be found in many venues around the Nottingham area

Website. Thanks to Owen we now have a thriving website and we also have a Twitter account. Members can join through our website and pay via paypal as indeed can any current member who does not pay by Standing Order. Any photos you have of Beeston will be gratefully received for the picture gallery. Please keep looking and send any remarks to us that you wish to make. Owen has now stepped down as Webmaster as he has been promoted in his job and can no longer give the time required to the website, we wish him well for the future and are sure he will be back.

Treasurer. I am sorry to tell you that also due to pressure of work Michelle has also stepped down this time, we wish her well for the future.

Nominations for Committee members. I am sorry to tell you that I am not standing again for Chair so there are vacancies on the committee for Chair/Treasurer/Webmaster/Membership Secretary and 2 ordinary members. I have attached a nomination form for any member who would like to form part of the new committee.

Subscriptions For those of you who joined this year, thank you, and may I tell you that those of you who joined in June or after do not need to pay again until next October 2016, I hope you will consider doing a Standing order as this makes it so much easier for the Treasurer. Please ask at the AGM or December meeting for your National Trust ticket if you have not already had it from us.

May I ask those of you who do not pay by Standing Order to pay your subscription fee at this AGM meeting or the next meeting in December. Anyone not doing so will no longer receive the Magazine and emails after December. You can send a cheque to our Secretary: 4, Penryn Cres, Chilwell, Nottm. NG9 5NZ.

I will close by thanking those of you I have got to know for your support and friendship.

Anyone interested in joining in any capacity should contact Eileen through the society email address:

beestoncivicsociety@gmail.com

BEESTON and DISTRICT CIVIC SOCIETY

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 13th November 2015

NOMINATION FORM

Election of Officers and Committee Members

I ……………………………………………………………………………

am willing to serve as ……………………………………………………..

for the session 2015– 2016

Proposed ……………………………………..

Seconded ……………………………………..

Signed ………………………………………..

Date …………………………………………..

Heritage Open Days 2015 – annual report for AGM

A core group of people facilitate (rather than organise) this event on behalf of Beeston Civic Society. It consists of Eileen Atherton, Joyce Brown, Barbara Selwood and Richard English assisted by various ‘Hub people’. This year we extended our range, partly due to Barton’s not being available as a venue, but also as there were requests to be part of HOD. Thus we had 50 entries in the booklet, including at Strelley, Bilborough, Wollaton and Nottingham University.

Besides going ‘Beyond Beeston’ – we had some new entries in Beeston which proved very popular – Dagfa House School, Beeston Fields Golf Clubhouse and Oban House. A very well organised tour around Boots D10 this year was fully booked, as was the Restoration Ramble at Highfields and the Heritage Walk around Beeston.

We have been fortunate to be supported by our local County Councillors, whose donations cover most of the cost of producing the booklet, and with expected contributions from the ‘Beyond Beeston’ venues, we will cover our expenses.

We are looking for some new people join the Core Group, so that Joyce and Barbara can step down. We will renew our energy ready for starting again in January to get the ‘wheels’ in motion.

We are very grateful to the staff and volunteers at all the venues for, without them, we would not be able to share the Heritage of Beeston and Beyond with the public.

Barbara Selwood

Oct 2015

AMENDED CHAIRS REPORT, 2015

I am very sorry but I omitted 3 very important items in my report, so eager was I to get it out to all members to digest before the AGM.

First of all I would apologise to Prof John Beckett for not reporting on his walks this year, I am so sorry. The walks are always well received and enjoyed by our members and indeed others who join in and they are part of our summer programme and the HOD weekend, long may they continue. Thank you John.

Secondly I also did not mention the superb information maps made by Robert Howard, these have been enormously successful this summer, there were 3 versions. For those of you who have not seen one I attach to this email the one he made for us as our contribution to BID’s Freshers Weekend in September. I had 3000 of these printed and the parents of students and students themselves went wild for them, so much so that Robert has been asked to provide the pdf so they can go in the Student and Parent handbook next year. They will of course have to be amended due to some bus routes being cancelled. These maps also went to Central College, they were also thrilled with them. He also did one for the HOD weekend, purely for Beeston as his maps are of Beeston and not the surrounding areas, I did get some criticism of this from some members of the committee as other areas were left out, it was not intended as a full HOD map but a Beeston HOD map. In the beginning of September some of us were on a stall in the Square giving out the HOD booklet to passers by, but as it was early days for the tram we gave out many maps to first time visitors to Beeston, I spoke to many of these visitors myself and again they found them most useful having never been to Beeston before, many came from Hucknall and Bulwell. Thank you Robert.

I also forgot to mention the Art Competition which I organised, this having happened a few years previously but then stopped presumably due to lack of support in the organisation of it. It didn’t start off very well and I was quite disheartened by the number of entries, but on the day itself it came good as people went home and returned with more pictures to hang. It was visited by many people and some good comments were written by the visiting public about it, it is worth doing again. I have already booked the library for next Spring but it seems it (the Library) might be reburbished (again?) so the date may change as of course it will be closed during this time.

Finally, I would like to thank you all for your support and messages after I announced in my previous report that I would not be standing for Chair again. I have been persuaded by many that we have an exciting time ahead and this is not the time to leave, especially with a major town development coming soon and the unexpected demise of BID which will leave a vacuum, who will speak for Beeston now? I have therefore decided to stand on Friday because I want to build on the success of the past with the 6 remaining current members and 5 other Beeston supporters have also thrown their hats into the ring to stand as committee members and we can hopefully carry the Civic Society forward into the digital age with fresh ideas and great enthusiasm.

We have some challenging times ahead, we need to engage in social media to reach our audience so let us all, members included, work together for the future and prosperity of Beeston.

Beeston Civic Society is all about looking to the future.

Chairs report for 2013/4.

We have a had a good year! Many new members have joined us, we now stand at 218. I think this is down to the high profile we have had in being part of New Deal for Beeston: the official name of the group (including people from outside the Civic Society) is Continuum.

We have spent a lot of time promoting ourselves and you will see from the Treasurers Report that we are down in our funds this year. This is because we were approached, as were many others, by The Hope Church to help them fund a new van for their good works. They needed the last few hundred pounds to buy a new van and in return have we our name painted on the side. To me this was a no brainer! For £400 we have our logo and name painted on two sides of the van and it flits about all over Nottinghamshire and surrounds on its collections of food from as far as Lincolnshire and is seen about Beeston area on a regular basis. Many more people now know and have heard of Beeston Civic Society!

We have had some excellent speakers and well attended public meetings, we hope to continue this in our next season. We are trying to keep to talks that are relevant to Beeston and District and our interests, I hope you will agree that we have done a good job this year thanks to Eileen. We had to have an extra meeting to talk about Beeston Town Centre, we have played quite a large part in this having four of our members as part of this Continuum group. For now, whilst we wait for the new town centre to be completed there is nothing happening with Continuum although I did see in Beeston a small group of students in white coats(?) bearing the name ‘The Built Environment and Architecture’, walking around the Square recently with clip boards. For those of you who do not know, thanks to Prof Martyn Polikoff, this department has taken on the challenge, with the blessing of our council, to design a vision for Phase 2, which is the area that will be left after the tram is finally completed, (where the Fire and Multi storey carpark used to be). I am sure we all have our own vision for this but hopefully with suggested plans acceptable to the Council in place, they will be able to go to developers and say, this is what we want our town to look like, not be fobbed off with a replica of what they are re-building now! The possibilities are endless. We have done quite a few questionnaires and the main thing that comes out of them is that local people want a cinema/theatre/art space, good shops and greenery.

The Blue Plaque Scheme has finally come to end with a magnificent 34 plaques now found around the area. Many, many thanks must go to the Blue Plaques committee led by its Chair Peter Robinson for all the work and research that has gone into this scheme. There has been extensive coverage in three issues of Bygones and at some point there will be a booklet with a trail. We are pleased that finally the TEN BELL has had a makeover, still in its place outside of Sainsbury’s but there is nothing we can do about that, at least it has a new plaque and had a clean up with the promise that from now on it will be looked after by Sainsbury’s.

The next project the Civic Society is embarking on is Local Listing. It is for everyone to get involved in this, it is not about Listed Buildings and Grades 1, 2 and 3 but about places, houses, buildings that are a good representation of their kind and need to be earmarked. We will ask you in due course to be part of this, all it entails is walking about and taking note of what you see, the finer details have not yet been decided.

Heritage Weekend was a triumph for us yet again and many thanks must deservedly go to the small band of three, Eileen, Barbara and Joyce who did most of the work for this. There was a very comprehensive booklet printed and we distributed 10.000 copies of this across the county. Once again the Chilwell Barracks visit was oversubscribed then delayed by illness but went ahead at a later date. We hope to have a talk in our next season.

Beeston Carnival was very good for us and quite a few new people joined that day. We had a very interesting stand which attracted attention and we had our questionnaire asking people what they want to see happen to Phase 2 of Beeston Square.

We are still very active in looking at planning applications and this year have made many representations to the planning committee. We must Thank Barbara who for the last 20 years has been mainly responsible with Caroline for meeting with the council to look at plans, she is not taking the lead on this now but will still be part of the subcommittee. With the advent of the internet those meetings do not happen now as the plans are emailed weekly (anyone can sign up for this) and remarks can be emailed back. From this meeting though, we have formed 2 subcommittees, overseen by Caroline, for a)Planning and b)Conservation, more people can get involved in these sub committees , without having to be a committee member, if they so wish and should contact Caroline through our email.

Magazine. Many Thanks to Karen Attwood for the quarterly magazine, always full of interesting articles and comments.

Website. Thanks to Owen we now have a thriving website and we also have a Twitter account. Members can join through our website and pay via paypal as indeed can any current member who does not pay by Standing Order. Any photos you have of Beeston will be gratefully received for the picture gallery. Please keep looking and send any remarks to us that you wish to make. We had a very successful poll about the town centre on there and the result formed part of the Councils own poll.

We must mention our current venue, John Clifford. I want to ask you, the members, what you feel about it, are you happy there or would you prefer to be back in the centre of Beeston? The Pearson Centre is very central but more expensive. The Committee think that it would be worth us moving there as there are different sized rooms we could use, refreshment facilities, easy car parking (Sainsbury’s) and close by the main residential part of Beeston. The Beeston Library is not an option I am afraid, it is not large enough for some of our public meetings and there is a problem with the time of ending our meetings. We will of course need to take a vote on this.

Lastly, our membership fee. This has stood at £7.00 and £10.00 for some considerable time and if the general consensus is that members would like to be back in a more central venue we will need to increase the subscription. We have looked at other comparable societies and we are quite a lot below them in what we charge, for our membership you get 8 free monthly meetings and 4 magazines per year. I would like to put forward a vote to increase the subs for next year, 2105/16 to  £10 &15. If we did increase this fee, we could also make each member a member of Civic Voice and the benefits that comes from that which includes one free entry ticket to both The National Trust and English Heritage, these tickets are not limited to your use but any friend or member of your family may use it. For those of you who joined this year, thank you, and may I tell you that those of you who joined in June or after do not need to pay again until next October 2015, I hope you will consider doing a Standing order as this makes it easier for our Treasurer.

May I ask those of you who do not pay by Standing Order to pay your subscription fee at this meeting or the next. Anyone not doing so will no longer receive the Magazine and emails. You can send a cheque to our Secretary: 4, Penryn Cres, Chilwell, Nottm. NG9 5NZ.

Anyone interested in joining us in any capacity should contact Eileen through the society email address:   beestoncivicsociety@gmail.com

Website address:   beestoncivicsociety.org.uk