Author: Dave Morris

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Marathon Fun Day In The Rec

Marathon Fun Day in Lordship Rec – Sunday April 26th, 9am-5pm

The Friends and other park user groups are planning a special Marathon Day to include publicity for the park’s potential for physical exercise.
– The Hub cafe will be promoting healthy eating and broadcasting the Marathon all day live from 9am, including the mass start at 10am.
– All welcome to join in the Walk Or Run: Its Fun! – Your Pace No Race… around the park starting at 11am at the Hub. Please register from 10.30am.
– And there will be fun and games (tug-of-war etc), 12-1pm.
– The Broadwater Farm Community Centre Gym will be open for free sessions – come and have a trial! 11am-3pm.

– Green Gym taster session at the Harmony Gardens, 2pm-2.30pm
– The Hub will host Feeling Good In The Rec, 1pm-5pm, healing therapies and fitness tasters.*

12-5pm   BMX/Skate Jam in the skatepark, 12-5pm with competitions, music and food.

* Children must be accompanied by a parent/carer in the above organised events

Help raise funds for further improvements to Lordship Rec!
Please donate here at the button on the right hand side of this page…

Lordship Rec, Tottenham’s largest public park, has recently undergone a successful regeneration which has transformed a previously neglected and run-down green space into an attractive, well-used and vibrant park. The Friends of Lordship Rec, in partnership with Haringey Council’s Parks Service, have led this regeneration effort. However, there are a range of further improvements needed to complete the regeneration plans. 100% of the money raised by donations between now and April 30 will go towards some of the additional improvements needed, including: a drinking fountain, seating, wildlife habitats, equipment for volunteers, and signage.

How you can donate
– The Friends have set up a special DONATE button on their website’s home page. www.lordshiprec.org.uk
– Cheques [made out to ‘Friends of Lordship (Marathon)’] can be posted to the Friends of Lordship Rec.

Being active in the Rec

We are also using the opportunity to promote Lordship Rec, its attractive walking/jogging routes and the newly-installed distance markers on those routes. Why not come and try the routes for yourself! You can also join in the weekly walks organised by the Lordship Rec Walking Group every Monday morning, meeting up at 9.20am at the Downhills Park Road entrance. Or join in the monthly ‘Your Pace, No Race’ sessions on the first Sunday of each month – meet 11am outside the Hub cafe by the lake in the park. And there are the cycling groups, the Brakethru Club, football teams and others promoting physical activity – including a plan for outdoor gym equipment near the Hub..

 

Organised by Friends of Lordship Rec, Women’s Assoc of Lordship Rec, Lordship Walking Group, Your Pace No Race, Hub Co-op

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International Women’s Day Celebration in Lordship Re

Saturday 28th March, 12noon – 8pm
at the Hub, Lordship Rec, N17
Organised by the Womens Association of Lordship Rec

Stalls, workshops, food
6pm-8pm Live music – Local women performers
Delicious refreshments available from the Hub Cafe and Caribbean Food from Caribbean Sunset PLUS healthy smoothies

Workshops …

SEWING BEE Help, support and advice on sewing and
design techniques for making or altering clothes
HERBAL MEDICINE Advice and information about growing herbs
and their medicinal uses
…and Taster Sessions
TAI CHI – 12-1pm
DANCE – 1-2pm
YOGA – 2-3pm
Workshops and tasters £4.00 each
Healing therapies
Sessions from 12 to 5pm
• Chair Massage
• Facials • Angelic Reiki
Healing
Sports injuries clinic – special price £10.00 per half hour session

Limited crèche places are available at a small charge for workshop participants and can be booked in advance along with a workshop place

For more information or to book your place in a workshop or therapy session email:
walordshiprec@gmail.com or phone 020 8885 5684

And in future….

From May 30th, Healing therapies and workshops will take place monthly in the Hub in Lordship Rec on every LAST saturday of every month from 12 noon

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Friends slam threat to Lordship Rec

The demolition and ‘redevelopment’ of Broadwater Farm and building of homes on Lordship Rec: Barmy? Or a real threat?

According to council documents – http://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/site_allocation_developement_web_0.pdf (Site 63, page 162), it appears that the council are considering promoting the demolition and ‘redevelopment’ of some or all of Broadwater Farm. The plans, confirmed by senior Council officers [see below], suggest that they intend for new housing to be built on a large chunk of the north end of Lordship Recreation Ground, including half of the main field and the whole sports field, to rehouse those displaced by potential demolitions at Broadwater Farm. The potential redevelopment zone is indicated by a red line on a map, and also includes Somerset Close, Lido Square, homes along the south side of Lordship Lane, and all the community facilities within the zone. Such a zone would mean increased powers for property developers in that zone, backed by Council encouragement and support.

This incredible, barmy and totally unnecessary attack on local communities would cause massive stress to all concerned, displacement and disruption for years, and undermine all the successful efforts over decades to build a strong and stable local community and to improve local facilities. Our communities have worked long and hard to make Broadwater Farm one of the most attractive estates in the UK, and to make Lordship Rec the great park it now is.

The threat to Lordship Rec would bring the Council into direct conflict with the Lordship Rec park users’ organisations, and all the funding bodies (Lottery, GLA and the Environment Agency) who have supported the successful and nationally-celebrated community-led regeneration of Tottenham’s largest public park. Incidentally, in case the Council have forgotten, the park is safeguarded and protected for all time by a ‘Fields In Trust’ covenant preventing any part of it being developed or sold off.

The ‘barmy’ proposals confirmed

We couldn’t believe the proposals when we first heard about them. However, Steve Kelly from the Council’s Planning Department spoke at the Tangmere Steering Committee on Broadwater Farm recently and when challenged admitted that the land on Lordship Recreation Ground would be needed for housing for people displaced by any demolitions on Broadwater Farm.  Matthew Patterson, the Council’s Interim Head of Policy, Strategic Transport and Infrastructure, also confirmed to a rep from the Friends of Lordship Rec that the inclusion of the northern part of Lordship Rec in the development zone is for the power to build housing to ‘decant’ the residents of Broadwater Farm (or many of them) into that area of the park ‘otherwise the demolitions on the estate could not go ahead’ due to the impracticalities of re-homing those affected during the demolition and redevelopment works.

Object now

The deadline for registering objections to this outrageous and unacceptable threat to the estate and park is March 27th. It comes under the consultation for ‘Haringey’s Local Plan 2011-2026’, the most important planning document in the borough. This is a formal objection process, and the Local Plan documents have to be submitted to a Planning Inspector at a public enquiry before they can be approved. Those objecting will be able to put their case to the Inspector.

This proposed mass disruption and destruction must be opposed.

To object, email: ldf@haringey.gov.uk

Joan Curtis and Dave Morris
– Secretary and Chair, Friends of Lordship Rec

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A new era unfolding

THE GROWTH OF THE FRIENDS AND USER GROUPS  

Over the last 3-4 years the Friends have consolidated our activities, our support for the wide range of User Groups, our regular publicity for all the park’s activities, events and issues, and our overall Friends’ membership. Many of the specific functions of the Friends, as the key umbrella organisation for park users, have gradually shifted to the active User Groups. Most of these User Groups are flourishing in the newly-regenerated park and its improved facilities. The encouragement of autonomous groups was a long-standing strategy of the Friends since our formation in 2001.

 

The currently active User Groups include: The Friends; Women’s Association; Wildlife Group; Rockstone; Tottenham Bike Cub; Back 2 Earth (Harmony Gardens and Cafe); Moselle Group; Woodland Group, Sketching Group; Shell Performing Arts Collective; Lordship Sports & Arts Consortium; Outdoor Gym Group;  Walking Group; Hub Co-op; Lordship Rec FC; Broadwater United FC; Baby Meet Up; Tottenham Clouds, Lordship Dog Club.
Each of those groups has been building up its own membership, most of whom have also joined the Friends. Since the growth in the number and range of activities of the park User Groups, many more park users of diverse backgrounds and interests have been involved in organising and helping out in park activities. All the User Groups as well as the park’s own staff and relevant Council officers, co-ordinate and communicate through the Lordship Rec Users Forum via its monthly evening general meetings and the more specialist fortnightly daytime practical coordination meetings..

The most active members of the Friends continue to help manage and improve the Woodland (including recently commissioning and installing the memorial sculpture there), support the Wildlife Group / Women’s Association / Sketching Group / Walking Group, run the park’s noticeboards, help run the Hub, produce general park publicity, monitor the River Moselle, liaise with park staff, manage our e-lists and website, coordinate LRUF meetings, and attend Haringey-wide (and London and National) Friends Groups’ meetings. We used to help coordinate the annual festivals (8,000 attended in 2012) – however, since then we have helped promote a successful programme of events by park User Groups throughout the year. The Friends ourselves took the lead with last year’s ‘We Remember’ event in July, contributed substantially to the September Fest, and held a ’30 yrs of Community Action in the Rec’ exhibition.

 

Membership has risen from maybe around 250 in early 2012, to around 600 in July 2014, and to a current figure of 1,270. This rise has been greatly facilitated by the use of the Hub as a base over the past 2 years.

 

THE HUB   In 2013-14 the Friends were managing the Hub’s Community Room for park meetings and activities. However, in order to open up the whole building as a community facility, the Friends set up a special organisation to take on the lease. Since July 2014 the new Hub Co-op has been able to open the Hub daily to the public, including the daily community-run cafe. Many groups are now booking the rooms. All this has made a major difference, and a Friends’ sign-up sheet by the main entrance has resulted in a doubling of Friends membership over the last 6 months.

The number of those actually attending the Friends general meetings over the last 2 years has tended to remain constant (6-20), with a strong core of many of the original Friends activists from 5 years ago (mainly white, older, working class, park users). This is partly due to the members’ involvement in the park’s User Groups and the intense activity over the last year to ensure the success of the Hub. We now need to continue to strengthen not only our membership and the support for the various User Groups, but also the numbers and diversity of those attending our own general meetings.

 

A NEW ERA   We are now entering a new, ‘post-regeneration’ phase in which park users can enjoy the improved park and its facilities. There are also many further improvements to be made (see list) and which can all be achieved if there are people prepared to push for them, help fundraise and oversee.

 

We welcome and encourage new people to get actively involved!