This year’s AGM will take place at 7pm on Monday, 5th October in The Captain’s Room at Surrey County Cricket Club, which is accessed via the Hobbs Gate, through the main entrance to the lift to the third floor, with fantastic views over the grounds. All KA members are invited.
Kennington Association
Minutes from Annual Meeting
7pm, Monday, 27 October 2008, the Little Apple PH
Present
Gareth Adamson, Tim Boxall, Valerie Collins, Jon Davies, Tessa Forbes, Sylvia Goodman, Mark Harrison, Maureen Johnston, Diane Kavanagh, Veronica Ledwith, Jean McCarthy, John Midgley, Margarita O’Malley, Alison Packer, Cathy Preece, Angela Rayner, John Roberts, Sue and John Rump, Elizabeth Scott, Betty Severn, Celia Stothard, Anna Tapsell, John Maltby and David Tinney, Julie and David Tisdall.
Apologies
Angus Aagard, Chris Eames-Jones, Jeffe Jeffers, Jennifer Lanier, Kevin Rimmington, Rob Banks, Mark Rogers, Oladapo Habeeb, Charles and Sarah Kennedy.
Minutes
Minutes from the previous AGM on 3 December, 2007 were accepted without amendment.
Report from the Chair
Anna Tapsell welcomed everyone and observed that the Kennington Association has been very active in the community since the last AGM. Most recently was the art auction that raised money for the Secret Santa Christmas project. (This is a scheme for giving Tesco vouchers to local needy families through a parent-child group.) Although not quite as big or well attended as the auction two years go, it ran very smoothly and can serve as a template for what we hope will be an annual event. The greatest need is for more publicity.
The annual fete in Cleaver Square was another triumph with more people participating and visiting than ever before, and an attendance that represented the cultural diversity of our neighbourhood.
The Ethiopian Cultural Festival held in Kennington Park was also very successful with an enthusiastic and diverse audience. KA was especially useful to the Cultural Festival by helping out with last-minute, unexpected expenses.
All of these activities have helped build a community spirit and brought people from diverse backgrounds together through work, fun and socializing.
While the community has also dealt with a fair amount of difficulties over the past year, crime has gone down and the KA has been able to help and support families traumatized by crime.
The KA is growing and taking on more tasks. As a result, the subgroups are becoming more autonomous. The Planning Group, for example, has become a separate, self-functioning part of KA that studies all developments proposed in the community and then drafts a response or opinion in the name of our members. The subgroup then presents their recommendations to the committee for a vote sending the responses to the council and other interested parties. In the future, there will be more such groups set up for activities such as bazaars, the art auction, etc. so better use is made of busy members’ time.
Treasurers’ Report
Gareth Adamson reported that the KA is in good financial shape as we finish the year. Money from subscriptions and the bazaars are covering expenses. Beyond this, any money raised can go toward special projects and a contingency fund to help community groups in need. This usually means a month or so of financing a venue or an instructor while a group waits for a funding grant to be approved or a cheque to actually show up in the mail.
Proposed Amendments to the Constitution
The revised Kennington Association constitution was circulated and approved with one change. The Introduction now reads: The Kennington Association (KA) is a politically-independent community organisation created to facilitate co-operation, communication, recreation and a conduit for lending a help hand in the neighbourhood. All work is done by volunteers, and all money raised is spent for the benefit of Kennington, with a minimum reserved for assets and expenses.
Committee
The committee was re-elected or newly elected as follows:
Gareth Adamson resigned as treasurer after six years and stood down from the committee. The group thanked Gareth for the time and work he has put into keeping the books straight – always a tough job in volunteer groups which inevitably include people with more good will than skill at record keeping.
Margarita O’Malley was elected to the committee with a view to taking Gareth’s place.
Committee member Jeffe Jeffers resigned. The group thanked him for his long hours working to get approval for the Tree of Hope lights.
Other Committee Business
Welcome Pack: Angela reported that the Welcome Pack now consists of 16 inserts and 70 pages so far. The quality varies – some inserts are very good and some a bit sketchy. The group needs to start making some decisions and is now looking at a pub date in the spring of ’09.
Arts Lav: Celia Stothard brought information sheets about the Kennington Cross ArtsLav project and Tomorrow’s People flower stall. TP would continue to test the market for the stall outside the church and hope to move the stall to outside the entrance to the lavs on Kennington Lane to get more visibility and publicity ASAP in the New Year.
Planning
The planning sub-committee is following up on planning permission requests for a supermarket at 250 Kennington Road. The space was originally set aside for use of local people, but no money was made available to the community and they were priced out of the market. The owners then sat on the space until they could say that no community request for use had been received, therefore it reverted to the owners to use it as they saw fit. The planning sub-committee is going to request an open meeting to find out what’s going on with the property.
All Other Business
Alison Packer raised the problem of dangerous dogs in the neighbourhood. Her own dog has been attacked while she was walking it on a leash and she has heard of other such attacks in the neighbourhood. She asked if KA could lend its support in helping to curb this problem.
A number of other people also reported their fears that there appear to be more aggressive dogs being walked by owners in the area. Maureen Johnston said that it’s difficult to report concerns or incidents because there is no central area that receives complaints. Both police and Lambeth Community Safety receive complaints, but there is nowhere to follow up and see if anything was done about reported problems.
The KA agreed in principle to look into this problem and perhaps have a session on dogs.
There being no further business, the meeting closed at 8:50 pm.
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