About the magic of (our) councilors
February 18th, 2009
We had a very productive meeting with Mark Perkins (who is in charge of the site) and our two councilors Ron Manley and Freda Bourne (who, it needs to be said, have been 100% supportive of the project throughout). The Councilors put in a request to the Mayor for a local fund which can go up to £20K and would help us a lot. We have an in principal agreement to claim some of the money but we need to prove exactly what for and answer some more questions about the project. The meeting was set up to talk this through with all people involved. It was very helpful to have everyone around the table and take stock and a much needed positive impulse to steer proceedings towards the Harvest Garden.
It seems whenever our councilors are involved things seem to move slightly more efficiently.
(I also noticed this when I copy them into emails I send – it drastically increases response time)
Two follow on meetings are booked. One ‘technical meeting’ (to use Mark’s terminology) and one ‘political one’. The technical one will hopefully layout a clear timeline and way forward which we can present back to the councilors at the ‘political’ meeting later on in March.
In the meantime we are waiting for the soil remidiation report to finally (its been 6 weeks) get back to us so we can make some informed decisions on how to adjust the design of the Harvest Garden in order to remedy the contamination of the ground. Mark secured money from the LDA and once the cost of remidiation is clear we (or he) can hopefully allocate any left over money to the next phase of the project (and among other things finally pay Nina and Karen for all those hours spent without being paid)
The kind gentleman who organised the meeting (and whose name slipped my mind) has borrowed our Abbey Gardens folder ‘to take some copies’. Hopefully we will meet again (with the folder)
