Josephine Avenue Group 

Minutes of Meeting 12/05/10

Attending: Louise Belson; Tim Fairhurst; Peter Classen; Ophelia Nazareth; Sam Anderson 

Apologies; Gary Turnbull; Nick Berry and Tim Sutton. 

PC chaired the meeting.

1.SNT Steering Group: 

LB reported a volunteer from Josephine Avenue area was needed to attend the Steering Group from this autumn. There are 4 meetings a year. LB has volunteered to attend the August meeting on behalf of the JAG. 

2.TF: Website Update:

At the meeting April 14 2010, the meeting agreed that a new website was needed.

TF volunteered to undertake to organise one and reported progress as follows:

TF and LB have now met with an experienced web designer and discussed a design that TF and LB thought should meet JAG objectives. TF asked the meeting for their input and comment.

Cost: The designer will charge £500 for design, build and support and is prepared to train and support a JAG administrator(s). TF considered that the charge was very reasonable for a sophisticated site with a members area and interaction. LB and TF found the designer responsive, efficient and easy to communicate with.

TF outlined the site content and said that he hoped that the site would be easily accessible, inviting, broadly informative and fun and offer the opportunity for much wider interaction.

There was an additional cost for members’ services supporting authentication at 60GBP p.a. that TF recommended, as this would be maintained externally requiring no expertise from within the JAG.

SA asked:  Do we need a members only site? TF said yes. It was necessary if the site contained either personal contact information or photographic material that included children and that it would considerably expand our database. SA said she thought that made good sense. 

PC asked: Are there any other charges? TF said Yes:  In addition to the design charge and the members’ services charge, there was the domain name charge. (The domain name was josephineavenue.org or josephineavenuegroup.) and the charge for data uploading and hosting. In the first year this was 770 GBP and 50 GBP thereafter.

PC- asked the group to vote. All voted in favour and asked TF to go ahead. The meeting thanked TF.

3 Street Party.

LB reported that the street party that had been proposed at the last meeting and by various residents for several years was possible as hoped this Summer but that it could not easily be staged as hoped on Sat 3 July to coincide with the street-clean. She proposed that 

Sunday 4 July was the better day for resident attendance and that the best venue was the access road on the evens side of JA. Sara, Sam and Lou volunteered to organise. PC apologised for being unable to help, as he would not be in UK.

LB said we must first seek permission from residents living on the access road on the evens side. She suggested the party might include: residents contributing food and drink, a treasure hunt, music, info about the street and maybe a plant or book stall. She hoped the book club and the communal veg gardeners might like to get involved. She thought we would need a small budget for tables, equipment and prizes and asked for suggestions. 

The meeting agreed the proposed venue and date and suggested a provisional sum of 300GBP max cost. 

4 JA 2011 Landscape Project

TF reported that work was progressing: LB and TF had held a productive consultation meeting attended by LBC Environment and Waste Management, Cllr. Toren Smith, Community Realm CIC Landscape Consultants, Garry Turnbull and Frances Forrest. TF had also talked with Design for London.

LB was now applying for grants:  The first two are to fund a full arboricultural survey and a landscape consultant. Application deadlnes were imminent. She would be making further applications with August deadlines. 

5. 85 Brixton Hill

The developer Mr. Ansari has appealed against the decision to turn down his last planning application. PC/LB explained the site history briefly for residents. PC said that he would post the details on the newsgroup website and send information to ON

6. Footie. 

LB said that JA children using the space at 2JA for football would be safer if they had a small net. The group agreed. GT had asked Gary Cornforth for his help to find a net and SA suggested that the JAG donation to the children’s project in 2009 may have sufficient funds remaining to cover the cost if necessary.  

7 Urban art.

PC said that permission had been sought to close street at 2 ends of Apache Road and requested that residents, write a supportive note regarding the closure. Residents agreed to do so.

LB reported that JA hedges had been trimmed all along the avenue by residents and the Freshview team at the streetclean on 8 May.

8 AOB

SA asked what should be done with the remaining funds from the children’s project donation.

LB said it should be returned to the Treasurer.

PC reported that as agreed at the April meeting, he and GT and LB had sent letters in support of the planning application of Zakir Udin for 87/89 Brixton Hill. Zakir had reported to PC that e now expected the planning department to give consent. 

Next meeting-9th June. Venue TBC.

The meeting closed at 9pm.