## FRIENDS OF ALLESLEY PARK: AGM 

October 2024 

Trustees and volunteers of the local community were present at the AGM. 

Minutes from the previous AGM was agreed and signed off. 

Chairman’s Report: 

I am sorry to report, which the majority of you will be aware of Paul Silver, one of our main volunteer”s and Sandra Edwards our Treasurer and a Trustee have both suffered serious illnesses. Sandra continues to have various cancers diagnosed in various parts of her body, the latest is in her brain.  Our thoughts and best wishes go to Sandra.  Due to Sandra’s continuing health problems Janet Archer has agreed with the other Trustees agreement to temporary stand in as treasurer.   Paul had a heart attack while on holiday in Cyprus with his family July.  He was put in a comma for two weeks, after major heart surgery.  He was flown back to Birmingham and spent several weeks in Coventry & Warwickshire University Hospital.  Several of us have visited Paul.  He his recovering slowly.  Our best wishes go to Paul.  We continue to visit Paul. 

HSBC was our current bank, but HSBC informed Sandra that they were going to charge us a monthly fee for our account, which would quickly reduce our funds.  It was agreed to change our account to Lloyds, High Street Coventry. 

The problem with the lack of volunteers and being unable to recruit new members continues. We have lost another of our volunteers due to poor health.  We have tried various methods to encourage new volunteers without success.  They only come for a few weeks.  We note that the Walled Garden Group are suffering the same difficulties. 

We have purchased various plants and bulbs.  As we mentioned last year some of the roses are in a poor health and may need replacing soon.  We still receive plants that have been given to us from the local community. Some of these had been grown on from seed to plant in the Park. 

Our main duties that we have been carrying out remain the same: 

Weeding, removing brambles, stinging nettles from various parts of the Park, mainly in and around the crazy golf area, the Walled Garden and the Fairy Garden.  The Fairy Garden is still very popular with the younger children, taking their parents and grandparents around the various paths showing them the various Fairy houses. (which we have installed).  Another time consuming item is the path clearing of weeds in the Walled Garden. We are considering purchasing battery powered tools to assist in the path clearing etc.  Two families of moorhens appear to be in permanent residence on the pond. These are visited regularly by the visitors to the Park. 

We continued to garden (weather permitting) until November.  We started again in February / March again weather permitting, mainly clearing die-back and pruning. 



Treasures Report: 

Income zero. 

Expenditure was £22.64. 

This was spent on the purchases and planting of several hundred bulbs around the Park. Again with the wet winter we found a lot of the previous bulbs had rotted and some had been eaten!  We will continue to purchase more bulbs and plants next year to brighten up the Park.  We do ask the Park’s Dept for bedding plants without success. Over the year we have also been given various plants to plant in the Park and Walled Garden.