Winter Solstice Street Party

Full moon rising over houses in Torbay Road.
Happy festive season to you all.

Thank you to everyone that helped to light up, warm and nourish Wednesday evening - only another 182 days to the longest day of the year. Here are Paul's pictures and a few of mine.

HOMEZONE - SHARING STREET SPACE

Notes from 3 November 2010 meeting at Joe and Amanda's house

Present: Estelle, Paul Markman, Tony, Clare, Jeremy, Joe, Amanda, Glynis and apologies from Felix (7 houses represented)

Purpose of discussion

To share ideas on how we might achieve a better balance between cars and people in the street and to create more social/play space. 

Firstly thanks to Joe and Amanda for hosting the meeting and for Joe's preliminary drawings and plans that were protecting on their living room wall helping us to picture and discuss how we might rearrange parking and pedestrian areas. So professional.

Numbers

We have 49 houses in the street, to date 8 houses with off-road parking space and approx 60 cars/vans parked in the street (sampled on Sunday evenings). We have about 36 children and young people living in the street and a good number of grandchildren and friends visiting on a regular basis (that is a lot of young lives). We know of two houses that currently do not have a car and one house that has three vehicles.

Suggestion for HOMEZONE option

This would involve making Torbay Road one way for cars going from Corkland to Sandy Lane and create parking bays in parallel batches on alternating sides of the street forcing drivers to slow right down. It would be likely to deter people using it as a through road. We would park at an angle to the pavement, side by side. Bollards would be introduced to protect pavement area and paved areas with trees/flower boxes to protect end cars

Pros for children

• slow traffic
• reduce numbers of cars
• safer to ride bikes/scooters

Pro for adult car owners

• retain numbers of parking spaces
• clearly defined space (reduce space-waste)
• easier parking with less chance of parking accidents
• open doors without worrying about passing traffic

 General benefits

• increase space to socialise safely
• encourage ownership of shared street space by adults and children
• feel safer place to live
• quality of pavement is now poor so good time to consider improvement options
• increase value of houses?

Issues

• can we have adequate safe pavement space?
• protecting the cars parked on the end of bays
• funding?
• ensuring adequate width for service and emergency vehicles 
• is there sufficient support for discussed option?
• are there other options for the street?
• are there other options for Chorlton Triangle?

Seven houses were represented at this first meeting. We have the feeling/knowledge of there being good support in the street for some sort of HOMEZONE project

Next Step

• Share notes of discussion with all residents
• Find out what the council process is for making any improvements to the street -Joe - Highways, Glynis - Ward coordinator and local councillors
• Explore this and other options with residents - 'Parking Party' - experiment with a small part of the street for an afternoon
• Explore the idea of having a local car sharing scheme - Dave and Paul to pursue :)

Paul's Photos from the day

http://picasaweb.google.com/glynisjoyfrancis/TorbayRoad?authkey=Gv1sRgCK_xofHqtoXmMA&feat=directlink

If there are any photos you see that you particularly like, contact Paul (44) if you want a larger file size for printing.

2nd Planning Meeting Update

Torbay Road Street Party – Update 2

2nd Planning meeting 12^th July: Amanda, Joe, Linda, Gavin and Jude apologies from Rick, Lia, Glynis

BLOG:

Anyone can contribute to the BLOG through 'comment' boxes and if I have your email address I can set you up to be an author.

Cars and traffic:

Application to have the street closed is being processed.

Funding:

An application for cash grant has been submitted to help with the cost of hiring bouncy castle £50+, canopies 20’ x 12’ @ £75 each, 4’x8’ staging @ £35, sturdy tables @ £7 each and a PA system. Glynis has paid £50 for Public Liability Insurance so far. Tony has set up a community bank account for the street with Barclays.

Decorations:

Joe is proposing to be the ‘man with the ladder’ that secures lengths of rope and bunting across the street. Each house is invited to decorate a length of bunting and Joe will put it up for you. He will call at each house to talk about a safe place for securing it. How’s that for exercise! Bless you Joe.

Suggested Timetable for the day:

Bouncy Castle 3- 6pm  - Ruth would you be happy to coordinate 6 pairs of volunteers doing 30 mins each? 3 - 3.30; 3.30 - 4; 4 - 4.30; 4.30 - 5; 5 - 5.30; 5.30 - 6pm.

Face painting 3 - 4pm - Jude is organiser.

Games 4 - 5pm - Cathy and Linda

Guerilla gardening and bulb planting 4 - 5pm - who fancies organising this?

No-so-big people's talent time 5 - 6pm 

Singing for everyone 6 - 7pm

Big people's talent time 7 - 8pm

Entertainment: Has Torbay Road Got Talent? Rick and Lia (25) have leafleted the street and the talent spotters are out – word has it that Anne Marie is a concert pianist and community singer, Simon plays drums and is a talent musician. Linda will ask if they would lead some street singing and organise some song sheets for us to all join in. Irish dancing, horn blowing, piano and cello practice have also been spotted. 

Games: from egg catching to wellie throwing, ice breakers, slow cycling, human bingo, Joe has offered to source a table tennis table and Amanda is offering dressing up clothes.  Cathy (31) and Linda (21) would be pleased to have your ideas and help.

Food and drink: We would ask everyone to bring food to share....we may want to be a bit more organised about what to bring near the time. We agreed that people should organise their own drink although the idea of sharing a barrel of beer got the thumbs up too.

Young People: Glynis has met with some of the young people in the street and has now set the blog up so that young people can offer their comments, offer to help and their ideas. 

Warmth: Jeremy (31) and David (46) appear to have accepted the invitation to light the braziers or/and BBQs. Thanking you both.

DATE OF NEXT MEETING: WEDNESDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER 8PM - 9PM  @ 46 TORBAY ROAD 

Face painting

Jude (44) has offered to do face painting.

photography

Paul (44) has offered to be the official photographer.

Planning meeting 13 June

Rick, Lia, Jude, Anna, Amanda, David, Linda, Cathy and Glynis with apologies from Gavin, Ruth and Estelle.

Ideas and decisions so far:-

Date and time: Agreed on Saturday 11th September from 3pm to 8pm

Cars and traffic:

Get permission to close the street to traffic and ask people in the middle section if they wouldn't mind moving car off the street for the afternoon/early evening. Paul (44) was volunteered to

help manage that.

Party People: Agreed that the event was just for

people living in the street and that we would not invite 'outsiders' on this occasion. We wanted to

encourage maximum contact and time between residents and make it feel like a safe place.

Decorations: Bunting is essential and we would aim to plant out the tree beds in the street. Jo and Amanda (41) offered to get that started.

Entertainment: Has Torbay Road Got Talent? We agreed to develop the idea of providing a 'stage opportunity' for people to perform. Rick and Lia (25) offered to kick start that one and coordinate equipment.

Games: from egg catching to wellie throwing, ice breakers, slow cycling, human bingo - Cathy (31) and Linda (21) offered to coordinate games.

Funding: Glynis will apply to the ward coordinator for a 'Cash Grant' and take up Tony and Clare's (20) offer to keep an account for us. The grant would be towards the cost of - insurance (£50), bouncy castle, PA system, hire of tables, printing, bulbs, bunting, staging, marquee and incidentals.

Furniture: Suggestion that everyone big a chair and we could even have a 'fine chair competition'. Ask everyone that has a gazebo to put it up and find a way of securing it.....tie guys to bricks, bags of soils or buckets of concrete? Glynis would look into hiring some strong tables as part of the focal point.

Food and drink: We would ask everyone to bring food to share....we may want to be a bit more organised about what to bring near the time. We agreed that people should organise their own drink although the idea of sharing a barrel of beer got the thumbs up too.

Fun for the under 8's: Ruth (26) has offered to coordinate ideas. A bouncy castle is as essential as bunting.

Fun for the over 8's: Glynis with Anna (44) would organise the first planning meeting with young people and we would take it from there.

Warmth: Jeremy (31) and David (46) may have been volunteered to light the braziers or/and BBQ?

Plan B: Contingency would be to invite people to host a 'something - food, game,' at their house and we would circulate between those different housed with umbrellas!!!

DATE OF NEXT MEETING: MONDAY JULY 12TH 8PM - 9PM 46 TORBAY ROAD.