First meeting of the Friends of Hither Green Triangle Nature Reserve on Wednesday the 30th April

The Triangle is one of the best kept secrets in the ward. It's a surprisingly quiet and peaceful area of land in a gully between platforms 4 & 5 on Hither Green station which had become derelict until my colleague Cllr Andrew Milton (Lewisham Central ward) and I kick started the restoration process by making funding available from the 2005 Locality Fund. Since 2005, working in partnership with Network Rail (who own the land and generously provided a new access staircase to the site), Southeastern (who operate the station), Envirowork Lewisham (who generously donated funding and the workforce to clear the site) and Lewisham Council, a lot of progress has been made towards restoring the site to its former glory. We are now at a stage in the restoration process where the local community can get involved and we made funding available in the 2008 Locality Fund to establish a Friends of Hither Green Triangle Nature Reserve to take the work forward and ensure the Triangle's long term survival.

The first meeting of the newly formed Friends of Hither Green Triangle Nature Reserve group will be on Wednesday the 30th April at 7.30pm in the Parish Room of the Good Shepherd Church in Handen Road, and this is the proposed agenda for the meeting:

1. Approval of the proposed constitution.
3. Election of a Chair, Secretary and Treasurer, and any other officers as required by the groups constitution.
4. Amend or revise signatories to the Co-op Bank application if applicable.
5. Discuss the Friends agenda for the rest of 2008.
6. Arrange the date and venue of the next meeting.
7. AOB (Any Other Business)

At this meeting the Friends are looking to elect a Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. Would you like to join the group and take on one of these roles? The constitution only proposes 4 meetings a year so the work load shouldn't be too onerous and you'd be making a big contribution to our local community. If you'd like to discuss what you'd be expected to do please feel free to either email (preferred) or call me on: 020 8297 4849.

To support the group we've also set up a Yahoo Group for the Friends which is open to all members. Yahoo Groups are essentially mailing lists (but with a lot of additional features), and the idea of it is to improve communication and reduce the number of meetings everyone will need to attend. How the group works is very simple; every email you send to the group goes to all members, and issues and ideas can be discussed between meetings. It is also a useful place on the Internet to store files relating to the Triangle and allows you to only download what you need/want to read.

This is a very exciting opportunity to bring a unique and once derelict piece of land back into community use. Why not come along to the meeting on the 30th and be a part of restoring the Triangle to its former glory?