Annual General Meeting

Everyone welcome!

The Annual General Meetings of the Albert Square and St Stephen’s Association, ASSA (covering all residents in Albert Square, St Stephen’s Terrace, Wilkinson Street and Aldebert Terrace) will be held on:

Tuesday 5 July 2011,  St Stephens Church, 8pm

Please do come along from 7.30pm, when refreshments will be available.

Agenda

1. Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on July 6^th 2010
2. Review of the year from Chair
3. Kate Hoey MP
4. QUESTION TIME: your chance to ask questions to ASSA Committee, Kate Hoey and ward councillors
5. Policing report
6. Planning
7. Summer Fair
8. Treasurer’s report and presentation of accounts
9. Election of Officers and Executive Committee for following year
10. Any other business.

Copies of the accounts and the minutes of the last AGM will be available at the meeting. The present Officers and members of the Executive Committee are:

Chair: Chris Morrison; Secretary: Brenda Kirsch;   Treasurer: Sid Stiles;   Honorary Accounts Checker: Tony Andrews. Other Committee members: John Allinson, Jim Davies, Peter Edwards, Rosemary Ellis, Emma Francis, Andy Lindo, Neil Sanders, Alex Wajih, Victoria Wynn

YOUR CHANCE TO GET INVOLVED!

ASSA welcomes the involvement of residents – old and new – as members of the Committee. If you would like to get involved or wish to nominate yourself or someone else for the Committee, please call Chris Morrison on 020 7582 7184 or Brenda Kirsch on 020 7735 6087.

The following stalls are looking for contributions:

•  Cakes – Bring them on the day but let Tash Morrison (email – natasha.morrison@hotmail.co.uk) know beforehand what you are bringing.
•  Plants – Jade Chow (jchow33uk@yahoo.com) is  collecting plants for our uber successful plant stall.
•  Tombola prizes – we are looking for donations of prizes for our Tombola stall. Please let us have your unwanted gifts (unused and in good condition please) or donations of toiletries, craft goods, stationery, chocolates or other items that would make attractive prizes. Please contact Brenda Kirsch on brenda@bskirsch.demon.co.uk with offers of prizes.
• Toys – Toys are always really popular. If you have anything to donate please contact Emma Francis (francisemma@hotmail.com) who is collecting this year.

If you want to help out at the Fair please contact Rosemary Ellis on: (rosemary_ds@hotmail.com), Chris Morrison (assacan@assa.org.uk) or Brenda Kirsch (brenda@bskirsch.demon.co.uk).

We are always looking for people to help out on the day so even if you can’t help beforehand it wold be great if we can get you for a few hours.

We are also interested in corporate donors. Please contact Rosemary Ellis on: (rosemary_ds@hotmail.com), Chris Morrison (assacan@assa.org.uk). The event is very popular and attracts 600+ local residents every year.

Saturday, May 7th

10am-1pm

Albert Square, Aldebert Terrace, St Stephens Terrace, Wilkinson Street & Tradescant Road

There’ll be furniture, clothes, toys, plants, books and lots more being sold and given away (whatever is left goes to the MIND charity).

What do residents need to do? Simply set out a table outside your home before 10 am and sell or give away your unwanted items from there. There is no charge. Tell friends about the event. After 1pm you can either take in your items or leave them to be picked up for the MIND charity in Wandsworth Road. It’s a great opportunity to declutter and Spring Clean!

What does everyone else have to do? Come along and pick up a bargain. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!

Trash or treasure?

When? Saturday 7 May, 10.30am-1.30pm
Where? Outside your house!

Back by popular demand, our next Trash or Treasure street sale takes place on Saturday 7 May, 10.30am-1.30pm. The aim is to sell, swop or give away your unwanted goods – and buy or take away those of your neighbours. All you need do is set up a table outside your house, and away you go. ASSA will do the publicity, organise other community recycling, information and other events at the same, and arrange to clear away your unwanted things at the end of the event by donating them to local charity shops and through a special collection by Lambeth Street Cleaning.

Albert Square Summer Fair

When? Saturday 4 June, 3pm-6pm + Jazz in the square, 7pm-10pm

Book the date – it’s ASSA’s annual summer fair. We are planning our usual spread of stalls and games, an art competition for kids and adults, Vauxhall City Farm, owls, bees, face painting etc… But we need YOU to volunteer to make sure the day goes well.

We are looking for volunteers for the following – and any new ideas or offers from you!

• BBQ
• plant stall
• book stall
• tea/coffee stand
• tombola
• Pimms stall
• music – live or recorded
• raffle
• games
• entrance gate and stewards
• setters up and clearers up

Also – please do let us know if you have spare tables or gazebos that you can lend on the day. Sponsors also gratefully accepted!

If you want to help out at the Fair, or have further ideas or would like more information, please do get in touch with Rosemary Ellis on: rosemary_ds@hotmail.com or Brenda Kirsch on: brenda@bskirsch.demon.co.uk

Look forward to seeing you there!

Background: We suffer from the noise of aircraft coming in to land at Heathrow and at London City Airport.  Flights into Heathrow (like Gatwick and Stansted) are regulated by the Government, but flights into London City are controlled by Newham Council as part of the planning permission for the airport.

Aldebert Terrace is lined up with the northern runway at Heathrow and as traffic has increased over the years the noise has got worse both directly because there are more planes, and because with more planes, they have to join the glide path earlier, so they all come along Aldebert Terrace instead of peeling into the glide path somewhere around Barnes.  Planes normally land and take off into the wind, so we get the Heathrow planes when there is a west wind.  However, Heathrow continues to operate in this westerly mode when the wind comes from the east, provided that it is less than 5 mph.  This is called the “Westerly preference” and was introduced to protect west London from the noise of aircraft taking off.  (In the early days of flying, noise from take-offs was regarded as more important than noise from aircraft coming in to land.  However, aircraft climb much more steeply than they used to (say 15˚) so, though  take-off is noisy, it only affects a small geographical area. The international standard for landing aircraft to approach is 3˚, so they affect people much further away.)

London City was originally approved for use by a modest number of relatively quiet turbo-prop aircraft. However, Newham Council has more recently given permission for larger, much noisier, jets – and BA have devised clever schemes to get big planes in with very little fuel on board, so they can touch down for refuelling in Ireland and then fly to North America.  Obviously, as London City is much closer to us than Heathrow, the planes are much lower.

The organisation campaigning to reduce aircraft noise is called HACAN.  It’s based close to us, in Stockwell Road, and it’s very professional.  Its website is www.hacan.org.uk.  The rest of this report is based on a briefing meeting they held on 23rd September.  (Do consider joining HACAN as an individual member – fighting the economic power of BAA and the airlines is an expensive business.)

The latest: Over the years, the primary objective of the Department of Transport has always seemed to be to foster the aviation industry, rather than to protect its victims.  However,Teresa Villiers, the new Aviation Minister seems much more receptive than her predecessors to addressing noise problems. She seems to have accepted that the noise envelopes from Heathrow and London City should be combined in assessing disturbance, rather than treated as completely separate issues!  This is a real step forward for us – when an east wind gives us relief from Heathrow traffic, we get more from London City.

Abandonment of the third runway at Heathrow was a massive step forward for us.  At the moment, there is a system of runway alternation: for half the day planes take off from the north runway and land on the south; for the other half it is reversed.  So for half the day they are coming along Aldebert Terrace, but at least for the other half the approach lines up with somewhere in the south of Clapham.  If there had been a third runway, we might have had flights over us all day.

Now that the 3rd Runway has been ruled out, HACAN are concentrating on the next achievable aims:

(i). The dozen or so arrivals between 4.20 and 6.00 cause misery to thousands of people, but BAA seem to argue that without them the whole UK economy would collapse!  HACAN have commissioned a serious study from a Dutch firm of economic consultants which should be published in early November, and will form the basis for their next campaign, which will be to stop these night flights.

(ii) HACAN are examining the way approach paths concentrate the noise over particular groups of people.  There may be scope for giving us predictable periods of relief on the lines of current runway alternation.

(iii) HACAN continues to push on the question of whether the 3˚ angle of glide slope needs to be sacrosanct – if planes could come in more steeply, they would affect fewer people.  (At our distance from Heathrow, on a 3˚ approach, planes should be at 3100 feet – but we know that some pilots like to approach the glide path from below, and there’s nothing to stop them coming in lower.)

Other points:

Heathrow at present operates at 99% capacity; there is agreement that this leaves too little flexibility if something goes wrong – Teresa Villiers would prefer 85-90%. If this is achieved, it would reduce the regular volume of noise and the extra disturbance we get, for example, when evening flights are all delayed by some incident.

There is no will in the Government for abandoning the Westerly Preference, so HACAN are not pressing this at present.

Newham Council’s recent granting of planning permission for expansion of London City operations  is being challenged in the High Court by local groups.  We shall wait and see.

Helicopters don’t seem to be comprehensively monitored. Only the police have to record exactly what they do. However, the majority of helicopter traffic is apparently private commercial use – advertising, taking corporate guests to Ascot and Henley, etc.– that surprised us.

HACAN plan a follow-up briefing meeting in November, after their economic report is published, to discuss the night-flights campaign.  That will be the most important next event for ASSA.  We will pass on the details of the meeting through our website and email list, and keep you in touch with the development of the campaign

St Peter’s Residence is a residential home for the elderly run by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The Little Sisters of the Poor, founded by St Jeanne Jugan in 1839, came to England in 1851 and moved to their present site in Meadow Road in 1863.

This is probably the only time you will see a reason like this for a parking suspension…

* Freemans Builing on Clapham Road – currently being developed by Galliard Homes
* Summerhouse in Myatts Fields Park
* Stone horse trough at the top of Vassall Road (near the Union Tavern)

Most other wards have a much larger number of buildings. Are there any other local buildings of interest that you think should be added? The criteria for inclusion includes :
1. Architecture
2. History
3. Close historical association (connections with people or events of borough or national importance)
4. Townscape
5. Age and rarity

If you’d like to suggest any buildings/structures for inclusion on this list, contact Steve at SBradley@lambeth.gov.uk and he will request they be added on your behalf. Let bathsheba99@gmail.com know too!

The show has been put on by the Friends of Tate Library South, with support from ASSA. ASSA donated funds from our Summer Fair 2009 to the Friends to help with the costs of putting on this and similar shows in the library.

Tuesday 6 July 2009,  St Stephens Church, 8pm

Please do come along from 7.30pm, when refreshments will be available.
Agenda
1.      Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on 16 June 2009
2.      Review of the year from Chair
3.      Kate Hoey MP
4.      QUESTION TIME: your chance to ask questions to ASSA Committee, Kate Hoey and ward councillors
5.      Policing report
6.      Summer fair
7.      Planning
8.      Treasurer’s report and presentation of accounts
9.      Election of Officers and Executive Committee for following  year (see below)
10.    Election of Honorary Auditor
11.     Any other business.
Copies of the accounts and the minutes of the last AGM will be available at the meeting.

The present Officers and members of the Executive Committee are:
Chair: Chris Morrison;   Secretary: Brenda Kirsch;   Treasurer: Sid Stiles;   Honorary Accounts Checker: Tony Andrews
Other Committee members: John Allinson, Jim Davies, Peter Edwards, Rosemary Ellis, Emma Francis, Andy Lindo, Neil Sanders, Alex Wajih, Victoria Wynn

YOUR CHANCE TO GET INVOLVED!

ASSA welcomes the involvement of residents – old and new – as members of the Committee. If you would like to get involved or have queries about this, or wish to nominate yourself or someone else for the Committee, please call Chris Morrison on 020 7582 7184 or Brenda Kirsch on 020 7735 6087.