We’re looking for local people to take up the reigns and support the park’s development. If you’re passionate about our beautiful park and would like to help make it even better, please come and join the Friends of Forster Memorial Park committee.
All our current roles need to be re-elected at our upcoming AGM – Chair, Treasurer, Secretary, Inclusion Lead and Development Lead. We’d also like to include representatives of park users (dog walkers, sports, children and families, schools, nature, wellbeing) as well as event coordinators.
It might be that you want to use or improve skills you already have, you have a particular interest or links. You may be a specialist in an area and can help us out, or you may want to add to your CV. You will receive ongoing support from the Committee and your support will be vital to help us grow and keep making Forster Memorial Park great again!
Here is some more info but please do get in touch if you’d like to find out more, it’s lots of fun!
- Chair – This is a key role in the friends group. You will build and lead our team and ensure we successfully manage our events, activities and projects and secure funding. You’ll ensure the effective management of the Friends group (policies, procedures etc). You’ll need diplomatic and leadership skills to navigate and balance the various park user, political, council, funding and community relationships and to manage the committee and oversee park development projects. You’ll be an effective strategist and a good networker.
- Secretary – You will support the Chair to ensure the smooth running of the Friends group and everything we do – you’ll be a lynchpin for everything that happens in the park. Essentially this means organising meetings, making sure everything is filed (on google drive and mailchimp) and ensuring we do all the legal and data protection stuff. You will need an eye for detail, great organisational skills and an ability to connect things up and make sure we stay on track. Depending on your time and experience, you could also develop and lead some of our events or projects and support our social media manager or others in the committee.
- Treasurer – You will manage our accounts and process invoices and payments and advice on our spending decisions. If interested, you could seek and/or assess costs for different areas of the park, and develop procurement for this. This would suit someone who likes numbers/ spreadsheets, who can find good deals and negotiate. You would need to commit your time to budget and prepare a simple report/ spreadsheet for our monthly and annual meetings, showing expenditure/ incoming. It would be great to have you more involved in growing the group.
- Inclusion Lead – You will play a vital role in ensuring we develop user-led plans for the park that are inclusive. You will provide helpful advice to ensure all our activities and facilities are accessible and seek to build and maintain links and activities with local organisations working especially with children and people with disabilities, ethnic communities and older people. You will help ensure our plans are co-designed with users and play a key role in the development of some initiatives eg sensory garden.
- Membership Secretary – You will support our growing team of wonderful volunteers and committee members. You will help us to recruit new volunteers to join the team, support them throughout the year, including organising social events and help organise the annual committee election. You will have strong organisational and people skills.
- Development Lead(s) – You will help research user needs, gather evidence, develop plans and write fundraising proposals. You will work as a team with support from the Chair and the rest of the Committee to seek funding to improve the park. You will have strong research, planning and writing skills and the opportunity to manage the implementation of funded projects.
- Park User Representatives – You will represent the views of your park user group (eg dog walkers, families and children, schools, sport, wellbeing etc) and help ensure our plans are co-designed with users. You’ll have excellent diplomatic and people skills.
- Events Secretary (Nature Events) – You will lead our seasonal programme of family nature events and liaise with others who host activities in the park (eg. bird walks, litter picking). You will be supported by a team of volunteers and have the freedom to develop new ideas and partnerships for other events (Apple Day, Catford Arts Trail). You will have exceptional organisational and communication skills and flair to create exciting and interesting events to engage a wide range of park users.
- Events Secretary (Centenary and Borough of Culture) – Next year marks 100 years of Forster Memorial Park, and it is also the year in which Lewisham is London Borough of Culture. To celebrate these important moments we are looking for someone to lead on developing a programme of events and activities which will bring together different groups of park users, and which celebrate the history and future of the park. You will be supported by a team of volunteers and have the freedom to develop new ideas and partnerships. You will have exceptional organisational and communication skills and flair to create exciting and interesting events to engage a wide range of park users.
These roles require maximum one evening (or equivalent) a week as well as attendance at our seasonal events (usually at weekends), site visits and some weekday/evening meetings. We appreciate that supporting local community groups can seem like something that will take up a lot of time and commitment, so we have tried to spread the work between everyone in the committee.
We hope you can get involved. You can do as much, or as little as you can, but we would really appreciate your insight and help. If you don’t feel you can join the committee, we would also welcome you to become a general volunteer to help out at park activities or a Healthy Walk Leader.
To apply: If you are interested in joining our committee, or if you can think of another way to support, then please speak to one of the team at the AGM, get in touch by email volunteeringfofmp@gmail.com, or message us via Facebook or Instagram.
About the Friends of Forster Memorial Park
We are a group of local people who volunteer to maintain, improve and promote our park.
We:
- act as a local user group to get things done in the park
- arrange practical work to improve the park e.g. tree planting, litter picking
- protect the heritage and nature of the park
- fundraise for improvements to the park eg. play areas, cafe, sport and fitness
- engage other local people in the park e.g. inspire local school children, provide social and sport/fitness opportunities and give people a say in how the park is managed