(Richmond) Environmental Groups' Forum

The Open Spaces Forum has become the Environmental Groups' Forum. The change reflects a need to provide the services and a forum for the environmental sector in addition to just parks groups.

The number of active "Friends" groups, community associations, and environmental volunteer groups in the borough highlights the passion that residents feel for their local parks, open spaces and the environmental value of the borough. These committed and highly informed organisations, many of which have been active for a long time, are the building blocks for consultation on parks and open spaces and on wider environmental issues, and it is recognised that there is the need to secure the involvement of these groups, as representatives of local communities, in decisions about the environment. The Environmental Groups' Forums, facilitated by REN, is one of the vehicles for groups to share information, good practice and network and for the Council to meet and jointly discuss plans and goals for the borough.

The Environmental Groups' Forum provides participants with a range of benefits, including better consultation between the council and groups, a co-ordinated approach to the management of open spaces, the opportunity to share good practice, network with other groups, access to funding information, and a commitment from the council and the groups to ensure that the borough's open spaces are developed and maintained for all to enjoy.

The objectives of the Environmental Groups' Forum is to develop the existing network of "Friends" groups, conservation groups, and other environmental groups, and to encourage and support information and good practice sharing whilst also representing a cross-section of users and provide a communication mechanism between the groups, Richmond Environment Network and the council.

We are looking to organise an Environmental Groups' Forum during July 2008 to bring together all the borough's environmental groups. We are proposing to try and cover as many different topics of interest that we can in this event. To allow this to happen we proposing to trial a new type of discussion forum technique, which we've recently learnt and participated in elsewhere. It allows discussions to take place around multiple subjects and we hope by using this approach that more of the topics, ideas and issues you suggest can be covered and answers provided or sought. In order for your group to benefit and participate in all the discussions we welcome as many members of your group who would like to participate to attend. We hope by having people attend who have different roles and responsibilities within your group that this will provide an opportunity for networking with people who have similar roles in other groups. If you are a local group (Richmond upon Thames) then please complete this questionnaire for us Click here to take survey

Previous Forums

The most recent Open Spaces Forum meeting was held on 17th October 2006 and covered Your Say 2017 (an opportunity for people to comment on the development of the borough’s Community Plan for the next ten years). There was also an opportunity for participants to ask Reg Leach (Parks Operations Manager) and Andy Smith (Contact Manager with Viola, the councils parks contractor) questions about the care and maintenance of the borough's public spaces, such as aftercare of newly planted areas, watering facilities, tool supply, graffiti, vandalism or other misuse of public areas, relationships with the Service Team, or plans for specific sites. We also conducted survey of the invitees opinions of the Forum, the results of which can be found by following this link http://www.surveymonkey.com/DisplaySummary.asp?SID=2763029&U=276302999315

At the Open Spaces Forum on 22nd March 2006, the main topic was fundraising, in response to requests from many groups, with a talk by Jane Selman from Richmond CVS. There was also a consultation on a couple of issues concerning the borough's parks and open spaces.