Drake House, 9 July 2002

Present:

Peter Davis, Leonard Mostyn, Colin Mc Dermott, Andrew Wakefield, Helen Bramsted, Marcus Beale, Saleem Sheikh, Venerable Lom , John Crossman , Louise Rawlins and Michael Denton as observer.

Apologies were received from Nasim Shah, Christine Goodair, John Ellison, Robert Devcic, Liz Nelson, Slim Flegg, Peter Cargin, Belinda Leathes, John Nelson Jones, Adrian Barnes, Luc Moens and Stewart Page.

1. Nominations for Chairman of the Governing Council.

John Crossman – Hon Sec. had not received any nominations for Chairman.

A discussion took place concluding with an agreement from PD to act as Chairman for no more than one year from this meeting.

Andrew Wakefield offered to be supportive to PD but is concerned about possible conflicts of interests with his other activities. At the next meeting a Vice Chair will be elected, as proposed in the Away Day in June 2001.

MB confirmed that the way the WCF has been reconfigured means there will continue to be Discusson Forums ie the operational side of things will be taken care of by the Executive but the Governing Council will be the eyes and ears of the community and will guide the Executive. This should result in the more onerous job being that of Chair of the Executive rather than Chairman of the Governing Council.

PD and MB agreed to discuss further the ideas and issues which had been raised before the next meeting.

2. Report from the Executive Committee

Composition of the Committee . The Executive had met that morning with MB as Chairman, Christine Goodair as Vice Chairman, Colin McDermott as Hon. Treasurer and LR as Manager. John Ellison has retired due to ill health.

Office staffing. MB reported that discussions had taken place with a view to moving the WCF office from John Strover's offices to new offices shared with Merton Chamber of Commerce. AW confirmed his role in these discussions and that the move will happen in one month's time.

LR is leaving the WCF on 18 July 02 and it is hoped that Ad Hoc Business Support will tide us over the hiatus before the appointment of new staff

Activities. A number of Discussion Forums have been held and MB listed them. He commented that Discussion Forums which work well have strong and effective Chairmen. John Ellison is working on finding a replacement Chair for the Transport Forum and it is planned that links will be established with the South London Partnership which is one of the four corridors of opportunity for London. It sees its main deliverable result in terms of transport improvement so should work with WCF on this. There is no Chair for the Crime Forum and members were asked to identify suitable candidates.

Health Forum is chaired by Bob Welchman, supported by Bert Johnson.

Education Forum chaired by Adrian Barnes who will retire in January 2003 and hopes to take a more active role after this. In the meantime a Forum is being set up on 2 October on Faith Schools which will be co hosted by WCF and the Interfaith Group.

The Urban Design Taskforce holds 3 or 4 meetings a year

The Friends Committee is very active.

MB sees the website as a very important tool for the Civic Forum and it will be restructured over the next 6 weeks to make it more attractive and user friendly.

Budget Colin McDermott produced a brief summary budget for 2001 to 2004.

The budget for year 4 is for when the lottery grant runs out and we need the security of knowing that WCF can continue without community funding. There will be an office with a computer and all volunteer staff. We can have confidence for the future

3 Discussion Forums

Leonard Mostyn thought that WCF was in danger of holding too many generalised discussions and that in order to get anywhere it is necessary to put points forward to appropriate bodies and to get meaningful feedback.

MB said that we must rely on the Governing Council to feed through topics that the community is interested in discussing. Issues need not fall precisely into the subject areas of the existing Forums.

MB talked about Local Area Forums and working more closely with them. Leonard Mostyn said that these meetings were usually attended by a high percentage of Councillors and that this is a problem.

MB said that WCF has to deal with LBM and that we have an expertise which we can bring to bear. WCF can also demonstrate independence of party politics.

LM said that Residents Associations are cynical about the LAF consultations.

Andrew Wakefield said he felt the GC should support MB while accepting LM’s opinion as Chair of WURA. WCF needs to be seen as a positive, supporting agency. PD said WCF’s policy should be to work to improve LBMs LAFs. This was agreed.

4 Forum Policy: PD said that if the role of the Governing Council is to set the policy framework for the WCF the question is how do we set it? One solution would be to address particular issues as they come up, another would be to have a written statement of policy.

MB proposed putting forward the plans of the Executive over the next 12 months and then seeking GC approval. He wants the GC to be visionary.

PD asked MB to tell the GC what its plans are, for the next 12 months, at the next GC meeting.

AW requested a diary listing which MB confirmed is in hand.

MB also confirmed that notes from the Executive will be posted on the website in the near future. He will prepare a report from the Executive to the GC in future.

5. Timing and Dates for future meetings

15 October 2002
14 January 2003
15 April 2003
7 July 2003

All on Tuesday evenings at 6.30 to 8.00

6. Any Other Business. Venerable Lom said that the Temple had been burgled twice in the past week. Sympathy was expressed over this.

AW said that thefts are a problem for Churches, Temples and Synagogues. and he wondered about the use of CCTV? If the WCF is about working for a better Wimbledon then we should encourage the citizens of the community to respect and value all public places.

The next topic for the Crime Forum could be ‘Our individual responsibility’

Slim Flegg had sent an email expressing a particular interest in the issue of disabled access.

PD thanked everyone for coming to the meeting and it closed at 7.50pm