Your co-chairs, Julia and Richard, gave a talk to the Wandsworth Society on Valentine’s Day about the background to the Friends’ launch, what we’d achieved in our first year and what our vision was for the Friends going forward. There might have been better ways of spending Valentine’s Day (!) but it was a useful exercise to go through and reminded us what a busy year it’s been and what a long way we’ve come with the help of our members, volunteers and committee. You can read the talk here.

We’ve also had more meetings with the Council. We were invited, along with selected other community groups, to meet Council leader Ravi Govindia to talk about general issues affecting our groups, how the Council might help and communicate better with us. We also had a joint meeting, organised by the MAC, with Paul Martin, Chief Executive of the Council, to start exploring a way forward for Neal’s Lodge - the building in the middle of the Common which has been empty for more than a decade. That will be a big issue for this year. We ended the month on Wandsworth Radio’s ‘People and Places’ programme. You can hear the interview here