Victoria Park Community Group

Newsletter

Dear Neighbour,

A warm welcome to the Victoria Park Community Group newsletter! We are thrilled to have you as part of our vibrant community, and we are excited to share our vision with you.

Our group is built on the foundation of two key constitutional aims: to bring our residents together for activities that conserve, protect, or improve the character of our beautiful area, and to unite our neighbours in activities that reduce isolation and foster a sense of community spirit.

We firmly believe that a strong, connected community is the key to creating positive change. We are inviting you to be an integral part of this change by becoming an active member of our group. There are countless ways to get involved – from volunteering at our events and activities, to participating in our committee. Your unique skills, ideas, and energy are invaluable in shaping the future of our neighbourhood.

This is an open invitation to come together, to share, to care, and to make our community better, stronger, and more united than ever before. We can achieve great things when we work together. Let's make our area a place we all take pride in calling home. Join us, and let's build an even brighter future for our area!

Warm regards,

Maria Trevis, Chair and Trustee of Victoria Park Community Group

About the Victoria Park Community Group (VPCG)

Your Community Group are your neighbours, we are local people, like you, trying to make a positive difference to the area.

We constituted the Victoria Park Community Group in 2022 and completed our first year in March 2023. Recent achievements include raising funds for a community noticeboard, the coronation big picnic in the park, community litter picks, tree watering and neighbourhood planting. We also have funds to do a big community waste clean up in 2024. We are still a very small group of people trying to do this and it’s not sustainable to keep it going if we don’t have the active help of others.

We also need more volunteers who may be willing to take on committee and/or trustee roles.

I know it can be hard to find time in your life when you are working/parenting/busy/on social media, but we are all busy people.

Somehow, we find time to do this important work and support each other. I’m a believer that good things happen when good people do something. Everyone in our group shares our community values. We are all from different backgrounds and we have built new friendships because of the VPCG.

Many local people were able to celebrate together at our jubilee ‘22, and coronation ’23 picnics. Over the last 1.5 years we have also run litter picks, bulb planting and developed links to other local organisations. If at least 3 or 4 of those people who enjoyed our event, could be part of helping support our future activities, then the community would be all the richer.

We don’t want to be on a committee forever, we just want to make a difference. As people come and go, we will need people to replace them. The building blocks of an active community group have been established and we want it to continue, the reward for being involved gives you a real feeling of achievement and togetherness. We are doing something tangible to make our community even a little bit better.

Upcoming Events

We are still in the planning phase for some of the events below, so please sign up to our group emails by contacting vicpkcommunity@outlook.com, or join our Facebook page for updates www.facebook.com/groups/vicpkcommunity.

• Sun, 19 Nov 2023 (10.30am) - Planter refresh (community planters on George Street & Caroline Street – tidying, weeding, meet by the George Street planters next to the park)
• Sat, 6 Jan 2024 – Terry’s Walk (meeting at 9.50am - email us to reserve your place)
• Early 2024 – Community social event - date TBC
• Mon, 4 March 2024 – VPCG AGM
• Spring 2024 – Big Clean Up - date TBC

For all these events we need volunteers. If you can spare a bit of time and you’d like to join our team of community volunteers we’d love to hear from you.

Email us on the address above.

Call for Bulbs/Plants and volunteers

We want to make our area bloom! We are seeking donations of spring bulbs, cyclamen, hardy perennials, sage, rosemary and more. If you can spare a packet of bulbs, some kitchen herbs, or a hardy perennial, please get in touch with our chair Maria Trevis vicpkcommunity@outlook.com, our next community planting session takes place on:

Sun 19 November 2023.

Whose Job Is It, Anyway?

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.

This story message is clear even if the names are a little confusing. No-one took responsibility so nothing got accomplished. We have a few committed individuals who actively give their time in our area, doing activities like litter picks, sharing food in the community, actively engaging with our Abbey ward councillors to voice our concerns, organising events to make it a better place to live. But, the more people who take responsibility to be part of these positive and inclusive activities, the better our area will be.

There will always be those people who don’t care, don’t have the time or the will, but if those who do, can join us, then we can make our neighbourhood even better. We do not have control over everything in our lives and the world around us, but we all have the power for good in our community.

New VPCG Community Noticeboard

If you’ve been to Victoria Park (George Street end) recently, you will have seen our new noticeboard. We will keep it updated with information and VPCG activities, plus useful information for our community.

The community board was funded by grants from Reading Borough Council, Reading Lions Club and Rotary Club Reading. Useful contact information, & our latest news will be included in the board.

Four things in your power to make your community better

1. Get to know people in your community and take part in our VPCG activities.
   
2. Download and use the Love Clean Streets App.
3. Join our Facebook group and share tips on recycling, recommendations, cooking and more.
   
4. Volunteer for the Victoria Park Community Group.

Your Tool for a Cleaner, Safer Community

Your community group highly recommends you download the Love Clean Streets app to your smartphone. The council does not have the resource to have eyes on every street in Reading, they need our help if things need sorting. You can report things like litter, graffiti, potholes, broken streetlights, and abandoned vehicles and more. The reports go straight to the right department at Reading Borough Council and are mostly actioned within a few days, depending on the issue.

Using the Love Clean Streets app is a simple way to make a big impact on the cleanliness and safety of your community. Available in app stores for Android and iPhone. https://lovecleanstreets.info/

The community activities below are organised by Lifespring Church on the Oxford Road.

The VPCG accepts no liability or responsibility for these events.