Monthly bulletin July 2022
Beverley Brook Litter Picking
Left: Some of the rubbish collected – the blue trug is our water borne collection vehicle. © Stephen Russell.
The Beverley Brook litter picking team
Left to right: Brian McDonald, Jed Baxter, Belinda Physick and Bill Munro. In addition, Janet Bostock helped out on the banks and Stephen Russell took the photograph © Stephen Russell.
Following a break as a result of the oil spill, our Beverley Brook litter pickers were back on duty on 28 June. It was warm and the Brook was running well and really quite deep in parts of the restored areas.
Some 45 plastic and glass bottles and around 24 cans were removed. 8 black bags of rubbish were collected including plastic bags (shredded or whole), fabrics, plastic bottle tops, lumps of metal, tyre, piping, polystyrene blocks, golf balls, tennis/dog balls and a sign.
The Royal Parks Bird watching competition
As part of its Help Nature Thrive initiative: https://www.royalparks.org.uk/whats-on/latest-news/the-royal-parks-announces-the-launch-of-help-nature-thrive-with-the-support-of-players-of-peoples-postcode-lottery , The Royal Parks is hosting a bird watching photography competition with a top prize of binoculars worth £400. Entrants need to take a photograph of one of the birds included on the parks’ bird spotter sheets and send it to competition@royalparks.org.uk or submit via The Royal Parks’ social media channels. The panel of judges includes David Lindo – aka The Urban Birder – and Nigel Jackman, Chairman of the Richmond Park Bird Group.
There is more information on The Royal Parks website: https://www.royalparks.org.uk/help-nature-thrive/how-to-get-involved/competition
The Friends at Ham Fair – Saturday 11 June 2022
© Lucy Tarleton
The Friends returned to a local fair after a three year Covid absence. We had a successful and enjoyable day at Ham Fair on Saturday 11 June. We had a steady flow of visitors to our stall all day, helped by the Discoverers’ bird nest display and badge making activity. We raised awareness of the Friends with many visitors to the stall interested in becoming members. We had a number of items for sale, with the top selling products being the jars of Richmond Park honey and the sets of Walks with Remarkable Trees. Thank you to the volunteers from the Events, Visitor Centre and Discoverers teams for making this a success.
Honours for Friends’ Patrons
We have been pleased to see Friends of Richmond Park patrons Sir David Attenborough and Clare Balding recently receive honours.
Sir David Attenborough received a second knighthood on 8 June from the Prince of Wales. He was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George for his services to television broadcasting and conservation.
Clare Balding was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours for services to broadcasting and charity.
Congratulations to Sir David and Clare.
Richmond Park Bus
The Richmond Park bus is running again this summer. The free bus service operates every Wednesday, from 9:40am until 4:10pm. The minibus has disabled access and runs between all the Richmond Park car parks, Ladderstile Gate, Richmond Gate, Pembroke Lodge and Isabella Plantation. The service starts and finishes at the barrier in Danebury Avenue on the Roehampton Estate and also goes to Ham, Ashburnham Road (371 bus stop) and Ham Common, Ham Gate Avenue (near to 65 bus stop). For full details and the timetable see The Royal Parks website.
Friends AGM minutes
We have previously reported that our AGM was held in April with around 80 attendees. The minutes are now available on our website:
https://www.frp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/FRP-AGM-2022-Minutes.pdf