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BCA Minutes | Development Sub Committee | Disability and Mobility | Constitution
Introducing
the Brookvale area and Brookvale Community Association
Brookvale is a thriving community in the heart of
Basingstoke, Hampshire,
England. The Brookvale Community Association (BCA)
was set up in 1973 by local residents eager to protect the area, after a
large part of the ward (all of Brook
Street, most of May Street and the east end of
Lower Brook Street)
was torn down by eager town centre developers. The first meeting was held at the King
George V Playing Fields on Deep
Lane, and most of the concerned community
attended. The Association was
successful in its mission and the historic area, with its beautiful
Victorian homes, was saved.
In May 1983, after years of fund raising and the
provision of grants from Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council and
Hampshire County Council, Brookvale Village Hall was completed and has been
a central focal and meeting point for the community ever since. A much needed extension was added in 1987
with money raised entirely by the residents of Brookvale. A large part of the Hall was destroyed in
a fire in December 1999 and the Association was pushed to crisis point, but
residents again rallied around to make the rebuild happen, and both the
Association and a newly rebuilt Hall continues to operate to this day.
The BCA represents the interests of the Brookvale
community. We have a formal
constitution in which the BCA’s objectives are outlined as follows:
“[The BCA exists for the] benefit of the inhabitants of
Brookvale and the neighbourhood … by associating the local authorities,
voluntary organisations and inhabitants in a common effort to advance
education and to provide facilities in the interests of social welfare for
recreation and leisure time occupation, with the object of improving the
conditions of life for the said inhabitants. [The BCA] will establish a Community
Centre [and maintain and manage this] Centre for activities promoted by the
Association and its constituent bodies in furtherance of the above.”
For more detail, you can look at the text of our
constitution (PDF – 145 KB).
For the BCA to run successfully there should be,
ideally, ten members. There has to be a Treasurer, Secretary and
Chairman for the committee to actually function, but on the current
committee we have a Booking Agent, Mobility and Disabilities officer, Hall
Maintenance team, Lottery Agent as well as committee members who have
various other organising roles. New committee members are always
welcome; to get involved people need to be proposed, seconded and voted
onto the committee. There are also street reps.
What
does BCA do for Brookvale residents today?
We represent the voice of Brookvale residents in local
planning issues. We liaise with
Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council (B&DBC), Hampshire County
Council (HCC) and our local councillors on any planning issues that have an
impact on the Brookvale area.
We report problems in the Brookvale area to B&DBC
and HCC such as graffiti, vandalism, flytipping, road problems, refuse
collection problems, damage to council property etc. and see that these
issues are resolved. We are sure you
will agree that keeping on top of these problems is very important and has
a dramatic impact on the general perception of the area and also our
quality of life. If you discover any
problems that you would like us to report and follow through, please
contact us.
We liaise with our local councillors on a range of
matters affecting Brookvale residents. This is a two-way relationship. Our
councillors, who are present at our monthly committee meetings, regularly
feed back information about issues that are of importance to Brookvale
residents. We also directly raise issues with our councillors, rather than
dealing with a faceless council. Our councillors then escalate these issues
on our behalf, directly with the relevant council department (contact
details for our local councillors can be found on the Local Information
page).
We organise a wide range of community events. We
organise coffee mornings, barbecues, picnics, a Ladies Night group, themed
social get-togethers (such as Murder Mystery nights, quiz nights, skittles
etc.) and outings outside the local area (details of our upcoming events
can be on our Events page) . We would love to hear from you if you have any
ideas for a community event. We would also like to hear from you if you
have some spare time to help organise these events. Please email info@brookvale.org.uk
We rent out our Village Hall in order to fund these
events and activities. Keeping the Hall running takes up hours of our
volunteers’ time. When the BCA was formed, we didn’t have a community
centre.
In addition to the income derived from Hall bookings,
we run the Brookvale Lottery in order to raise money for our community
activities and the upkeep of the Hall. If you don’t already play, see our
Lottery page for more information.
In order to keep the community informed of all these
local issues and events, we publish Blurb, our regular publication, and
this, our website, www.brookvale.org.uk
Recently, Brookvale Community Association has been
involved in the redevelopment of Victory Hill (which is now part of the
Brookvale ward) and Basingstoke town
centre, as well as traffic management reviews in our own and neighbouring
wards including Victory Roundabout.
Over the years, we have also been involved in the development of the
old Thornycroft site (which is now the Morrisons supermarket) as well as
the Basingstoke College of Technology (BCOT) rebuilding project.
Registered
Charity
The BCA is a registered charity, number 269386. For
more information on what this means, see the Charity Commission’s
website.
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