Barbers Alley look out! Friends of Barbers Alley have plans for you

From small acorns, mighty oaks do grow – Report from the Barbers Alley community meeting 22nd March

With six local people, we came up with some AMAZING IDEAS FOR BARBERS ALLEY. 🙂 To get things rolling, it was agreed thebest step would be to establish a ‘Friends of Barbers Alley’ group. This is under way, it’s an informal group and open anyone willing to get involved. So far it’s members are Michelle, Shaun, Antoinette, Rose and Fred but we know it will grow, and if you look at the video you will see that Mark (who couldn’t make the meeting) wants to get involved too.

Some of the ideas:

• Plants: evergreen, colourful, flowers, bulbs, herbs, unusual grasses (big hair shaped plants – ‘barbers alley!’), themed by continents,
• painting the ground: different shades of green, colours, cat paw prints (for alley cats),
• strings of lights/light bulbs criss-crossing above, park railings painted,
• events: such as markets, farmers market, night market, street food,
• arts events and cartoonists, more murals including Fred’s alley cats.

We knew that some of these ideas may not work out, may need to raise funds/get permissions, and some may not work for the people living next to the alley – but, hey, what vision for a funky, busy, community space!  You will see on the video that earlier residents meetings had similar ideas and a vision for the space.

The wooden planters work-day being organised by PSBL will be the first focus (probably in May), and helping to choose plants, get people to help on the day, watering/maintenance of the plants.

However the group felt that there is nothing stopping them organising a small event before then, just to try something out and learn from it – maybe an exercise class, an arts session, a children’s play event.

“As a community worker, its always uplifting to see the ideas and enthusiasm for people wanting to make positive change, although they lead busy lives. The enthusiasm was sky high! Our job now is to make sure that something happens quickly enough so that the energy does not dissolve which is an easy thing to happen. The group were right about trying something small, even before our planter work-day, so that words are turned to actions. Milena and I will be delighted to help support this.” Ros Southern

Next step – if you want to join Friends of Barbers Alley, get in touch. The next meeting will decide on what simple mini event to try out soon.  We will also be looking at choosing plants for the planters.

For more info on our recent meeting see the video  that includes a short update on some of events that have already taken place leading up to our first formal community meeting last week.