ORIGINAL PURPOSE:
The purpose of this website has changed. I started it up in November 2016 because the Heaton Mersey Village Conservation Group Committee (HMVCG) had become inactive and silent – essentially disappeared from sight. We thought we could possible start a new group – “Friends of Heaton Mersey Greenspaces” was suggested. But we were not allowed to start a new group. Why? – because as a VIP council guy said: “We can’t have two groups covering the same area”. (The HMVCG Constitution and website say they look after the Park – and the Council believed this claim.)

CHANGE IN PURPOSE:
We volunteers started doing work session in June 2015. From that time until February 2017, we thought we were HMVCG members (The HMVCG Constitution says ”

• membership will be open to all persons with an interest in the welfare of  the area”.)

During this time we were starting to notice that there were never HMVCG meetings, nor had there been an AGM for at least 6 years (where we could get reports, esp reports showing financial accountability.) With the help the Council, we finally got a meeting with three HMVCG Committee members. We learned for the first time: “Volunteers are not members”. We agreed to continue working as “local residents”, not as “HMVCG volunteers”. Independent, but under the “umbrella” of the HMVCG (they had the money; they had the tools). The purpose of the website after Feb 2017:
Me Mr Nice Guy – encouraging visitors to the site to go to the HMVCG site and possibly become volunteers. I kept out negative statements about the HMVCG and mentioned their activity as a pressure group against a projected bio-mass plant (See the Archive page.)

ANOTHER CHANGE IN PURPOSE:
Setting the scene…. By tacit agreement of most of the core volunteers, they were absorbed back into the HMVCG in July 2017. In all conscience, I could not follow. The HMVCG is an organisation that is
(1) opaque to the point of secrecy (no public meetings, secret AGMs, etc);
(2) exclusive (volunteers cannot be members; members must live in the Conservation Area (an area that contains only 427 residences, just a fraction of the Heaton Mersey population. (By the way, their Constitution says anyone with an interest can be a member.)
(3) lacking in accountability (volunteers don’t have the right to see what money comes in, what money goes out).
Me no longer Mr Nice Guy. I sat on my hands for a year, hesitant about “making waves”. I have a sort-of hobby looking at the many other Friends groups in Stockport that have an internet presence. I am envious of groups like Friends of Etherow Park (and many other “normal” groups!), and sad and bewildered that we are stuck with a weird group like the HMVCG. And I cannot encourage people to become volunteers – this just acts towards legitimising this weird group.
THERE IS NO FRIENDS GROUP LOOKING AFTER HEATON MERSEY PARK & BOWL. How could a member of the Heaton Mersey Village Conservation Group (HMVCG) look me in the face and say it isn’t true (unless they have been getting lessons from President Trump’s Press Secretary!)?
Click here for their “alternative facts”.

Don’t we deserve better in Heaton Mersey?

End of rant.