Massive grant to Love Lowndes makes park dreams a reality!

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We have some amazing news to share.

The Love Lowndes team has just found out that their application to the Veolia Environmental Trust has been successful!

Veolia is supporting the new playground project with a whopping £75,000 grant – the full amount applied for.

Love Lowndes is our voluntary community group dedicated to raising enough money to build a new playground in Lowndes Park. You can read more about them on our project page.

Claire Wyatt, Chair of Love Lowndes, says “We are absolutely over the moon! We are a very small team of volunteers who have worked tirelessly to raise the money needed for a new playground in Lowndes Park. This news takes us a step closer to building the inclusive, exciting and destination playground we dream of for the children of Chesham.”

Months of hard work went into the application process. Special mention must go to Isabelle Hatfield, who leads the grant funding application work for Love Lowndes, and Kathryn Graves (the Community, Economy & Environment Manager at Chesham Town Council)who has also worked incredibly hard on the application and committed many ‘out of work’ hours to making Love Lowndes the success it is.

There was also a special meeting of local environmental experts who helped with an important element of the application process. So, thanks must also be sent to Cllr. Justine Fulford, Trevor Brawn and Laura Silverstone for contributing their knowledge and time.

The Veolia Environmental Trust uses money to support community and environmental projects through the Landfill Communities Fund (LCF). The LCF is a tax credit scheme designed to compensate for the negative impacts of landfill sites on surrounding communities and the environment. Under the Scheme, landfill operators like Veolia are required to allocate a portion of their Landfill Tax liability to not-for-profit organisations to support various initiatives such as environmental conservation, improvements to community infrastructure, and recreational projects, all aimed at improving the quality of life and environment in areas adjacent to landfill sites.

I think we can all agree that their contribution will make a massive difference to our project.

Love Lowndes is still actively fundraising.

Advertise-Love-Lowndes
Over the last 18 months, the Love Lowndes team has raised nearly £55,000 via events like the Pumpkin Parade, hosting comedy nights at the Elgiva Theatre and engaging the wider community through with various fundraising endeavours.

The Chesham community is at the heart of Love Lowndes’ success. A key part of the funding application to Veolia was proving that Love Lowndes is supported and endorsed by local people and businesses.

But their work isn’t done!

“Playgrounds are wildly expensive” continues Wyatt, “Building work is due to start in the early Spring but in order to deliver the best possible park for our children, we must keep going. We are actively seeking business sponsors to take up advertising opportunities in the park and we’ll also be doing a ‘buy a brick’ scheme for a path in the new playground just before Christmas – please help and watch this space!”

If you’re interested in becoming a Sponsor of Love Lowndes, please contact Claire on lovelowndes@gmail.com

To make a donation, please visit the Love Lowndes Crowdfunder page.

Children of Chesham raise £3804 towards a new playground in Lowndes Park

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A HUGE thank you to the schools in Chesham for raising £3804 towards the new playground in Lowndes Park.

On 12th February, many of the schools across Chesham took part in a mufti day by wearing ‘Something Colourful’ in aid of Love Lowndes. It was a wonderful community initiative which involved over 2000 children and was spearheaded by Nuno Alexandre, Headteacher of Chartridge Combined School. We think that this is the first time that the local schools have come together for an inter-school mufti day to raise funds and awareness for a community project.

Speaking about the initiative, Mr Alexandre said:

“ We were incredibly proud to take part in the ‘Fund the Fun’ non-uniform day. It was wonderful to witness the participation of numerous schools in Chesham and the surrounding areas. The children have shown such enthusiasm and dedication towards this project, which aims to raise funds for the development of the playpark at Lowndes Park. I would like to extend our appreciation to all the volunteers at Love Lowndes for leading such a commendable initiative that showcases the unity and support within our local area. The children of Chesham will benefit hugely from the enhancements to the park which will become an even greater asset to our wonderful community.”

Claire Wyatt, Project Leader of Love Lowndes said:

“Wow, we’ve been blown away by the response to the mufti day! Seeing so many schools and children come together to support us has been amazing; and we’ve raised way more than we could have dreamed. Such engagement really helps with our grant fund applications. And it also sends a powerful message to our County and Town Councils that the park is loved and that our community desperately want a new playground.”

As well as wearing colourful clothes for the day, some of the children contributed to the campaign by designing their dream playground! Some of these can be seen below. Watch this Facebook video of the pupils at Brushwood Junior School telling us what they would like to see in the new playground! We very much look forward to working with the schools again on this project in the future.

Thank you to the following schools for taking part, and the generous donations from the parents:

  • Brushwood Junior School
  • Chartridge Combined School
  • Chesham Prep School
  • Elmtree Infant & Nursery School
  • Hawridge and Cholesbury Church of England School
  • Heritage House School
  • Ivingswood Academy
  • Ley Hill School
  • Newtown School
  • Our Lady’s Catholic Primary School
  • Waterside Primary Academy

A few comments from parents who contributed:

“Wonderful colourful idea in drab January to involve the children in a fantastic project” Lorna Barnes, local parent via Crowdfunder

“Fab Initiative! Lowndes is such a lovely park and local kids deserve a nice, safe place to play” Lucy Clark – local parent via Crowdfunder

“We Love Lowndes and cannot wait for this new playground for our son and all children to enjoy!” Jonida Andoni – local parent via Crowdfunder

“We have such a beautiful park in Chesham and it deserves all the love and attention to bring it up to date. Big thanks to everyone who’s making this happen and for giving our kids a new amazing park they can enjoy for many years to come.” Sabrina Norris, local parent via Crowdfunder

 

Love Lowndes is a volunteer group in Chesham who is working with Chesham Town Council and Friends of Lowndes Park to raise over £150k to build a new playground in Lowndes Park, Chesham. The current playground is worn out, inaccessible and badly designed, the children of Chesham deserve so much better! Chesham Town Council has created an ambitious masterplan for Lowndes Park, the funds raised by Love Lowndes will contribute to the first phase of the plan, to create a new, exciting and accessible play area for the children of Chesham.

So far we have raised £50,000 towards the new playground.

Find out more about the campaign, and donate via our Love Lowndes Crowdfunder website. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram or X and watch our campaign video.

If you have been inspired to run your own fundraising event to raise money for Love Lowndes, or wish to ask us any questions about the campaign, please email us at lovelowndes@gmail.com

 

Love Lowndes – an end of year update

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Love Lowndes – the story so far!

Wow! Well, what a year it’s been!

As we head towards the end of the year it felt the right time to reflect on all the great things we’ve achieved so far with Love Lowndes.

We’re well on our way to our target:

So far we’ve raised just over £44,500!

Here’s a little roundup of our activities and the amazing progress we’ve made towards our target of building a brand new, accessible destination playground in Lowndes Park, Chesham.

January 2023

The year kicked off with us officially forming as a group. We were born out of a Chesham Town Council open meeting about the state of Lowndes Park. A few of us decided we needed a special group just to focus on the play equipment as it seemed, to us, to be the number one priority.

February 2023

Endless planning and research! We knew we had a mammoth task ahead of us so wanted to have a strategic approach. We decided the summer and autumn would be all about events and engaging with the people of Chesham. Behind the scenes we’d be researching large grant funds and coordinating our corporate sponsorship offer. Timing us everything! We discovered that many grant funds have strict rules about how quickly you need to build after they give you the donation. So, we decided to hold off applications until we’d raised some money ourselves.

March/ April 2023

We pursued the idea of a Lowndes Park Masterplan. We knew it would be crazy to raise the money for a new playground and just plonk it somewhere in our already muddled park. The team at the Friends of Lowndes Park successfully lobbied the Council and helped find the funds for a professional Masterplan to be created.

That way, any playground we create would sit harmoniously within a park that has a strategic vision for the next 100 years.

We commissioned local photographers to capture the park in all it’s glory and to document the problems. This would help with our marketing, fundraising and grant applications. Huge thanks to Middleton Man and Matt Writtle.

May 2023

We decided on our name and commissioned logos from the amazing Claire Vickers. We set up our Crowdfunder and arranged all our social media profiles.

We made contact with Chesham’s Mayor for 2023-2024 Wilford Augustus. He agreed to make us one of his main charitable organisations for all his fundraising effort whilst Mayor.

June 2023

Love Lowndes was officially launched at the Schools of Chesham Carnival. With the help of Claire Vickers who created our logo, Hello Designs who made our flyer, and SignX graphics who printed and donated the two large vinyls and the pop-up banner. It was wonderful to finally meet the people of Chesham and hear stories of how desperate they are for a new playground.

July 2023

We took a stand at the Hats Off festival. It was great to connect with the people of Chesham again.

August and September 2023

Clocktober Fest – huge thanks to Trekkers Bar for making us their charity partners. It was great to see so many people engaging with our message and donations flooding in.

October 2023

Our autumn season of events were a huge success. Our afternoon kids’ comedy show with the Noise Next Door raised the roof (and a lot of cash!) and the evening Stand-Up for Love Lowndes show was a near sell-out. On a single day we raised just over £5,000! Huge thanks again to Mark Rann, Toby Friedner, Alex Horne and all the acts for making it happen.

The Pumpkin Parade was a magical moment in the park – with calls for it to become an annual community event! It was swiftly followed by an adorable afternoon back the Elgiva for a screening of Spookley the Square Pumpkin. Both events had a huge turnout.

We were thrilled that My Marvellous Monster created a bespoke piece of art for our Pumpkin Parade and auctioned it for us and so grateful to The Rocket Oven who gave all their profits from the food they sold at the Pumpkin Parade to Love Lowndes. Thank you also to local amateur photographers Alex Martin and Darren Cooper for capturing the event so perfectly on film.

Check out the Bucks Free Press article about it.

November 2023

Our film is now live! You can see it at the top of the page and on YouTube. Massive thanks to Candice Channing-Williams and her friends and family for coordinating the shoot and Andy Turvey for editing. And thanks of course to all the people who spoke to us and gave their thoughts – even if you didn’t make the cut, your help was invaluable. This film will help promote us and explain the huge case for action we have to our grant bodies we’re applying to.

November also saw the release of the Lowndes Park Masterplan document. We now know the new playground will be placed within a coherent plan for the whole park.

So, now what?

Well, we’re taking a brief Christmas break from big events to focus on family and work – we’re all volunteers after all!

But work is still going on behind the scenes on Grant Applications, Corporate Sponsorship and fundraising plans for 2024.

And we’re thrilled to be working with the majority of the infant and primary schools across Chesham on a Mufti Day in January. The children will be encouraged to come to school dressed in colourful clothes and donate money to our cause. Special thanks to Mr Alexandre, Headteacher at Chartridge Combined School for coordinating all the schools for us.

For now, And you can still help by donating to our Crowdfunder, or buying the Chesham Calendar from JPS Stationers, and using Easy Fundraising to donate for FREE whilst your doing all your Christmas shopping.

And Wilford Augustus, Chesham’s Mayor, has made us one of his main charities and has run many events so far with more to come.

So far we’ve raised just over £44,500. We have a long way to go, but we’re confident we’ll get there.

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who’s helped us on the journey so far. Whether that be donation, attending an event, helping us, donating their time or skills or simply spreading the word – we couldn’t do it without you.

Watch this space!

Pumpkin Parade

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Light up Lowndes Park this autumn!

Will your pumpkin be crowned the best in Chesham?

28th October
4:30pm – 6:30pm
Lowndes Park

Family event, all ages welcome!

Free to attend*

Pumpkin Parade Cheshm

Come and celebrate the wonder and glory of autumn as we light up Lowndes Park with pumpkins at sunset!

Love Lowndes continue to fundraise for the new playground in our beautiful park.

The Pumpkin Parade is an FREE event* that celebrates the wonder and glory of autumn. With fancy dress competitions, seasonal fete games, great food and the main avenue being lit up by Chesham’s pumpkins at sunset; it’s set to be a magical, inclusive afternoon in the green heart of Chesham.

A few highlights:

 

*Items marked with a * will require payment.

How it works

PUMPKIN CARVING

  1. Pre-booking has now ended. Please come along to the event between 4:30 and 5:30pm and pay for your entry at the Love Lowndes stand.
  2. PRE-CARVE your pumpkin and bring it to the event. Do not bring a tea-light (we will provide these). No naked flames please!
  3. Come to the main Love Lowndes stand (near the George V shelter just by the performance space) at the event between 4:30 and 5:30pm where you be given your entry token, a free LED tea-light, your pre-booking bonus gift (if applicable) and instructions on where to place your pumpkin.
  4. Judging is at 5.30pm.
  5. 6:15 pm Winners announced and prizes given.

FANCY DRESS

  1. Pre-booking has now ended. Please come along to the event between 4:30 and 5:30pm and pay for your entry at the Love Lowndes stand.
  2. Dress in your best Halloween or Autumn themed costumes.
  3. Come to the main Love Lowndes stand (near the George V shelter just by the performance space) at the event between 4:30 and 5:30pm where you be given your entry token.
  4. All entrants will be asked to gather in the performance space in Lowndes Park as 6:00pm where judging will take place.
  5. 6:15pm Winners announced and prizes given.

All competitions will be divided into age groups so that everyone can join in the fun!

Category One: 0-7s
Category Two: 8-15
Category Three: 16+

Find out more info  here.

The Rocket Oven

rocket-oven The Rocket Oven is a Chesham business. It’s a beautiful Airstream style trailer which is run by husband and wife team, George and Tori. The concept is born from the pandemic, a love of good food and wanting to work together to share our passion.

Our food ethos is simple: fresh, local and honest. These principles are the key ingredients to everything we make! We specialise in making flatbreads which are stuffed with anything from herbed falafel, tzatziki and sumac onions to slow roasted shoulder of lamb gyros with a roasted garlic mayonnaise.

 

 

*Entry to the event is free to all. The dream web and crafts activities are also free. The competitions and some games will be chargeable as we’re running this event to raise some money for the new playground.  

More seasonal fun

And if the Pumpkin Parade has just whetted your appetite for all things orange, autumnal and just a little bit Halloween, then we’ve got another treat for you.

The Elgiva theatre are screening Spookley the Square Pumpkin on the 29th October at 2pm as part of the On Location Film Festival. All proceeds go to Love Lowndes.

This family-friendly film will be a lovely treat for the little ones.

In a world where the only good pumpkins are round pumpkins, Spookley the Square Pumpkin is often teased because of his shape.

But when a storm terrorizes his patch, a pumpkin cast out for his shape must step up to use his smarts to save the day – and to prove himself.

 

Stand Up for Love Lowndes – Comedy Fundraiser

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Taskmaster’s Alex Horne is your MC for a night of world class comedy – all in aid of Love Lowndes – funding Chesham’s new playground.

Headliners: The Noise Next Door.

1st October, 7pm. Elgiva Theatre, Chesham

The funniest show you will see all year…made up on the spot! These guys have spent the last 15 years perfecting the art of winging it. Watch in amazement as they take audience suggestions and transform them into genuinely hilarious sketches and songs in the blink of an eye.

The Noise next Door are 12 time sell-out veterans of The Edinburgh Fringe and have appeared on The One Show (BBC One), Britain’s Got Talent (ITV1) and have also appeared alongside the likes of Michael McIntyre, Katherine Ryan and Harry Hill.

Coordinated by Chesham hero Mark Rann of Chesham Comedy Club. More acts to be announced soon.
Don’t miss your chance to ‘laugh out loud’ for Lowndes Park.

“Hilarious…a superior kind of chaos.” Telegraph
“Comedy Gold.” Guardian
“21st century comedy at it’s finest and funniest.” The Stage

Age suggestion 15+

Book now at The Elgiva Theatre, Chesham.

www.crowdfunder.co.uk/love-lowndes

Film Screening in aid of our new playground fund

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Help Love Lowndes raise funds for a new playground by coming to see this feel-good family film!

29th October, 2pm. The Elgiva Theatre, Chesham.

In a world where the only good pumpkins are round pumpkins, Spookley the Square Pumpkin is often teased because of his shape.

But when a storm terrorizes his patch, a pumpkin cast out for his shape must step up to use his smarts to save the day – and to prove himself.

Fancy coming dressed up in your best Hallowe’en costume? We’d love to see it and maybe take your photo in the theatre!

All the proceeds from this screening go to Love Lowndes – our fundraising project tasked with raising £150,000 for a new playground for Chesham’s children.

Book now at The Elgiva Theatre, Chesham.

www.crowdfunder.co.uk/love-lowndes

Kids Comedy Show – raise money for our playground

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Laugh out loud for Love Lowndes! A comedy show for kids!

The Noise Next Door: Run Wild.

1st October, 3pm. The Elgiva Theatre, Chesham.

One of the country’s most sought after comedy club headliners, The Noise Next Door, are coming to Chesham!

All in aid of Love Lowndes, our fundraising project for the new playground in the park.

It’s time for YOU to take control in  the comedy show where anything can happen. Join the stars of Britain’s Got Talent (ITV1) and The One Show (BBC One) for a stampede of songs, scenes and gags all based on what the audience want to see.

This amazing comedy improv team leave audiences everywhere in awe of their lightning-quick wit and totally original comedic talents.

World-class comedy ***** USA Weekly

Comedy Masterpiece ***** ThreeWeeks

Suitable for kids from 6 to 106!

Book now at The Elgiva Theatre, Chesham.

Come and meet the Friends (and AGM)

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We are inviting those with an interest in Lowndes Park to come and meet the Friends of Lowndes Park over a glass of wine (and some nibbles) at 7.30 at the Town Hall on Thursday 17th of November. We want to use the event to discuss the council’s proposals for the Playground and how the Friends hope to get involved. We have also invited Peter Hawkes to display some of his images of the park from the turn of the 19th/20th Century. This will be an opportunity to join the Friends or maybe get involved in the park.

What’s Happening With The Playground?

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The playground: you know it, we know it, and the Council knows it – all the equipment is broken or needs replacing. Chesham Town Council have taken a survey of public opinion and are now ready to move forward with the next step in this project. And they have asked us to get involved. It’s going to take some fundraising! Why not come along to our meeting (we are going to sneak the AGM in as well, and wine and nibbles) to find out more!

Sensory Garden gets a new look – we need plants!

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The wonderful Sensory Garden along the main avenue of Lowndes Park is getting a new look!

But we need your help. Plants aren’t cheap, and as you know, our team of volunteers are creating the garden in their free time. So, to stock it with beautiful scented and tactile plants, we need donations.

Our incredible team of gardening volunteers are stripping out the old to make way for the new.

If you have any plants you’d like to donate, or if you’d like to join the team in creating the new sensory garden, please contact Joan Clark on 01494 783035 or Phil Folly on 01494 783691.

Bring plants and join the fun at the next Lowndes Park working party on 14th November between 10am and 12pm.