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Love Lowndes Art Competition – Winners announced

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We are thrilled to announce the winners of the Love Lowndes children’s art competition.

As part of the Valentine’s day ‘Show your LOVE for Lowndes Park’ all-schools Mufti Day the children were encouraged to enter an art competition. They were asked to draw a picture on the theme of “Lowndes Park – the green heart of Chesham”.

We were absolutely bowled over by the number and quality of the entries. Children aged 4 to 11 drew amazing pictures that captured their love of play, their joy of green spaces and their sheer excitement about having a new playground. All the judges commented on how impressed they were and humbled they felt by the care and thought the children had put in. It was a wonderful reminder of why, and for whom, we’re doing this.

Keep reading to find out who the winners are!

Huge thanks to the following schools who raised an amazing £1,255 on the mufti day and/or entered the art competition:

  • Chartridge Combined School
  • Newtown School
  • Waterside Primary Academy
  • Ivingswood Academy
  • Elmtree School (and Nursery)
  • Brushwood Junior School
  • Hawridge and Cholesbury CE School
  • The Beacon School
  • Chesham Preparatory School
  • Thomas Harding Junior School

The Prizes:

WINNERS:
At the entrance to our new playground (due to be built by the end of March 2025), we will have a ‘heroes’ board celebrating all the key sponsors, businesses and groups that have donated to make the new park a reality. On that board we have set aside two spaces for the winning artwork from our two age groups. It will be up in the park for at least 10 years!

RUNNERS UP:
The runners up will be offered the chance to help build the new Bug Hotel in the playground. The build will happen on Sunday 23rd March led by local children’s environmental group Nature Club.

All the winners and runners up will be invited to a VIP play party on the 23rd March where they will be the first children to play in the new playground!

The winners

Age 4-7 category

WINNER

Kaith, Aged 7, Brushwood Junior School

Runners up:

Tia, Aged 5, Chesham Preparatory School

Ayvah, Aged 4, Chesham Preparatory School

Cherry, Aged 6, Hawridge & Cholesbury CE School

 

Age 8-11 Category

WINNER

Matilda, Aged 10, Chartridge Combined School

 

Runners up:

Aanah, Aged 9, Ivingswood Academy

Annabelle, Aged 11, Hawridge & Cholesbury CE School

Vaia, Aged 8, Chesham Preparatory School

 

We cannot overstate how impressed we all were with the entries. Love Lowndes is working on a way to create an exhibition in Chesham to share the amazing work with the community.

All the Ts&Cs in case you’re interested!

The rules:

  • Each entry must be by one child only.
  • It must be drawn on the A4 paper template supplied as the winning images will be square.
  • The child’s name, age and school must be included on the template.
  • Drawings and paintings only – no collage or photographs.
  • The Love Lowndes team will collect all pictures to be submitted at the end of the school day on 14/02/25.
  • The Love Lowndes team will choose two winners:
    • Age 4-7 category
    • Age 8-11s category
  • We will contact the winners to gain approval of the parents for inclusion on the board on Monday 17th February.
  • We will publicly announce the winners by 1st March 2025.
  • The artwork and interpretation board will be unveiled at the new playground grand opening on the 29th March 2025. Winners will be invited to attend.

 

The judging process:

  • All entries were collated by Claire Wyatt (Chair of Love Lowndes) after the deadline of 14/02/2025.
  • Claire sorted the entries into age groupings and delivered them to Louise Hayday (CEO of Chesham Town Council).
  • Louise ‘blind’ judged each age group (only looking at drawings and not names/schools) to create a long-list for each age category.
  • The long-list entries were given back to Claire to redact names and schools details, photograph them and send to a small group from the Love Lowndes committee.
  • This small group then voted for their favourite in each age category and the image with the most votes became the finalist in each age category.
  • Claire then sent the finalists to the full Love Lowndes WhatsApp committee for final judging.
  • The final was judged in the agreed 4-7 age group and the 8-11 age group.
  • There were clear winners in both age groups. Claire Wyatt did not vote at any stage as she was the only one who may have seen names/schools.

 

Love Lowndes: the heroes that made it happen!

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From volunteers to huge grant funders…from local businesses to the children of Chesham – these are the Love Lowndes heroes that made our new 5-11s playground happen!

There’s no doubt that Love Lowndes has been an amazing community success story. Together, we’ve raised £220,000 for Chesham’s new 5-11s playground in Lowndes Park.

Love Lowndes was created by a handful of frustrated residents who came together determined to make improvements to Lowndes Park. So much has been achieved in two short years.

We’ve created the Love Lowndes brand, raised awareness about the dire play facilities, successfully lobbied Chesham Town Council to create a Masterplan for the park, undertaken consultations, engaged and involved the diverse Chesham community, organised lots of events, attended countless fundraisers and written multiple successful grant applications. And the result?

A beautiful new inclusive, accessible, challenging and inspiring destination playground in the green heart of Chesham!

Along the way, the core Love Lowndes team has been supported by various people, organisations and businesses that have turned our dream into a reality.
Thanks and recognition must go to right places. So, below is a list of the heroes of the Love Lowndes story:

The dream team!

The Love Lowndes committee

The core team of Kate Hutchinson, Isabelle Hatfield, Anna Elliott and Claire Wyatt have been the driving force behind Love Lowndes for over two years. They’ve built the brand, attended every meeting, masterminded and delivered every event and strategy, managed communications and social media, written all the funding applications (in collaboration with CTC) and countless other tasks that have created the new playground. It’s been a labour of love and taken so many hours of work. This core team was supported by a wider group of amazing volunteers who’ve provided advice and practical support along the way. Special thanks to Wilford Augustus, Rachael Matthews, Sam Wignall and Sophie Baron.

Chesham Town Council

Love Lowndes has worked alongside CTC from the beginning. They are the owners of Lowndes Park and responsible for its upkeep and development. CTC have provided £35,500 of our budget and supported us in so many ways. They’ve helped with events, administrative support and writing the grant applications. Special mention to Kathryn Graves and Louise Hayday, without whom this would never have happened.

Friends of Lowndes Park

FoLP is a Chesham based voluntary group that created the Lowndes Park Masterplan. This ‘vision’ document has been the template Love Lowndes used as a starting point for the new 5-11s playground. It will be used for all future improvements to the park. FoLP also coordinated the very first meeting of the core team that went on to became Love Lowndes – the fundraising arm of FoLP. They have also provided all the banking services throughout the project.

Our Volunteers

So many people, businesses and organisations have given voluntary support to Love Lowndes. Here they are – in no particular order!

Our fundraisers

Lots of local organisation and residents offered support by running events and finding ingenious ways to raise money for us. Special thanks must go to:

Our Phase 1 Sponsors and Donors

Love Lowndes was the volunteer group responsible for fundraising for the new playground. The project was started with £35,000 from Chesham Town Council. This came from something called CIL money.  The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is a charge which can be levied by local authorities on new developments in their area. So, when housing or development is done, a levy is charged to the building company and that money must be spent on local infrastructure or improvements.

Love Lowndes successfully applied for a further £500 grant from Chesham Town Council later in the project too.

Over a two-year period, the Love Lowndes volunteers raised an astonishing £49,500! They achieved this by staging events, working with local schools, co-ordinating fundraisers and engaging the local community. They also sourced local corporate sponsorship.

Love Lowndes worked in collaboration with Chesham Town Council to write applications to the grant bodies and secured a further £125,000 for the project (see the pink section in the image below).

Buckinghamshire Council gave £10,000 a succesful application to the Chesham and Villages Community Board.

Phase 1 of our playground renovation and improvement is the 5-11s playground. It was made possible thanks to all the amazing people who donated to our Crowdfunder and because of the incredible support from following organisations:

And we are indebted to our amazing local sponsors:

Platinum:

Gold:

Silver:

The following businesses/groups also donated:

Plus, of course, everyone who donated to the Crowdfunder or who signed up to Easy Fundraising.

I hope you agree this list of the volunteers, sponsors, fundraisers, funders and all-round heroes responsible for making Love Lowndes a success is heart-warming to read.

But, there’s more!

Yep, that’s right. Even though the Love Lowndes team would like nothing more than to down-tools and have a well-deserved rest, we’re hungry for more!

Phase 2 of the playground renovation is already underway.

We’re fundraising to replace and renew the 0-4s playground (inside the hedge), replace the zipwire and add some natural scramble play equipment at the top of the park.

As ever, you can donate via the Crowdfunder and get involved by emailing lovelowndes@gmail.com. They really need more volunteers!!

 

Buy a Legacy Brick from Love Lowndes and help us pave the way for play!

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Cement your place in Lowndes Park history.

BUY NOW

Our fundraising group Love Lowndes has been doing an outstanding job raising funds for the new 5-11s playground in Lowndes Park. They’ve hatched a rather lovely plan to sell engraved bricks and lay a special path in the park. Buy a personalised legacy brick and pave the way for play.

Each step on the ‘path to play’ will hold the names of individuals and businesses that have supported this incredible community playground project.

Perhaps you’d like a brick for each of your children, grandchildren or in memory of a loved one who loved our park? Or maybe you’d like your family name immortalised in the park for years to come.

How does it work?

  • Go to the Love Lowndes Crowdfunder page and look for the Rewards section (on the right hand side on desktop or click the Rewards tab on mobile).
  • Choose from:
    • A single Legacy brick for £75
    • Two bricks for £100
    • A Business Legacy Brick for £125
  • After purchase, Love Lowndes will email you a form to fill in with your chosen text.
  • Each brick will have a maximum of 2 lines of text, each with a 16 character limit.
BUY NOW

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!

AGM – for members. Sunday 8th September. 2pm

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Members are invited to our Annual General Meeting

Come and find out about our achievements, our plans and have your say in the park’s future.

In the spirit of change, we are for the first time in our twelve year history going to hold our AGM in Lowndes Park – we hope that as many of you as possible will be able to join us.

For those of you who are new to our AGM our Chair, Michael Rowan, has a record of keeping these to an hour. Each AGM comes with his personal guarantee that you will be free to enjoy the rest of your day after 60 minutes!

Should the weather prevent us from meeting in the park we have arranged to meet in the Guide Hut.

We thought that it might be nice to offer a glass of wine or cordial to our members so that after the meeting we might get to know one another and if the weather is nice then you could bring a picnic and stay in the park a bit longer.

We look forward to seeing you there.
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