The Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery will be working on a project relating to an area of War Graves in Brandwood End Cemetery in 2014 and we are pleased to announce that Veolia have kindly awarded us a grant of £500 towards costs.
Watch this site for details of how you can become involved.
http://www.veolia.co.uk/
2013 has been a year when Friends of Brandwood End have had to take a step back and think again about the way they want to move forward in 2014. We were all very disappointed when Birmingham City Council had to withdraw their financial support for a lottery bid relating to the twin terracotta mortuary chapels at the centre of the cemetery. Along with many local organisations we saw the time when Birmingham would be in a position to support any bid we proposed move further and further away. We are now working with Bereavements Department to investigate alternative fund raising options but in the meantime we will continue with our other achievable projects within the cemetery, whilst keeping the chapels at the front of our campaign.
Members of FBEC Committee attended a Special Assembly at Woodthorpe Junior and Infants School to present prizes to year 5 pupils for their beautiful collage entries following a litter pick and walk within Brandwood End Cemetery.
Our thanks to all our supporters who have collected ‘Wish Tokens’ for us. We have received over 4000 tokens, which for a small organisation is admirable. Those of you who still have tokens please send them, as soon as possible, to the address in our previous blog post. Thank you all again and we will let you know the outcome of your efforts.
Can any of our supporters who have collected ‘Wish’ token from the Evening Mail please make sure that they are passed to or posted to either Our Treasurer : Julian Pritchard c/o The Lakeside Centre,180 Lifford Lane, Kings Norton, Birmingham, B30 3NU or a member of our committee.
Can we thank you in advance for your efforts and we will let you know if and when we receive a portion of the funding.
Following on from our really successful visit to the Cemetery with pupils from Woodthorpe Primary School we set them a challenge. They had collected lots of leaves and natural items and the challenge was to create an interesting collage with them, in their own time. We are pleased to say that we had 5 excellent entries (Below) and will be awarding them all with a small prize and certificate at a school assembly.
Well done everyone!
Following its internal facelift Brandwood End Cemetery Lodge is now available for use by community groups. The lodge is situated just within the Cemetery grounds at Woodthorpe Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham B14 6EQ.
The lodge building is available Monday – Friday between the hours of 9.00 – 4.00 in the summer opening 1 May – 30 Sept and Monday – Friday between the hours of 9.00 – 3.30pm in the winter opening 1 Oct – 30 April.
The cost to hire the ground floor which provides three meeting rooms is £17.00 per hour. There is no restrictions to the times booked, however if the usage is less than an hour the minimum fee of £17.00 will be charged.
Booking of the lodge is subject to suitable usage in keeping with the surroundings of the Cemetery all enquires to Kings Norton Cemetery, Longdales Road, Kings Norton, Birmingham B38 9BU. Tel: 0121 303 5583
If any interested parties would like to view the facilities then this can be arranged
Parks staff were busily planting geraniums around the perimeter of the Lodge to brighten up the beds. Along with every gardener they are finding that all their bedding plants are late this year but hopefully they will create a splash of colour in the next few weeks.
FBEC held their AGM this evening at the Brandwood Centre. Unfortunately attendance was low but the evening was rounded off by a very interesting talk by the Reverend Douglas Wilkes on the Cemeteries of the Jewellery Quarter.
Neville Summerfield proposed a vote of thanks to Anne Courbet, who has been involved with FBEC since its inception and was currently serving as Chairman. Anne announced her intention to step down from her role and also from the committee but will continue to support FBEC and its future projects.
The elected committee members names, committee officers details and annual accounts will be displayed on this site following the first committee meeting on 1st May.
Sadly high winds and recent snow fall contributed to one of the Corsican Pine Trees on the main drive in the Cemetery being uprooted. Luckily the tree fell away from the main drive area but did damage an adjacent Deodar Cedar as it fell removing branches from one side. Work is being undertaken to remove the trunk but as you will see from the photograph this was a very large tree.