Old School Hall, Llwyn-Y-Pia Road, Lisvane

This will be the 8th Annual General Meeting of the Friends Group, which was formed by local Thornhill and Lisvane residents to try and halt the deterioration of our beloved Country Park and bring it back to life. We will be discussing our achievements this past year and plans for the year ahead. All are welcome attend, contribute to the discussions, and socialise with other Park users.

It’s not a big event and you won’t be asked to commit to anything! We’d just really appreciate ½ hr of your support and any contribution to ideas that you might care to make.

Official small print: Nominations for Executive Committee posts (Chairperson, Vice-chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and Executive Committee Members) and suggested agenda items need to be submitted for the attention of the Secretary by 30^th June 2017. This can be by email to (friendsofcefnonn@talktalk.net) or can be hand delivered to the office of the Friends of Parc Cefn Onn adjacent to the Park’s parking area.

We had a great day amongst the budding daffodils in the entrance field on Sunday. In case you are wondering what we were doing/ what the 3 patches of dug over turf are for – we are planting wild flower beds to add more colour to the entrance area. Fingers crossed for a great display this summer.

Since forming, the Friends have been collecting historical information in order to produce a history booklet in 2018/19 to capture the fascinating story before it is lost in the mists of time. Whilst we are working on this booklet and seeking publication funding, Committee member Tony Cousins has produced a summary that we are pleased to say is now available on our Park Information webpage. If anyone has additional historical information or photographs from the period 1910 to 1950 we would love to hear from you during current production of the booklet.

The Friends have now installed all the labels on the special trees in the upper park. These labels were funded by a special grant from Cardiff Council.

Just when the weather was beginning to warm up, the recent double cold spells have confused the new flower shoots that had just started to protrude from the soil.

The park was full of people making the most of the snowfall, the top field from the Golf club area was very popular with kids on sledges.

Following a briefing from Cardiff Council we know have start dates for the Heritage lottery grant work:

Car park toilets & office work will start inn April 2018. The Main pond clean out & bank stabilization will start in the summer of 2018.

Upgrading of paths will start following the end of the bird nesting season in 2018.

We have had a brilliant start to 2018. The Friends have secured the following grants /donations:

• From Cardiff Council funding for provision of labels for the special trees in the upper park and for some wild flower seeds for a new meadow in the entrance area.
• A local Lisvane resident has donated sufficient funds to allow us to carry out the following tasks.
  • Production of a parks booklet providing details and history of the parks 67 special trees.
  • Provide purpose made stream bank stabilization units for the lower pond two feeding streams.
  • Provide Bee friendly plants to be planted in the Autumn, these will be purchased in plug format. These being Snowdrops/British Bluebells/Foxgloves/British Bluebells.
  • Provide & install a Human Sundial in the top field, hopefully with the help of our local Primary School.

This should certainly keep the Group busy in 2018 and any further volunteers to help would always be appreciated.

Volunteers were busy at our last Workday of 2017 planting over 600 British Bluebells, removing brambles, and coppicing over 100 ash tree samplings to let light into the area near the lower pond. We always have refreshments but seasonal mince pies and Christmas cake were the treat this time! We hope these native Bluebells will flourish and spread in the lower section of the Park.

During 2016 Cefn Onn was awarded a substantial lottery grant to make some significant improvements to facilities and access for all – see our noticeboard in the Park entrance for more detail. Work is planned to commence this Spring.