Where:  Stirchley Community Centre.

When: 6.30pm – Feb 13th 2013.

Part one was general update before part two – an exercise for the activity plan.   These are rough notes from the first part of the meeting:

The group introduced themselves – some key facts reported by Karen Cheney

Planning application for the bath’s development will go to the Birmingham City Council planning ctte on 7th March

Next for the Heritage Lottery Fund is the second stage bid – which will also require an activity plan, covering activity which will support the heritage side of the work during the build and afterwards.  Suzanne Carter from Birmingham Conservation Trust will work with Chris Rice from Birmingham Museums Trust to create the plan.

It was reported that the stage two bid needs item to be as strong as possible – so currently aiming for June to submit the bid.

Suzanne Carter explained:

Activity plan is a report which covers all the activity that the Heritage Lottery Fund which isn’t building work.  It’s the work that involves people in history and heritage.  Suzanne will be talking to lots of people in the community to help her create the planning and is focused on what people can learn about the history of the baths – how to bring it alive.  It can also involve plans to train people in conservation skills and hands on experience of heritage work.  this will also focus on how people get involved in making decisions about heritage in the area.

3 important roles for the plan

• to demonstrate that local people love the building and want it back in some form of use
• demonstrates that people are interested
• demonstrate that there is an interest in developing the heritage plan.

Nick Booth outlined the use of this new website to capture news of the project,  stories from the baths and the community centre and how people are getting involved with the activity plan.

Chris Rice said  that the reason the project got a stage one HLF bid was because of local people’s enthusiasm and ‘agitation’.  A successful stage two bid is not a given – so the work and enthusiasm from here on in really helps the bid for the money for construction.

A discussion about timing – including frustration/argument about delays.  A further point made about how long the preparation for the project has gone on –  and how important that stage two of HLF bid will provide the money to get the work started.  When was it actually closed: 5th March 1988 –  so 25 years since it was closed, with 12 years of planning to get something to this stage.

A query about finding archives from the central library on the history of the baths – might that be found in Birmingham Central Library or  Cadbury Archives or Worcester?

7.15 pm onto Part two, Suzanne Carter led on ideas for the activity plan… (see separate notes)