Kingston upon Thames Society Committee: February 2012

February's meeting of the Kingston upon Thames Committee opened with a presentation from a visitor who gave us an overview of some changes planned for Tiffin School.

He was well prepared and we were treated with all sorts of full colour plans.The scheme has much to recommend it but the immediate problem is getting funding and that is not easy in the current climate. Watch this space.

The meeting proper went over some familiar ground with some updates on the current major schemes and plans, e.g. Surbiton Filter Beds and Tolworth Broadway.

The Kingston upon Thames Society can be exceedingly conservative at times yet it takes a positive and supportive approach on many of these schemes that flies against some of the more vocal public opinion. I like that.

I was saddened to hear that the Swan Inn (scene of Labour Party Quiz Nights in the past) had closed and is being converted by Kingston University in to offices and a gallery. I suppose that a gallery is not a bad option and is certainly much better than what they could have done with it.

The Open House event promises to be bigger and better this year (all thanks to Jennifer) and we spent some time worrying if we would have to reduce the size of the font on the leaflet to get all the details on.

The low point came at the end under AOB when we nodded through a proposal to print some of the cards shown here. I wanted to talk about fonts, images, use of capitals etc. but the meeting was not mindful to have any sort of a discussion and the proposal was nodded through.

I can see that I am going to have to do some work on the communications side.

That said, I agree with the sentiments expressed on the card and encourage anybody interested in the built environment in the Borough of Kingston upon Thames to  join the Society or just to try one of our meetings or have a look at our website.