Does anybody know how many people are members of the Forest Hill Society now? And has the Society managed to establish a good working relationship with the Town Centre Manager yet ? It seems that the Sydenham Society and the Sydenham Town Forum have and they are making great progress thanks to this, as well as their hard work and commitment, of course.

The FH Society currently has slightly under 400 members, although it is time for membership renewals and I shall be sending out an email shortly to many members who have not renewed. Instructions on renewing membership can be found on the back of the last newsletter, in the newsletter that will be out in a few weeks time, or you can complete the form online (http://www.freewebs.com/foresthill/FHS_m...orm002.pdf) and send it back to the Society.

You are right to raise the issue of engagement with town centre management, this is an area where we need to form a closer relationship than we have over the last year. We had a meeting of the development committee last night to discuss how to do this and to move forward with improving the town centres (Honor Oak and Forest Hill).

Thanks Michael. I sent my apologies because I could not go last night. But I can't wait to see what has been decided. These are interesting times for Forest Hill. I hope Julie Sutch reads our Forum now and again.

Anyway, I am off renewing the household FHS membership.................

I certainly hope that the Town Centre Manager reads this site as it is a great way to gauge opinion and see what is happening around the place.

It would be GREAT if that person, Julie Sutch or whoever, would actually participate here as it would act as a great alternative to 'surgeries' or ward meetings that most of us do not have time or opportunity to attend.

The councillors (well, some of them) get involved, so I don't see why she wouldn't.

I've just joined the FH Society for the first time. So I'll be looking out for an email from you soon then Michael :-).

I think Millesens' right that as well as good relationship with the society, any improvement in FH will be dependent on the commitment of local the local community too. It's one thing to look at the negatives and talk about what we don't have and what we need, but this conversation will remain hypothetical until someone/ we all decide that we will take some form of action to enable that change to occur.

I think it's great that there seems to be a lot of agreement on this forum about some really practical things that can be done to improve FH town centre, and the FH Society is in a strong position to represent those views to our town centre manager and work with her to move things forward, and hopefully shove her along a bit in the right direction. I'll definitely be renewing my membership. Go, go, FH Society!