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Badgers Mount Residents' Association

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BMRA Introduction & Membership

We would like to welcome you to Badgers Mount.

The primary objectives of the Association are to promote social activities and to protect the environment and way of life of the residents of Badgers Mount, Sevenoaks, Kent.

Membership of the Association is open to all residents of Badgers Mount for a small annual subscription, currently £2 per adult, maximum £4 per house, and all residents are welcome to become active members of the community.

BMRA contact details can be found here: BMRA Committee

BMRA/PC Community Newsletter - April 2023

This spring newsletter has been jointly created by the Residents' Association and the Parish Council:

Badgers Mount Spring 2023

View the newsletter archive.

A message from the Chair

From the June 2022 AGM.

This year was Badgers Mount's coming out party.
We have come out of lockdown - but not only that, we have come out of our houses and met our neighbours some for the first time.
We have welcomed new families that I hope they will stay and join the community events.
We have planned and taken part in some spectacular social events - regulars like the wine and beer tasting and quizzes but this year with additions such as the bring and buy toy sales, and cake to support Ukraine which truly showed our generosity.

It has been an amazing few months with walks, clean-ups, and Halloween celebrations.
We have come out of lockdown with more technology - we have launched the BMRA shop, more about the merchandise available later, but who knows what will be popular on sale in the future, through this site we can connect and sell tickets to events and book in to activities that we will be planning in the future; and what better place to pay your BMRA subscription, it really is very simple.

This year the BMPC website had a redesign (not quite our remit but worthy of a mention) along with the new parish magazine now in technicolour.

We have also made a difference to our physical community with the new planters and work planned to improve the footpath from Milton Ave to Highlands Road, using both the council and some local volunteers. Which brings me to the support we are also giving to a younger resident with their Duke of Edinburgh award – we may not be able to offer activities for the younger generation yet, but we will try to be supportive to anyone who has an idea that we might be able to help with – just ask.

I can hardly do the Platinum Jubilee weekend justice at this meeting. I am truly grateful to the working party of Helen, Stacey, Emma and Judith who planned with me (with much wine) and then ran the whole weekend in my absence, I really did miss a fabulous weekend.

The WhatsApp group is gradually building with 86 members and whist it continues to be the mainly about lost parcels and tortoises, bin day, internet outage and ice cream van sightings! We are using it more and more to plan and advertise events and take on suggestions and generally connect with one another. From this group ideas for future events will evolve.
Fortunately we have not needed ICE (in case of emergency) WhatsApp as much, I won’t tempt fate but I do believe we are very lucky where we live mainly because we look out for each other.

Local Social Media links

A thank you to Arthur as BMRA secretary with his emails keeps us entertained and informed and to Gordon for keep the books balanced and the cash flowing, more from him later.

The committee have met regularly and continue to protect and preserve what the community values Keeping us safe, making Badgers Mount a place people will want to live in and be part of.  Listening to the residents and making sure we are reflecting everyone’s views is always going to be difficult. We all know 20% will make 80% of the noise so do make sure your voice is heard.
There will always be contentious issues and we discuss them fairly. There will always be the regular items that we do our best to keep at the top of the agenda for example the speed of the traffic on our streets. I also know the renaming of the Orpington by pass is ready for a review.

We maintain strong with the links to the parish council with Gordon on both, we write regularly to Kent county council and connect with highways team as much as possible.

I guess the hardest agenda item is planning, we need to understand the needs of individuals as well as the impact on their neighbours, which we do try to keep in mind at all times - I can assure you there is healthy debate within our team and all aspects are considered fairly.

I wish to thank all the members of the committee - Vic Cunnell , Sarah Marshall, Dulcie Marshall, Nick Stewart, Rob Thompson, and Srini Katsuri.

So Looking to the future.
I regularly heard spoken and even have said myself “I remember when” or “we used to”. This is now going to be phased out - we have made our own mark, our own memories.

It is exciting times for Badgers Mount we have long standing residents offering their experience and vast knowledge, we celebrated those who have been part of the Badgers Mount Community for 70 years at the Parish council meeting.
So couple that experience with great enthusiasm and new ideas from new residents and I promise while I’m on this committee you will never hear "but we always do it this way” when asked “can we....?” I will do my utmost ensure this is not met negatively and will to ask the committee” why not?”

This is going to be the year after Badgers Mount came out to play and playing is something we can do so back to the social events – I believe Arthur threw down the gauntlet for the next celebration to be better (is that possible with Bingo caller DJ Emma and Stacey) and bigger. However, I do hope he is not waiting on the royal family to discuss when we will have our next celebration!

Coming up we have teddy bear picnic pencilled in for 16th July - I will need a parent of a smaller person who likes teddy bears and picnics to help me with all that I don’t know.

Hopefully your sunflowers are growing tall and avoided the hailstones and slugs, and you are starting to think about a fabulous Scarecrow design – a few with a speed gun on Old London road and Orpington by Pass might be a suggestion!
Plans are well underway for the Christmas Fair, with some new ideas for perhaps a curry night or Diwali lights celebrations.

So here we are at the beginning of our next year – we have come out, we have got the party started now lets move into new and exciting times, your committee are here, we are listening and we can do – we have proved that.
I believe as did Margaret J. Wheatley "There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about."

As you will see from the minutes we elected the new committee but there are always a few spaces if you would like to join us remember as Helen Keller famously said “Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much”.

I hope to see many of you as you are out and about in the Badgers Mount community.
Zena.

BMRA Meetings

The monthly Residents' Association meetings are open to the public.
Committee meetings of the BMRA are held on the 2nd Thursday of each month from 7:45pm in the Badgers Mount Memorial Hall. All are welcome.

BMRA links

BMRA Committee
BMRA Constitution
BMRA Road Safety
BMRA Newsletters