Trinity Fields Fireworks Post Reply

[zozo444]

Does anyone know the details for the fireworks for 2016 in the trinity fields?

[Claphamamma]

Yes it's the local group of private schools who are selling tickets only to their students. 6-8pm it says and it's Friday 5th November this year.

[oab]

Do you mean Friday 4th November?

[MrsOctober]

It's put on by a consortium of local schools (Thomas's, Broomwood Hall, Northcote Lodge, Finton & Hornsby House) The fireworks usually start at 7.30pm.

[HightreesHouse]

I post this is response to some postings by Papinian and Rooting4Tooting.

I am a trustee of Trinity Fields Trust which is a small charity running Trinity Fields. I wanted to respond to a couple of misunderstandings which are being stated as fact by those posting.

Trinity Fields is run by Trinity Fields Trust for the benefit of young people in Wandsworth. There is no public money available to support it. The Trust has therefore entered into an arrangement whereby four local prep schools use the Fields, Monday to Friday with occasional Saturday morning use. These schools pay the bulk of the running costs of the Fields and allow the Trust to keep them open. The Trust is grateful for their community mindedness.

For the balance of the time available the Fields are used by a large number of local organisations and some state schools. A flavour:

1) there is a resident cricket and football club which both welcome members. The former runs a low cost to users colts operation in the summer months which is specifically directed at those who might not be able to purchase an expensive club membership;

2) Trinity Fields is used by Bolingbroke Academy. Harris Academy in Battersea and City Heights Academy in Tulse Hill;

3) The Trust extends lower cost use to Westside FC, Providence House and other charitable users.

4) The Fields are used by local clubs such as Battersea Ironsides and Spencer.

The Trust takes its mission and public benefit obligations very seriously. Apart from two full time groundsmen it is run entirely by volunteers who give their time for nothing. Perhaps we are not very good at publicity but some of the representations on this site are inaccurate.

This is not an exhaustive list.

[papinian]

The post by HightreesHouse is an elaborate piece of spin.

Trinity Fields Trust does not own Trinity Fields. The site is owned by the Sir Walter St Johns Educational Charity Trust. Trinity Fields Trust currently rents the site from the charity for a notional (peppercorn) rent. The lease by Trinity Fields Trust expires in 2021.

The majority of the trustees of Sir Walter St Johns Educational Charity Trust are direct or indirect nominees of Wandsworth and Lambeth Councils and Trinity Fields Trust is trying as much as it can to avoid the monopolisation of Trinity Fields by private prep schools becoming a political issue. This is particularly the case given the extremely unrepresentative demographics of these schools, as can be seen by going on the school websites themselves and looking at the pictures of the children.

Many of the trustees of Trinity Fields Trust are connected with the the "four local prep schools" that monopolise Trinity Fields. ("Monday to Friday with occasion Saturday morning use" is pretty much monopolisation.) There are significant conflicts of interest to say the least.

There is currently little or no public benefit to the use of Trinity Fields. The argument that the private prep schools fund the cost of keeping Trinity Fields open is spurious when the bulk of those costs are incurred for the purpose of providing facilities to those private prep schools.

[papinian]

So that there is no ambiguity as regards what I mean when I refer to conflicts of interests of the trustees of Trinity Fields Trust, among the current and past directors of the trust are:
- Philip Ward, the headmaster of Thomas's, Clapham
- Andrew Allan, the bursar of Finton House

Care to explain that HightreesHouse?

[papinian]

This article, unintentionally, gives perhaps the best flavour of how Trinity Fields / Trinity Fields Trust is controlled by "The Consortium" of local prep schools.

https://www.enviromonitors.co.uk/ground ... essential/

It's great to see that rather than employing locals to work at Trinity Fields, the Trinity Fields Trust employs someone who attended Marlborough!

[HightreesHouse]

Dear Papinian,

thank you again for your input. Andrew Crawford worked briefly for the Trust but has not done so for over two years. The present groundsman did not attend Marlborough. We have a long tradition of bringing on school leavers to become qualified groundsmen and our previous school leavers have qualified whilst at the Trust and sitting NVQ qualifications. They have gone on to work at the All England Club and Chelsea FC. Again we regard this as part of our charitable obligation to young people. We will be recruiting another young person next year with the same objective in mind.

Again grateful to clear up any misconceptions you may have.

[papinian]

HightreesHouse: Are you going to address the more substantive points in my posts (e.g. re the Trinity Fields Trust being composed of headmasters/bursars of the private prep schools that monopolise its use) or shall readers of this thread draw their own conclusions?

[HightreesHouse]

Hello Papinian,

thank you for your response. Trinity Fields Trust presently has eleven trustees. Except in one case these comprise local residents, individuals experienced in youth work and the charitable sector in Lambeth and Wandsworth and old boys who are connected with the grammar schools associations for whom the schools were acquired in 1918 -21.

One trustee of the eleven is nominated by the Consortium Schools on rotation and Andrew Allan was recently replaced by Phillip Ward. We have found this works best in terms of information flow to the four schools.

No trustee is present at a meeting or votes where they have a conflict of interest whether they be the "Consortium Trustee" or otherwise. No trustee has special or significant powers and all trustees are equal.

The board of trustees guards its independence fiercely.

Again glad to clear up any misconceptions.

[DomesticJailBreaker]

The clear, precise and comprehensive reply by HightreesHouse just goes to show that people should not jump to chippy conclusions (and spread unnecessary and inaccurate rumours) on subjects they know nothing about.

[papinian]

DomesticJailBreaker: If your bitchy post is directed at me, then perhaps you should point out what I have said on this thread that is inaccurate. Of course you can't, since everything that I said was completely correct. And as regards what I know or don't know, I know quite a bit more about the legal position of Trinity Fields that I expect you do.

[BeeCee]

Thank you, thank you "Papinian" for yet another hilarious hissy fit (*sits back waiting for the next toddler tantrum*).

[akiwicalledcat]

Hi
Having read all the (bizarre!!) threads... Annabel advised that there is fireworks here this year in her newsletter but no one seems to know the actual date - is it a Fri or Sat this year? (ie 2016).
And what time do they start?
Thanks