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Vol. 2, No. 1
Monday, January 3, 2000
We hope everyone is well rested from the holidays and wish everyone a Happy
New Year! Hopefully, this will be a year we see even more improvements at
Wellington Park and especially a new play structure this spring.
Our first Play Committee meeting of this millennium will take place on Wednesday evening, January 5, 2000, at 7 PM at the home of Ellen Andrews, 51 Princess Road, West Newton. This is where we had our first play committee meeting, just outside the Northeast gate of Wellington Park. If you cannot attend, please submit any thoughts or comments to our email address, WellingtonPark@aol.com or phone them to 969-6222 (answering machine) or directly to Lorraine Miller, Play Committee chairperson (969-8651, atrain@tiac.net).
At this meeting we will continue reviewing the play proposals received thus
far and narrow down what options we would like. The current proposals are
currently available for review on our web site and on the park bulletin board.
Everyone is urged to take a look at any existing play structures they may
be familiar with to see what features you like or don't like about them.
All are welcome to attend.
The Play committee met on Tuesday, December 14, 1999, at the home of Lorraine Miller. Attendees were Eleanor Ambrosio, Ellen Andrews, Deedee Antonelli, Nancy Davis, Ann Dorfman, Ted Kuklinski, David Lewis, Lorraine Miller, Don and Jane Quinn, and Valerie Razis. Thanks to Susan McInerney, who couldn't make the meeting but provided some free holiday music tapes for those present. We will have a few copies for anyone who wants one at the next meeting.
We learned about the Newton Serves volunteer day on Sunday, April 9 sponsored by Newton 2000. On this day volunteers will be helping out on various projects all over Newton. Wellington Park is one of the projects under consideration for this program. If selected, we may have up to 25 volunteers available to work on projects at Wellington for four hours. Since it is unlikely we would be doing a build day by that date, we should be thinking of possible projects that could be done on that day. Some suggestions were possible excavation or area preparation for the play area, cleanup of the park, planting bulbs, planting trees, glass cleanup, bench fix-up or installation, or fence painting. For bulb planting, we may be able to get bulbs donated (e.g., Home Depot) or perhaps get them from Newton Pride. We need to decide what we might want to do at the park within a month.
We would need to allocate some funds for supervision of the build day by the chosen company. It would be on the order of $450 per day. It might be a two-day commitment if we dug holes the day before. There is the question of whether we could perhaps get a landscaper to help with the build or digging holes. Some attendees may know such a person. We could offer free PR to any firms that donate time or skills to the project.
Some thought that the existing gates were ugly and should be improved. Its has been noted that they are often sagging. Another concern was over cars speeding down Kilburn Road. This might be dangerous due to the curvy nature of this stretch. Speed bumps were suggested but it was thought that the city has a policy against speed bumps. Drainage was thought to be an issue as to the placement of the structure. In general, it looks like the land slopes down toward the NE entrance (Princess/Lindbergh).
The opinion was expressed that the play structure should not be too close to existing houses. It was also thought that putting it in one of the existing play field areas would not be wise in order to preserve those open areas for any games that might occur. The consensus seemed to be to keep the location for the play structure in the vicinity of where the old sliding board was. This should be pending study to see if it would comfortably fit in there. The structure does need to be handicapped accessible. If it were done on a raised Fibar bed, then there would need to be a sloped ramp where wheelchairs could get onto the play area.
Lorraine Miller and Eleanor Ambrosio gave a report on their research into playground structures. They visited a large number of play areas locally and came back with some ideas of likes and dislikes. They narrowed the company selection down to three play structure providers. They asked these vendors to provide proposals based on a certain budget.
One of the issues was to figure out what kind of play structure we could get for the money that we have and how much do we think we could get by a modest fundraising effort. The first vendor, GameTime, was asked to provide a proposal for something in the $15K range. Landscape Structures provided a proposal in the $10-11K range. Little Tikes provided two different proposals in the $10-11K range. GameTime has since been asked to come up with a modified proposal comparable in price to the others. Landscape Structures is the most common in Newton (e.g., Webster Common, River Street, Fessendon). GameTime may be found locally at Learning Prep School (by St. Bernard's) and at the Jackson School (behind Jackson Homestead). Little Tikes is the most common in Waltham. There were some differences in pricing guarantees and what would be covered with the different manufacturers. Landscape pricing was good for 30 days while the other two prices would hold for the year 2000. The quality of structures for each was quite good and they all had a 10-year guarantee.
Each manufacturer provided a 3D-computer rendition of their proposed structure, along with a dimensioned overhead drawing designating the play components used. These can be found on our web site. They can be viewed there, printed out, or downloaded to your machine for closer examination.
An important issue discussed at the meeting was the target age range for the play equipment. Play structures are generally targeted at either a 2-5 year age range or a 5-12 age range. The design is a little different for each age range. For example, in a 2-5 structure the decks are no higher than 48 inches above the surface. There may be structures that support 2-12 but may cost more. The new Davis playground has two separate structures for the different age groups. There was concern that there would not be anything for the older age group at our park. For instance, we might get a standalone bigger slide which could be for older kids. We could have a new double swing for the young age group and replace the kiddy swing on the existing swing with a standard swing. It was also though that the basketball court would provide activity for the older age range. At this point we can only afford a structure for younger kids. Perhaps in the future we can address the need for an older child structure.
We agreed to have a short meeting at the park to get an idea of how the structure
would fit into the available landscape.
Nancy Davis' fundraising letters for both neighbors and businesses were available
for review at our meetings. We did get basic approval of the letter from
Newton Community Service Centers, which will act as our nonprofit sponsor.
It was suggested we add a map to the fundraising letter to make sure people
(and especially businesses) know just where Wellington Park is. Nancy had
developed a list of local businesses to which we might send letters. She
requested help in eliminating those that might be too far away from our area.
An email version of Nancy's appeal was sent out recently. The letter will
be printed up shortly and distributed into local mailboxes in the near future.
A version of the letter for businesses will also be available shortly. Please
contact Nancy Davis (princessned@yahoo.com) if you would like to assist.
A follow up meeting to discuss the siting of the play structure within Wellington Park was held 9:30 to 10:30 AM on Saturday, December 18, 1999, at the park. Those in attendance were the following: Eleanor Ambrosio, Ellen Andrews, Deedee Antonelli, Nancy Davis, Ann Dorfman, Ted Kuklinski, and Don and Jane Quinn. We had copies of the current play structure proposals and wanted to get an idea of how they would fit into the park. We wanted to see roughly if there would be enough clearance between the fence, basketball court, etc., given the potential sizes of the structures we were considering.
Ted Kuklinski had overlaid the previous drawing of the park with scaled versions
of each of the 4 proposals to date. This was to give everyone an idea of
size in proportion to the rest of the park. Using the largest plan proposed
as a guideline, the group outlined the area required with orange cones. It
is anticipated that the structure would be in the vicinity of the previous
slide. There needs to be a certain safety clearance around the structure
itself dictated by federal standards. We anticipate that the play structure
would be in the area between the NW gate and the existing swings. The fence
will probably form one of the boundaries. The area will extend out from the
fence up to about 30 feet depending on the design. In any case there was
at least 25 feet of space between the play area boundary and the existing
basketball court. This was a concern at the previous meeting. The exact layout
will need to be determined based on the exact play structure and dimensions
eventually chosen.
Please get on our email list. You will receive the news directly by email. It is the fastest and easiest way for our organization to keep in touch. Just send an email to WellingtoPark@aol.com. If anyone out there would like to design a logo for our organization, please let us know. It would be something we could use on the web site, the newsletter, and a letterhead. Please check out our web site http://wellingtonpark.8m.com for the latest on park structure plans, etc.