Friends Of Crumpsall Park

The Friends of Crumpsall Park consists of volunteer executive committee members who are responsible for the day to day running of the group and all its activities. The group also has volunteer non-executive members who also play a vital role in the group, helping with the planning and running of the groups activities and events.

Tom Sogbetun is the chairman of the Friends of Crumpsall Park and  founder of the Crumpsall Carnival. When he joined the Friends of Crumpsall Park over a decade ago, the group at the time only had an annual fun day, which  consisted of a day in the park with stalls and a small bandstand. With his determination and enthusiasm, working with the other members of the group, he set upon brightening up the fun day and developed a Carnival complete with a parade through the streets of Crumpsall to kick start the funday, making it more  'exciting' and getting the local schools and other agencies involved. The event  then became 'The Crumpsall Carnival'.

Tom spends a lot of time behind the scenes working with the local park staff on various projects and administrative issues on behalf of the park and the friends group.

Tom is also the groups' acting secretary.

Steve Granville, also an executive committee member, is the groups treasurer. He does the important job of looking after the groups accounts, liaising with the various sources of funding and keeping a close eye on the all the expenditures. Steve also helps out a lot in the different events which the group stage throughout the year. 

Steve is keen to help in developing the a Crumpsall Carnival parade even further, he has visited other carnival groups in various places including Europe and is determined to bring this newly acquired knowledge to the Crumpsall Carnival. 

Dave Beedie is the entertainment co-ordinator for the group. He has been a Dj/compere for almost 30 years and is the breakfast presenter and station manager at Northern Air Hospital Radio, based at North Manchester General Hospital.

Through his expertise in this field, he is the FoCP compere at events and he compiles the event running orders at the Crumpsall Carnival and Friends of Crumpsall Park Halloween Party. He is also the organiser of the Northern Air Radio Talent show which is a very popular annual event. This was set up to provide acts to perform at the Crumpsall Carnival and it has proved very successful to date.

Bernadette Kelly is a non-executive committee member of the group, until recently, Bernadette was the groups secretary.

Bernadette plays a vital role in the planning and running of the groups events, at the carnival and also the Halloween party. She  is keen and enthusiastic takes pride in her involvement with groups activities.

Bernadette is also a member of the Crumpsall Carnival Committee.

Louise Shelly is a non-executive member of the group. Louise has been a member for over 4 years now and is coming up to her seventh carnival in 2010.

Louise plays a vital role in the planning and running of the groups events. Louise is in charge of the stalls at the Crumpsall Carnival, a role she took over from Tom Sogbetun to enable him more time to concentrate on other matters of the carnival. Louise has developed the stalls side of the carnival to a high standard which has improved the way the stalls are allocated, and created a stall holders' information pack, which has been very successful.