The Trustees of the Friends of the Rose Bowl are grateful to Angela Potter who has stepped down from the board after many years of untiring and dedicated service to supporting our charity and the youth of the Marquess Estate.
Angela played a pivotal role in the foundation of the charity. She was also very actively involved in the preparation and organisation of our annual auction and dinner. It has been our major fundraising event and a great way of bringing our local community and supporters together.
Angela’s combination of wisdom and common sense made a valuable contribution to our Trustee meetings. We wish her well as she pursues other charitable activities.
Angela shared her reminisces from the early days:
“Canonbury has changed hugely in the fifty years or so that I have known it. Way back in the 1970s many houses were leasehold and in multi-occupation. The Marquess Estate was still a row of very large houses.
As a full-time mother of four, I became a committee member of the newly formed Canonbury Society which then existed just to monitor planning applications. It took some years before it also had a social role. It was in 1989 that the very first Summer Garden Party was held. I mention this history because I am proud to have been involved with the development of Canonbury as proper neighbourhood. Without this feeling of community, I believe support for the Rose Bowl Youth Centre would never have been possible.
It must have been around 1997 that a plea for £1000 to fund a summer holiday programme for the children of the Marquess Estate was refused by the Neighbourhood Office. Witnessing this I offered to raise the money from Canonbury Society members. Within less than a week we had it!
In 1999 I was a Founder Trustee of the Friends of the Rose Bowl, and with the generous support of the local neighbourhood and friends, FoRB has gone from strength to strength.
It has given me great pleasure to have contributed to such a successful organisation. Youth work has been increasingly disregarded and underfunded in recent years but I believe that the next generation should have all the help they can get to lead useful and fulfilling lives. The Rose Bowl Centre is a wonderful example of what can be achieved with a dedicated support group.”