It is with regret that I have to announce that the Streatham Youth and Community Trust (SYCT) is having to close business at the end of the summer.
Funding has been difficult with tight budgets to sustain the activities the organisation provides at its Youth Club in Conyers Road as well as its activities at the Wellfield Road Centre and, until lately, those at Streatham Vale Park.
While being involved with the Friends of Streatham Vale Park for over 22 years now, I remember when the franchise came up to take over the 1 O’Clock Club at the hut in the park and SYCT won the bid from two other applicants.
Together with the Friends of Streatham Vale Park, we organised events for the children as well as Community Fun Days in the park during the summer, attracting 200-300 people some years providing live entertainment, bouncy castles, face painting and refreshments.
We also had one or two table sales which attracted many stall holders.
It is a thriving park with football pitches that can be hired, tennis courts that have been resurfaced, and is popular with dog walkers and people generally out for a walk. The parks department at the Council are gradually replacing all the old wooden benches with steel ones.
Also, this year saw 12 new trees planted, three of which were cherry trees, planted as a memorial to my late wife, Karen, who formed the Friends of Streatham Vale Park in 2003.
Let’s hope the Council can come up with a new company to hopefully carry on the good work SYCT have given us over the years, as the education and recreation of our youngsters ought really to be a priority on any Council’s agenda.
Mike Morfey
SVPOA Committee
This is very sad news indeed and I can only echo the sentiments in Mike’s final paragraph.
Streatham Youth Centre (the name by which SYCT was originally known) was founded in 1946 by John Corfield who was later awarded the MBE for services to the youth of Streatham and its environs. At the time, it was one of the first Centres of its kind in London. John had originally started working with Streatham’s youngsters in 1934 when he was a young man when he started football sessions on Tooting Bec Common, according to his obituary in the News Shopper newspaper after he passed away in September 2002 at the age of 88.
I knew John personally, having met him on numerous occasions during my time as a Councillor, and I know he would be deeply saddened by the demise of his organisation. He lived in Mount Ephraim Road in Streatham for most of his life. Streatham Youth Centre always used to invite newly elected local Councillors to become Vice-Presidents of the Centre, an invitation I willingly and gladly took up in 1986, and I continued to give donations to the Centre annually even after I ceased to be a Councillor AND when times for me were quite tough, with my last donation being sent to them just 18 months or so ago.
During his time at Streatham Youth Centre, John was attacked three times by armed thugs and was once knocked out by two young men in the Centre. Never one to be beaten, he went on to raise more than £2million and helped thousands of Streatham’s youngsters, including many from Streatham Vale. I know this, because I often saw families I knew in the Vale when I attended events at the Centre while I was a Councillor.
Streatham Youth Centre and latterly SYCT have always attracted very loyal supporters – Trustees, staff, volunteers, and donors like me – and former long-serving Trustees have included former long-serving Lambeth Councillors, Tony Bays and Daphne Marchant.
For the sake of Streatham’s youth, let’s all hope that someone comes to the rescue of what, for almost 80 years, has been a brilliant local organisation and a pillar of the Streatham community.
Simon Hooberman
Honorary Member (Councillor for Streatham South Ward 1986-1998)