KOGA KUBOU PARK    　御所沼コモンズ

                   The Charter of Koga Park Management (Draft)

 

                                                                                                                      Koga Park Round Table Committee (KPRTC)

                                                                                                                                                                September 2, 2011

 

  In 1972, the municipal council of Koga city, as the consensus of the citizens, determined to construct Koga park in its historical heritages area with the habitation site of the General Koga (Kubou) and a peach grove.

  As landscape gardening of the park was advanced, the citizens introduced their own activities in the site.

  We, as the member of the KPRTC and the citizens of the Koga city, recognized an importance of park management as a tool of socialization, sensibility and susceptibility.

  We drafted this Charter, with intention to share fundamental concept of the park management with more people.

 

                    Koga park management as “Creation of home town"

 

• We conserve and raise the park as a starting point of the Koga.

 

Manifold geographical features of Marsh of the Watarase river and the Sashima plateau generate various landscape and offer habitable environments to diverse life.

In the middle ages, the General Koga constructed his mansion on a tongue shaped plateau beside swamp, which is called “the Swamp of the Palace (Gosho Numa)”.

The member of the KPRTC, as citizen of the Koga city, desired to keep rural life style that is generated in inter-reaction within its nature around the swamp, as memory of　the hometown, its culture, and its history.

The cultural and spiritual climate of the Koga, as our hometown, are produced in its daily life around the swamp; picking water shield, chasing dragonflies, and viewing the sunset beyond the horizon of the swamp.

The KPRTC fosters the identity of the hometown by communing with its landform, feeling its season, covering its environment, and nursing its landscape.

 

• We enjoy the park for the generation of the future life style and for the establishment of the civil society.

 

The famous and historical rural-scape of peach grove beside the swamp was restored with its seasonal blossoms.

Peach flower, wisteria flower, lotus flower, green leaves of Manchurian wild rice, and withered reed grass stage seasonal landscapes and attract visitors of the park.

The peach festival, tea ceremony in the open air, tea picking, carp streamer, painting from nature, and poetry-writing excursion offer opportunities for cheerful and enriched life to the regional community.

The KPRTC enjoy the park as a “Commons of the citizen” for living with the nature in Japanese tradition, for generating bonds of community, and for creating comfortable life.

The UNESCO awarded the Melina Mercouri prize to the park, appreciating the philosophy of the park life and concerning cultural activities.

The KPRTC keeps trying to create future park style by vivid ideas and community relationships with circles.

 

• We manage the KPRTC with respect to park as citizens’ property, respect to citizens’ originality, respect to liberty, and responsibility.

 

The park management of Koga park offers opportunity for participation in community creation in familiar field.

The park inherits its natural topography, history, legend, and series of interaction and social intercourse.

The members of the KPRTC, as citizen of the Koga city, enjoy the park as a “Lively space” towards future and with infinite possibility.

The KPRTC was established as a table for expression and exchange of ideas on the park. The KPRTC challenges management for emergent evolution through voluntary involvement of citizens and local administration.

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overall bird's eye view of the park