Present:
John (Chairman), Gill, Chris, Jo, Sally, Alan, Steve, Philippa, Pete, Louise, John, Sandra, Ted
Apologies:
Yvonne, Clare
Previous Minutes (see website):
These were approved by all attendees
Chairman’s Report:
A number of successful work parties were held to clear routes (see website for details). Thanks to all who helped.
During 2018 the group committed over 60 hrs of volunteer work (not including meetings etc.).
Accounts:
Balance as of 30th July is £662.22. During last 12 mths we had an income of £150 grant plus £330 from the Quiz fund raiser. Expenditure was £318.24 for stone and £72 digger work. We have a commitment of approx £45 for dumper hire.
We have some stone in stock for projects.
Officers:
Trustees – Chris proposed that all attending to be elected as Trustees (see Present for list of names, Seconded by Sally.
Chairman – John Sutton
Secretary/Treasurer – Chris Bargman
Proposed John, Seconded Steve.
The AGM was formally closed and the meeting then went on to discuss activities for 2019.
Improvement Projects/Work Parties
Back Of Mounts (J) and path to Lubberland/Nunnery Lane. Overhanging tree needs cutting back by where stone and drainage was done a few years ago. Also path is getting narrow and cut up in places between gorse bushes. These could be cut back to open up path.
Nunnery Lane (K). Chris, John and Steve have had a site visit. Wet/muddy area by gate at bottom of lane onto common needs stoning and section of ditch needs clearing. Need to investigate drainage under path at bottom just before gate. Looks like might be pipe with entrance in a small fenced off area. Will first need some clearance work and overhanging tree by brook needs to be cut down. Will probably need a ladder as leaning tree is lying across another tree.
ACTION: Clearance work party on Saturday 10th August 10am. Chris to send out reminder.
John will bring dumper down common to the brook to collect timber and use as platform to cut tree. Steve/John will bring chainsaw. Will need strimmers, loppers etc to clear path up nunnery lane.
Meet at bottom end Nunnery Lane off Stockhall Lane (can park at end).
Chris will cut back tree behind The Mounts. Also look at where bank is falling away by 3 springs.
Factory Lane to Prescott (D). John, Steve and Ted had site visit. New owners (Colin and Claire) are happy for us to do work. Very wet area by gate and gate difficult to use. Needs ditching and clearance work along path as well as burning of brashings. May need more than one work party. Can then assess drainage work.
ACTION: Clearance work party on Saturday 7th September 10am. Chris to send out reminder.
Cleeton Court to High Lane (N). Getting badly overgrown and gates appear to have dropped and need some adjustment to make them more usable. Should not take too much work.
ACTION – Work party to be arranged.
Keepers Cottage – Detton (Route R). Getting overgrown and dangerous as next to wire fence.
ACTION: Ted offered to strim this and John to inform owners at Keepers cottage that we will be doing some work.
Detton Prescott (C) – Would benefit from some clearance but is passable. Possible work party later in summer.
Cleeton St Mary to Hill (Y) – We still need to finish marking this route and replace damaged markers.
ACTION: John has some posts still in stock.These will need to be pointed to knock in. Work party to be arranged to meet at Sally and Alan’s.
Crammer Gutter – Route across top of field is OK in summer. Gate in top corner is bit difficult. Need to look at how easy it would be to fix this (old gate). Agreed that we will not look at major improvement project this year (complex due to approval requirements from Natural England/SWT).
Route up common to Upper Marshes.
ACTION Chris to remove any of the dangerous white marker posts that have still not been removed since work was done by Natural England over 18 mths ago. Will also cut back overhanging trees by lower marshes. Riders should use the longer route past lower marshes and not cut the corner.
Brush Cutter – We have been offered the use of a relatively new self propelled DR flail brush cutter by Colin and Claire (Factory Lane). This needs repairing. John has repaired chain but appears to be problem with drive line.
ACTION: Chris to ask if Arthur/Dave would be happy to look at this. We are happy to budget around £200 for repair if this can be fixed as it would make clearance work so much easier. If it can be repaired we will also budget a small amount for each time it is used to pay for whoever uses it for collection, fuel (needs a trailer for transport).
If we do get the cutter repaired then we can more easily tackle some of the other clearance work.
AOB
John mentioned that in past Council have offered us access to free training eg Chainsaw use. John will check on this.
