Minutes of the Committee Meeting of Newark Ramblers held by Zoom on Thursday 18 January 2024

Present            Joyce Pedersen       Chair

                          Brigid Murphy            Secretary

                          Margaret Shaw         Treasurer

                          Chris Small               Membership Secretary

                          Judy Price                 Maps Secretary

                          Dave Johnson          Footpath Officer

                          James McGill Area Representative

                          Jacqui Anderson      Social Secretary

                          Peter Robinson        Committee Member

1 Introduction and Apologies

Apologies from Caroline Lee

2 Minutes of last meeting and matters arising

One correction required under Item 5 – the date for Southwell Ploughing Match is 28 September. Otherwise the notes were agreed as an accurate record.

The “walk for Carol” is in hand. Chris will be leading a walk from Ambergate probably in early May.

It was agreed that from now on notes of committee meetings will be published on the Newark Ramblers website. To ensure that they are agreed before publication Brigid will send them out to committee members with a one-week deadline for response. At the end of the week, as long as at least two people have agreed them, she will pass them to the Webmaster for publication.

Action Point:

• Brigid to confirm with Roger about publication of notes of meeting

3 Reports from Officers and Webmaster

Individual reports from officers and webmaster had been circulated in advance and gave rise to the following points.

At Joyce’s request Sue Carne has drafted a “Newark Rambler” piece for April’s edition of Use Locally.

Joyce has signed up for a Ramblers HQ webinar covering the outcomes of the Safety on Group Walks project.

Newark Group membership now stands at 170. The group’s healthy membership performance was singled out for mention at Area Council.

Social events coming up are Live and Local at Coddington and a group booking to a Palace Theatre performance in March.

It was agreed that Jacqui would lead on a newsletter to go out by email periodically. She will ask for contributions from committee members and set deadlines.

Everyone was reminded that emails to groups of people should be sent BCC.

Funds are sufficient at present, with three more quarterly payments to come from Ramblers. The coronation tree has still to be paid for and the cost for room bookings for committee meetings has recently increased to £20.25 per meeting. A “Blue Book” on footpath law has been supplied to the group at no cost and is held by Dave.

It was agreed that private walks arranged by members are just that and not within the remit of committee to become involved.

The Webmaster had requested committee’s view on removing older photos from the website for website performance reasons. It was suggested that photos to December 2021 be archived to a memory stick, followed by a rolling programme with a year’s photos to be archived each January. In this way there will always be at least two years of photos on the website. Brigid, as group secretary, is to be responsible for keeping the memory stick/s.

Action Points:

• Joyce will check with Area if she can get materials for the Newark Senior Citizens Fair on 10 February and book a stand if possible.
• Brigid to ask Roger to purchase a memory stick of whatever size he considers appropriate (cost to be reimbursed from group funds) and archive photos as above.
• Dave to draft something for Jacqui’s first newsletter on parish path wardens, path working parties, and how to contact him with footpath issues or questions.
• Dave to advise Brigid if he needs something on working parties to go out on email before first newsletter

To discuss at next meeting:

• A46 road layout changes and Coddington Winthorpe footpath A46 crossing

4 Report from Area Representative

There is a possibility that Ramblers will not have a stall at the County Show on 11 May because no volunteers have come forward to staff it. Committee members had no recollection of having been asked. It was agreed that Joyce would offer to help and that Newark group would be prepared to fund the entry fee for one other volunteer from our membership.

Area is considering a change of venue for Area Council meetings.

Action Points:

• Joyce to contact Area Secretary to establish timescales for Newark Show before a call for volunteers is sent out to Newark Group membership
• All to look at new Area website and give any feedback to Area Webmaster.

5 Roles and vacancies

On the Publicity Officer role, people may be put off from volunteering for it because it’s not clear precisely what would be involved and the title could suggest something more burdensome than the reality. It was agreed that Facebook was probably the most important aspect of this role at the moment.

Dave agreed to be the named person responsible for liaison between committee and Webmaster.

For most of the committee roles there is someone who has done it before and has access to the necessary IT and information to take over smoothly if it were unexpectedly to become necessary. The group has previously operated without a chair for an extended period by taking it in turns to chair meetings. The issue of understudies for roles will be considered further and brought back to future meetings as necessary.

Action Points:

• Joyce to draft an email to members seeking a Publicity Officer and focusing on the top tasks that would be involved

6 Correspondence

Items received from members have been dealt with and points raised addressed.

After discussion it was agreed that no action was required at group level on the Great North Road Solar Park project. Ramblers nationally has a policy on such matters and this particular project is being dealt with at Area level.

7 Walk booking and pre-registration

It is expected that some form of pre-registration for walks will be suggested at the forthcoming Ramblers walk safety webinars. Until those webinars have taken place it would be premature to consider changes to the current system.

Action Points:

• Walk booking and pre-registration to be discussed with walk leaders at the next walk leader events

To discuss at future meeting:

• Any possible changes to current system arising from HQ advice at webinars and feedback at walk leader events

8 Balance of legacy

It was decided that an appropriate use of the funds would be to put on a short walk and “fun sports day” for members followed by a picnic paid for from the legacy money at the pavilion at Sconce and Devon Park.

Action Point:

• Dave to liaise with Jim about putting on a sports day event and possible dates.

9 AOB

The possibility of holding “open meetings” for all members to have the opportunity to discuss matters with committee members was discussed. In order to test the water for these and gauge whether people would be likely to want to attend such events, the next walk leaders’ support events will be opened to all members (whether or not they have an interest in becoming walk leaders). Provisional dates are 13 and 16 April, venue to be decided.

Action point:

• Anyone with suggestions for venue to contact Joyce.

To discuss at next meeting

• Further ideas on “open meetings”

10 Next meeting

14 March, 7 to 8.30 pm, South Muskham village hall.

BM

19 Jan. 24