Minutes of the Committee Meeting of Newark Ramblers held at South Muskham Village Hall on Thursday 16 May 2024

Present            Joyce Pedersen       Chair

                          Brigid Murphy            Secretary

                          Caroline Lee             Walks Coordinator

                          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 Ken Martin.

2 Minutes of last meeting – matters arising not covered elsewhere on the agenda

The sports day event will be held on Tuesday 13 August, with a short walk at 5pm, sports at 6pm and picnic food (paid for from the remaining legacy funds) after the sports. Joyce volunteered to organise the food (possibly from M&S).

The ceilidh is to be held on 19 July.

Committee is uncomfortable about giving publicity to the group’s achievement on number of walks offered without a better understanding of the national stats in this area.

Action Points:

1. Joyce to organise food for sports day event

1. Joyce to email HQ to ask if we can publicise Newark’s position in the national stats on number of walks offered

3 Reports from Officers

Individual reports from officers had been circulated in advance and gave rise to the following points. [Note: Brigid holds the reports and will supply copies on request.]

Walk leader guidance is now on the Ramblers website. It was decided not to issue a separate Newark Ramblers guidance note as this could risk duplication and be confusing.

The publicity on footpaths work has been excellent. Getting publicity for the Ramblers’ wider work should help counter the possible public perception that the organisation is solely concerned with group walking.

The Facebook page is looking good. Committee members wondered if people other than admin could post. Following the decision that we didn’t want a closed group on Facebook – we wanted non-members to be able to see posts for reasons of publicity – the only way to post is through the admins. Ian will be asked if he would be happy for a contact link for him to be included on the Newark Ramblers website.

The next edition of the newsletter is approaching completion and will be issued to members before the end of May.

Jacqui is trying to make contact with the Newark games café to organise a games night.

The budget for next year and any bid for funds needs to be in by July. It was agreed that we would seek additional funds this year, including for publicity and an expected increase in travel expenses claims.

The Newark Ramblers workshops on 16 and 20 April went well, but were not well-attended. While having forums for communication with members is acknowledged as important, it’s not clear how best to achieve this in the future.

Caroline will be on holiday for two weeks at the beginning of June. She will have published the June walks programme before going away, and will be back in time to publish the July programme, but sometimes changes have to be made between publication dates, for example if walks are cancelled. Carol will be on holiday in June and so won’t be able to cover. The other two people who have publisher permissions on walks manager are Brigid and Roger. Roger will be asked if he would be willing to cover (except for the days when he is also on holiday, which will be covered by Brigid).

Some concern was expressed about the Newark Ramblers stand at the County Show. It was thought that Sue Rick had been intending to issue time slots to volunteers staffing the stand, but she had unfortunately been unable to do this because of illness. A maximum number of volunteers staffing the stand at any one time would be desirable at future events. It would also have been helpful to have a list of all the Notts groups displayed or included on a leaflet.

Action Points:

1. Brigid to approach Ian to ask if he would be happy for the website to have a contact link to him as Group Facebook Admin, following which Dave to liaise with Roger to implement if yes.

1. Brigid to send Joyce’s note on Lyme disease to Jacqui for inclusion in Newsletter.

• Brigid to email all members to ask them to submit any outstanding walk recce travel expenses claims to assist Margaret in finalising next year’s budget.

1. Margaret to prepare and submit itemised bid for funds for next year.

1. Dave to ask Roger if he can cover any unplanned walks manager changes that may arise between 4 June and Caroline’s return from holiday.

1. James to feed back to area the concerns about the stand at the County Show.

4 Nottinghamshire Area AGM

Collingham Memorial Hall is booked. Collingham group have not yet decided whether or not to join Newark in hosting. Some ideas have been put forward for possible guest speakers. It would be useful to set up a sub-group to assist Joyce with the planning and organisation. This can be covered further at the July committee meeting

Next meeting:

1. Set up sub-group for Area AGM and discuss arrangements in more detail.

5 Correspondence

None

6 Footpath Matters

1. GNR solar farm

An Egmanton resident, Richard Whall, has approached Newark Ramblers, having put himself forward to coordinate local responses for the use of community funds that will become available from the developer should permission for the development be granted. Dave, together with Peter Somerville from Southwell group, has met up with Richard. Any proposals from Ramblers for footpath improvements or new paths would be put forward by Area, hopefully with national input and assistance, and it is important that Richard Whall is not seen to be speaking for Ramblers. However it will be useful to maintain contact with him. He will no doubt be interested in the proposals Ramblers puts forward, and it will be helpful for us to know what he is advocating.

It will be a huge job to catalogue all the footpaths in the vast area covered by the GNR solar farm plans, but if Ramblers is to put forward proposals for improving existing paths and creating new paths, this really is needed. We will ask our members for assistance with this project.

1. Area Rights of Way matters

There are currently difficulties at Area level in forming and retaining an effective RoW team, which are proving difficult to resolve. This is taking up a lot of time and is having a detrimental effect on our work protecting rights of way.

1. Assistant Group Footpath Secretary

James has been assisting Dave in the discussions outlined above, and was appointed Assistant Footpath Secretary on a temporary basis to give an official footing to his continued assistance.

Action Points:

1. Dave to draft request for members to help with cataloguing footpaths for Jacqui to include in May newsletter.

7 Newark Group AGM

This year’s AGM will be held on Wednesday 13 November. Committee agreed that it should be held in Newark if possible. A location in the town itself would make getting to it by public transport easier than a more rural location. Sconce Park Pavilion and the YMCA were put forward as possible locations.

Action Points:

1. Joyce to explore possibility of booking a room at Newark YMCA for the AGM

8 AOB

Sunday 2nd June is currently the only vacancy on the June walks programme. There are still a number of dates to fill in July.

9 Next meeting

18 July, 7 pm, South Muskham Village Hall.

BM

17 May 2024