REPORTS |
This time last year I reported a membership of 51 and it has generally been above that throughout the year and currently stands at 51. So I think it’s fair to say membership is remaining fairly constant.
From time to time we have discussions about how big we want to be and one factor that comes into that is usually how many cars we want to take on a walk bearing in mind we might park them in some small village some where. Certainly we hit Stilton pretty heavily recently with I think 8 cars for 15 walkers. Food for thought.
Last year marked the occasion of our first trip abroad to Ireland for which we had 12 takers plus Tony joined us for parts of the weekend. This was a very well supported and enjoyable weekend and our thanks go to Graham for arranging it. After the success of last year, we decided to arrange another trip abroad this year to France, but so far have only 8 takers; so for some reason there is less interest. If you have any views on such trips the committee would love to hear them.
For our other trips, we went to the Forest of Bowland in June where for some reason the ladies in the club abandoned us and there were just 5 males; in February 10 of us went to try the new hostel at Crowden and at Easter we went to Wast Water in the Lake District where the youth hostel surpassed our previous experiences by serving three candle-lit dinners in our own private room. There were 16 in the Lakes, so this was one of our most well supported trips.
Less successful were the planned navigation training and first aid training, which were cancelled for lack of support, the navigation for the second time. I was particularly disappointed about the first aid as I thought this was something that was quite important. Dylan kindly offers to make his time available and we can’t drum up enough people to take advantage of his generous offer. I can only conclude and put on record that the majority of members of the club do not think we need trained first aiders on walks.
On the social side, we have had meals at the Shah Jehan in Peterborough, Toscanni in Eye and Fratellis in Stamford plus the barbecue in August. Also the beer by rail is gradually becoming more popular and there was a sprinkling of people at the beer festival.
During the year we have bought a larger web space as we had filled the previous space that we had available. We can now add video clips if we want to. The forum remains a damp squib.
This year, Stuart one of the stalwarts of the committee is stepping down from route planning which looking back I think he has done for 11 years. So I can understand why he thinks it time for someone else to have a go. But I would like to thank Stuart for all the time and effort he has put into the role over the years. I am sure you will agree he has provided us with some great walks over the years. Also stepping down from the committee this year is Jane who is not a regular attendee at club events, but has been our PR Representative and keeping the papers informed about our walks. And my thanks also go to her for her input.
As always, I would like to thank the committee members for all the effort they put in during the year as otherwise the club would not be as successful as it is.
That concludes what I have to say, except to wish for good walking and entertainment over the coming year.
- Chairman – Alan Parsons
- General Secretary – Angela Jones
- Treasurer – Andy Williamson
- PR Representative – Cathy Hunting
- Transport Co–ordinator – Bev Cutforth
- Route Planner – Nigel Arkle
- Special Events Co–ordinator – Judith Neal
- Editor – Alan Parsons
- Membership Secretary – Graham Dear
A phone code was agreed:
- Be considerate in the use of the phone to avoid disturbing other walkers.
- Avoid use as far as possible whilst walking.
- Set on silent mode if possible.
- If you have to make or take a call, drop back out of earshot of other walkers.
