Committee meeting synopsis
Meeting date: 7 July, 2018
Another month, another committee meeting (although we are skipping August).
Review
Last month, we had our Annual Public Meeting, following on from the walk to
Etling Green. Some 15 people joined us as we reviewed last year’s activity and
discussed plans for 2018 and onward. The
minutes (pdf)
of this meeting are available. The meeting saw no need to change the
Constitution,
which the committee has now confirmed. More importantly, Jenny
Atterwell offered to join the committee, an offer we were delighted to accept;
Jenny has now attended her first meeting with us.
Discussion
The work of Catherine and Sue in getting walks packs stocked, and WaW logos
displayed, throughout the town, continues. We have 27 businesses displaying a
logo, and 29 with walks packs: some 400 packs had been distributed (not
including the library, which has had several hundred). We have now run out of
logos, so are purchasing another batch. Happily, our funds have had a couple of
boosts, allowing us to afford this.
First, Wymondham U3A visited the town in June for a walk round some of our main
sites of interest. We were able to use Dorothy’s work in preparation for our own
town walk (see below) to show our visitors around - for which they made us a
£32 donation. On top of this, Sue had prepared another quiz (the first one
was in 2016) and had already sold quite a quantity, so was able to bank a
further £50.
In a different venture for us, we will run a 'Town History walk' which we
hope might ultimately result in joint work with Dereham Antiquarian Society
and/or the production of some self guided town walk booklets on different
subjects. The committee reviewed the current booklet entitled "A Glimpse of
Dereham's History".
Future walks
All is in place for the town history walk on 29 July. For now, bookings are still open
for this walk: we are limiting numbers to ensure this is manageable, but if more
want to come than we can accommodate, we will keep a reserve list with the
possibility of a repeat event if there is demand.
After this, the next walk will be 27 August (Bank Holiday Monday), and will use
the routes to the east of the town which are currently being claimed as
Restricted Byways. The claims were put in by Dereham Town Council, supported by
The Ramblers and ourselves. They have gone through the necessary legal
processes, the final stage of which will start after 13 July, which is the
closing date for anyone to object to the proposals to amend the original order
to increase the widths of some of the routes. Once the Inspector has resolved
any representations, the order will be confirmed and it will be for Norfolk
County Council to take the routes into its public rights of way network with
associated signage and maintenance. We don’t need to wait for this, as the
routes have been used regularly for many years without challenge. Keep an eye on
the
Current Events section at the end of July. We
are hoping that this walk will start and end at Dereham Windmill, with the usual
refreshments.
Looking further ahead, we are also planning a repeat for our ‘garden party’ walk
on 30 September and an additional walk on 22 October (timed to fit into the
Norfolk County Council Cycling and Walking Festival period); this latter will
have longer and shorter options, but both will start and end at Gressenhall
Museum (and also with the usual refreshments, of course).
As things stand, that will be the last until 2019, which we will start as usual
on New Year’s Day, 1 January.