Area Footpath Secretary

MANCHESTER AND Manchester and Salford SALFORD Local Group Newsletter and Walks (M & S Ramblers) No 42 September 2019 AGM Saturday 2nd November. Monton Unitarian Church Hall, Monton Green, Eccles M30 8AP Meet at Dukes Drive car park at 11am for walk along Loop line and around Worsley Back at the Church Hall for 12.30pm for lunch Meeting at 1.30pm close at 3.30/4 pm Socials October 22ndGeology and stones. The walk and talk, 'Rocks of Modern Manchester' looking at the variety of materials used to build some of the magnificent buildings in the city. It is led by our own Pia and will be very interesting. .We will meet at 11am in St Peter's Square under the colonnade outside Central Library. November 26th Guided walk and talk through Worsley looking at the impact of the industrial revolution through canals and bridges. Then bringing it right up to date with a look at the site of the RHS gardens (hopefully one of our tours for 2020). This will be led by Emma Fox. December 16th Christmas Social.Meeting at the Market and the Paramount on Oxford Road. More details for November and December nearer the time. Black Men Walking Another chance to see this excellent play. Some of us saw it at Royal Exchange a couple of years ago. Written by the son of two of our members and based on Walking group set up by Maxwell Ayamba, who many of us have heard speak at Kinder anniversary events. http://www.coliseum.org.uk/plays/black-men-walking In Oldham 24-26th October and touring. Walks for Carers. The grant for this project has been renewed so we are holding more walks this autumn and spring. If you want to help, or for more information contact Margaret Manning. Our Walk for Everyone day at Debdale Park in June was very successful. It was Hot! Hot! Hot! 70 walkers took part in 3 walks and all made it round. Good to be joined by Manhar, Yvonne and others from MOSAIC, some from the Carers’ walks, plus lots of new walkers and we had two articles in the Tameside Reporter. Thanks to all out M&S members who helped out. 1 Manchester Green Trail Many members will know of the Manchester Green Trail but some will not. It was originally developed by the team involved with Get Walking Keep Walking – the lottery funded project the Ramblers led in Manchester to encourage people to walk. But that was over ten years ago. The maps and directions were very out of date and often not clear. With support from Transport for Greater Manchester (TFGM) – Carragh Teague – we reconvened a group made up of Manchester City Council staff – mainly from the Parks Department which also oversees all green spaces, the Ramblers and TFGM. I undertook the co-ordination of the work and Ramblers volunteers took the old maps and directions and checked every route, not just once but several times. TFGM’s publicity department redrew the maps and leaflets and they are indeed very modern and refreshing. We kept text directions to a minimum, just where the map wasn’t clear. We are not printing the leaflets but having them available for downloading both from our website and also Manchester Active Website https://mcractive.com/walking - although it is not yet up and running. TFGM also redesigned the logo. We are having these made into waymarkers, discs for wooden posts and places where we can stick them or nail them; wrap around plastic sheets for metal lamp posts and similar metal structures. The Area has generously funded the waymarkers to replace the old Green Corridor ones The huge boards on some park entrances announcing the Green Corridor have to be replaced because they are out of date. The Council will produce a cover to contain the new information. We had our final discussion on the routes and now have to get the maps altered so they can be posted on the websites and we can announce them. We will have a blitz on the waymarking over the next few months when the waymarkers arrive – so anyone interested in helping out let me know. Manchester City Council wanted us to have a full launch during “Love your Parks Week” in early July. Unfortunately, it wasn’t well promoted so despite having Ramblers leaders for all 14 walks, most had no takers and a couple of walks had one or two people. We were very disappointed at this so we will have a formal launch in spring 2020 with just one well publicised walk where we will handle the publicity. We will be including regular walks along the trail as part of our walks programme and will try and get it regularly walked. It has been a long time coming but it has been worth it – and I hope it will encourage people to walk in their locality – we might need to find ways of promoting it locally, but that can wait till next year. Salle Dare The Spirit of Kinder Celebrations Every year the Kinder and High Peak Advisory Group have an event to both celebrate the Kinder Trespass, and also to look forward to the future and how we can protect the moors and open spaces. This year we had a very wet celebration in Castleton with banners and artwork designed by young people and leading to an Art Trail in the Peak District which ran till 14 September. In 2020, the 20th anniversary of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, we are putting in a bid to the People’s History Museum (PHM) for an exhibition. The PHM theme for 2020 is migration. We want to show how this links into Kinder and the CROW Act. We will also hold an event in the Engine Hall at the PHM on 25th April, with speakers from the Ramblers (Kate Ashbrook) and other organisations, so put that date in your diary. If you would be interested in getting involved in this do let me know. Salle Dare Big Welsh Walk. The Welsh Ramblers are inviting us to join this on 13th June 2020. There will be several walks of different lengths all from Chirk castle. More details later. More First Aid courses for walk leaders are being run by The Ramblers until December and are recommended by those who have done them. They are booking up fast. To book one click here Download the app what3words. Another recommendation from Ramblers members - it's an app that identifies locations across the world accurately through 3 words, rather than postcodes or grid references. We should all be able to use grid references, but experience of Ramblers on the walk leaders course was that emergency services can't always work from grid references. More regions' emergency services are rolling out the use of what3words, which is more accurate than postcodes in town and easier to communicate accurately over the phone on a windy hillside than a grid reference. https://what3words.com/ You can also register your phone to make 999 requests by text as a backup if there's not enough signal for a phone call. This is a backup only, as you can't guarantee the text will get through, but is better than nothing if you're in need! If you text the word register to 999, you'll then be sent instructions to allow you to complete your registration. Walking Elsewhere. The Sgurr of Eigg We were on a short trip to the Small Isles – Eigg, Rum and Canna, and had glorious weather for the classic climb up on the Sgurr of Eigg. The Sgurr viewed from the quay at Galmisdale, is a sheer volcanic rock tower and provides a great walk with superb views. We followed the lane up through bluebell carpeted woods and across field paths to the substantial farmstead of Galmisdale House, with the Sgurr rising imposingly ahead and we continued on to a moorland path that took us over a shoulder of the ridge, with fine views to the small isle of Muck and to Col and Tiree beyond. Our way then climbed through a narrow rocky gully to a grassy col and then we scrambled up a natural staircase in the pitchstone that led to a good path that traversed impressively round the south side of the ridge. With a final pull we were on the summit, with its trig point and 360 views. We could see the bulk of Ben More on the Isle of Mull to the south, to the east the mountains of the mainland from the Glencoe tops to the Knoydart Munros and up to the snow-capped Torridon hills. The Isle of Skye was directly north, Blà Bheinn and the Cuillin Ridge were cloud free and magnificent. The high hills of the Isle of Rum were just a short distance across the water and further out we could see to the isles of Outer Hebrides, South Uist, Eriskey, Barra and Mingulay– all set in deep blue waters, a cloudless sky and with the contrast of dark rock and green pasture. Eventually after enjoying our rocky perch and its magnificent views, we retraced out steps back to Galmisdale. Alan Manning. The "art walk" Be Kinder which went from Penny Pot Cafe, Edale to the foot of Jacob's Ladder. This was curated by Jarvis Cocker to commemorate the mass trespass on Kinder, part of the National Trust’s People’s Landscapes project celebrating protest in the 200th anniversary year of Peterloo. The installations were in the Methodist Church in Barber Booth.

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