THE RAMBLERS Telford and East Shropshire Group ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING to be held at THE OLD POLICE STATION Broadway, Shifnal TF11 8AZ TUESDAY 19th NOVEMBER 2019 at 7.30pm Family and Guests are welcome SPEAKER Mr John Box Telford @ 50 Industrial Riches to Nature’s Treasurers’ The Ramblers ‘Association is a registered charity England & Wales no.1093577.Scotland no.SC039799 AGENDA 1 Apologies 2 Minutes of AGM held on 13th November 2018 3 Matters arising 4 Group Annual Reports Chairman Anne Suffolk (including Publicity / Web Secretary) Treasurer Cary French Programme Secretary Jane Warman Membership Secretary Pam Day Footpath Secretary Paula Doherty 5 Formal Approval of Accounts 6 Formal Resignation of Officers and Committee Cary our Treasurer is resigning this post. 7 Re- Election of Officers and Committee 8 AOB arising from AGM 9 Address from Shropshire Area Chair. Mr Peter Carr 10 Speaker Mr John Box If you wish to propose a motion at the AGM, this needs to be submitted in writing to the Secretary Jo Henderson, no later than two weeks before the date of the AGM, or phone 01952 595302 for posting or email [email protected] Page 1 Telford and East Shropshire (TES) Ramblers Chair's Annual Report 2019 (Including Group Publicity Officer and Webmaster and Area Rep Annual Reports) Summary Our Group has worked on behalf of walkers and walking throughout our local area in 2019. We have had significant success in promoting walking and making it a higher priority within Telford and Wrekin. We have helped to protect, enhance and hopefully extend our footpath network. Our Group offered a successful programme of walks, more members participated, including many new walkers. These key aspects of our work are fleshed out in individual officer reports. In spite of operating in an area where there are a large number of walking groups offering guided walks, without any membership fee, we maintained our membership numbers in 2019 with membership hovering around or just above 250. Our achievements are communicated to members in biannual full colour Group Newsletters. Improvements to path network I was invited to private stakeholder meetings over the Ironbridge Power Station Site. We are actively involved in consultations with Harworth's the developers. I arranged and attended a meeting in May between the Chairs of Telford and Wrekin Local Access Forum and Shropshire Council Great Outdoors Strategy Board with the developer's highways team responsible for planning routes within and over the site. We are working collaboratively with key decision makers and other outdoor leisure groups to improve access, create new rights of way and a walking, cycling/horse riding friendly environment. Page 2 A Friends of the Telford T50 Mile Trail has been formed. Its committee includes four TES Ramblers members: me, Paula Doherty, Pam Hill and Naomi Wrighton (the latter two also for Wellington Walkers Are Welcome). We waymarked our new trail in an anticlockwise direction in 2019 and Paula notified the T&W ROW Officer of missing and damaged finger posts. I wrote a guidebook to the trail which includes information about wildlife and heritage as well as clear route directions. Any profits will go towards maintaining and improving the trail. The Shropshire Way was relaunched in September as a result of a joint initiative between Shrewsbury Ramblers and Shropshire Council. Our Group contributed two walks to the Shropshire Way Walking Festival and particpated in helping its improvement and promotion in our own area. Special thanks are due to Paula Doherty for her work on these and other rights of way and to Hamish Kirkpatrick for our path maintenance work team. Their work is detailed in a separate report. Promoting walking locally Our varied programme of guided walks on Sundays and Thursdays continue to be well supported, in particular the 'short & social' pub and cafe walks. Thanks to Jane Warman, Anne Wheeler and Anne Furlong for organising these. Their work is covered in a separate report. Our walks are listed in the free magazine What's What which goes to every household in East Shropshire and are advertised on our website and Facebook pages. Most new walkers say they found our walks searching on the internet. I met Councillors from Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin Local Authorities to discuss the benefits of walking and the importance of an Page 3 accessible footpath network. Our website and Group pages on Ramblers website have been improved. Our Facebook followers increased from 300 to 425; most are non-members. We have shared and commented on posts with local town and parish councils, community organisations and trusts and have been shared in return. At the request of Telford & Wrekin Council we participated in a major initiative to promote the health benefits of walking in a mass event called Get Telford Walking with a series of walks along the T50 Trail, with some short walks starting from local GP practices, and three long walks culminating at the Town Park on 19 May. Our linear walk was well supported with over 30 walkers joining us along the route on our way from Newport. This event got extensive local radio and press coverage and we will repeat it 24 May 2020. As part of their ‘Summer of Walks’ series, I was interviewed three times on Radio Shropshire about walking in Shropshire, the T50 Guidebook and Get Telford Walking. We have worked collaboratively with other walking groups, in particular with Wellington Walkers Are Welcome (including path clearance work). Naomi Wrighton and I helped set up Broseley Walkers Are Welcome. I am on their committee and helped set up a Parish Path Partnership Group to look after Broseley's extensive path network. Regional and national networking and campaigning with and through Shropshire Area I have attended Shropshire Ramblers Area Executive meetings and Area Council meetings on behalf of the Group. There will be a full report from the Chair of Shropshire Ramblers on the work of the Area at our AGM. Many of our members attended Ramblers training events in Shrewsbury. All these activities are of considerable value in helping us meet with and learn from other Groups, and to understand Ramblers' wider activities and campaigns. We are also working with the Ramblers Area Environment Officer over planning issues, in particular we will be liaising over the worrying proposals to build Page 4 extensively in the green belt in East Shropshire - in Shifnal, Tong and Bridgnorth. The future and your own role in the Ramblers Our Group now needs new volunteers to help take our work forward. You don't need to be on the committee, just willing to spend a couple of hours now and then. I and all the committee would welcome suggestions from, and conversations with, members as to what our priorities should be in 2019 and how these can best be taken forward. If you walk local paths regularly could you become a Path Guardian and report overgrown vegetation to us, so our maintenance team can sweep into action? There is guidance on how to report path obstructions and signage problems on our website and in our newsletters. You might want to join our path maintenance team? We know our newsletter readers enjoy articles written by members about favourite walks, walking holidays or why they joined us. No expertise or technical knowledge is needed to write articles for our newsletter, or post news, events, photos and information to help keep our Facebook and web pages up to date. If you can use a PC, tablet or laptop, and have the ability to write, attach and send files; to cut, copy and paste text or photos, you could be a great help. Just ask me or a committee member. We also need someone with strong feelings about protecting our walking environment, to challenge planning applications that could harm our paths network and local open spaces. Is this what interests you? There is a vacancy on our committee waiting for you! How about offering a pub walk or social event? If we had enough new walk leaders we could expand our walks programme. Shropshire Area will be offering training in walk leading and first aid. Look out for these Page 5 opportunities and come along and join in, it's free and one of the perks of being a member. Special Thanks Thank you to our committee, our walk leaders, our path maintenance team and our membership for all your support over the last 12 months; we can't do anything without you. We would also like to thank Telford and Wrekin Council for their increased support for walking in 2019, including earmarking £100k for extra staff support for Rights of Way and for the personal support of Raj Mehta while he was Mayor. We would also like to thank Andrew Careless, Senior Rights of Way Officer for the improvements to signage with new finger and short posts on key routes and some major path improvements to surfaces on heavily used routes such as Rough Park. Anne Suffolk Chair TES Ramblers Treasurer’s Report for the Year 2018-2019 The year began with a balance of £571.93. We received a budget allowance from Central Office of £345.48, £150.00 total from H.F.Holidays and RWH Travel for programme adverts. There is one outstanding payment of £50.00 due from RWH Travel. We also receive donations from RWH Travel when members nominate our group when booking their holidays. This year it was £10.00. Printing and distribution, including the increasing cost of postage, of the walks programme is still our most significant expense. Our current balance of £418.20 together with our budget allowance which is based on our membership, means we should have sufficient funds to cover our running costs for the forthcoming year.