The Chairman’s Letter March 2012/June 2012
Dear Rambling Friends,
After a period of several years without an official secretary, Pat Beckley has recently volunteered for the job. On behalf of everyone I welcome her to the post. Pat is no stranger to the committee as she is also our Publicity Officer.
I must thank Mike Bailey for doing an enormous amount of work in covering the vacancy over this period of time. The job has totally changed over the years, with the advent of word processing and e-mail, replacing hand-written letters and posting out information.
One other significant change is that Don Cobbett has decided to retire as Editor of our Walks Programme. I am not sure how long he has been doing it, but Don’s local knowledge and attention to detail (assisted by his wife Barbara), has helped maintain a very high standard of information being presented to the group. The programme is also transferred to our Web Site for the entire world to see. We have yet to decide how to replace him, but on behalf of all our members I thank him for all his good work. I understand that Barbara still produces the minutes for the Footpath committee. I shall look forward to seeing them both at next year’s Christmas Dinner, if not before.
THE QUEEN’S DIAMOND JUBILEE
We are considering having a stall in The Abbey Grounds, Cirencester, during the celebrations. We shall probably be asking for volunteers to assist and further details will be published when known.
SPECIAL WALKS
For those of you interested in doing longer all-day walks, Andrew Williams will be leading one starting from Chepstow, and going to the historic ruins of Tintern Abbey along the Wye Valley. (See programme for further details.) A few years ago John Lodge took a group of us, including Arthur Brooke who sadly recently passed away, down to Chepstow Castle to enjoy a similar walk, using the infamous Minety village bus.
STRAWBERRY TEA
This year’s event will be held at Meadows Edge, Days Court, Crudwell, Wilts, the home of Mike and Rosemary Bailey. As usual a short walk in the area will precede it. (See programme for details). Donations of cakes would be greatly appreciated.
CAR PARKING
Please note that in view of the Council NOT, for most car parks, introducing car parking charges on a Sunday, we have decided to revert to our traditional meeting place in the Waterloo Car Park. This change will come into effect from the start of this programme.
PARISH FOOTPATHS
We have a proposal from your Footpath Committee whereby we walk all the paths in a parish at least once a year. There are 42 parishes in our area, and we should like to hear from anyone who would be interested in joining such a project. Notes (and photos) could be taken and fed back to a co-ordinator to analyse the results. A person would be assigned a parish to walk using their own schedule. Please contact Richard Holmes or a member of the committee
if you are interested.
GATEWAY CENTRE
We have also received a suggestion that we have a few summer walks starting from the Gateway Centre on a Saturday. This may attract walkers from the large numbers of visitors in the Water Park, and encourage some potential new members to the Ramblers. The committee would welcome your views on the idea.
Happy Rambling from Phil