DONCASTER RAMBLERS
Minutes of committee meeting held on 22 January 2024
Finningley Village Hall
Committee members present: Stephen Tomlinson, David Gadd, Angela Gibson, Dave Binnington, David Horne, Peter Rowsell, Tony Marsh and Peter Gravestock
Members present: Kim Binnington, Stuart Twell
1. Apologies. Brian Milne
2. Review of the minutes of the meeting on 17.07.23. These were accepted as accurate.
3. Matters arising from the minutes of 17.07.23. None.
4. Financial report. Given by David Horne. David reported that the 2023/2024 financial year commenced on the 01.10.23. Since that date there have been four debits to the account, including one claim for fuel expenses, and one credit of £80 from the Walking Holiday Foundation. The current account balance is £1794.49. There are two payments pending, £22 for the hall hire for this meeting and the payment of our Flickr account which is used to load walk photographs onto the website. The management of Finningley Village Hall will pass to Finningley Town Council at the end of January 2024. This should not affect our hall booking for meetings but David H to check that account details for hire payment remain the same.
5. Walks programme.
• Tuesday walks. Charlie Pratt advised the winter walks programme runs to the end of April. Not all walks are on the programme and the following dates are vacant, 27.02.23, 12.03.23 and the 2, 9, 26 and 30.04.24, however we do have 3 walks in reserve in case walks for these dates are not forthcoming. Charlie has advised it is the usual suspects leading walks though we have had one new leader come forward following a plea for more walk leaders.
• Thursday walks. David Gadd reported the programme is full until the end of February with the exception of the 08.02.24. David advised he could do with more walk leaders to share the load. Thursday walks are well attended, often 20 plus, and numbers seem to be increasing
• Saturday walks. Angela Gibson has taken over the role of Saturday Walks Coordinator. She advised that the Saturday walks programme is full to the end of February. Angela plans to lead a walk a month as does Brian Unsworth and with others offering to lead walks it is hoped a fairly full programme of walks will be offered. Angela confirmed twenty attended the walk on Saturday 20.01.23. The meeting concluded that with Angela coordinating the walks, numbers and availability of Saturday walks will improve.
• Carer’s walks. Steve Tomlinson confirmed he has contacted Alyssa Mills of Doncaster Carers and she has advised they were looking at different venues. Following the meeting Steve Tomlinson contacted Alyssa to see if she could firm up dates. Alyssa advised they are looking at doing some local nature walks in 2024, reducing the number of historic estates visits. Steve T too check if we are needed for the nature walks. Alyssa confirmed the first historic estate walk for 2024 is on April 17 2024 at Nostell Priory. Steve T to advise his team of this date. Alyssa has confirmed she would like our assistance on the proposed nature walks.
6. Membership. Steve Tomlinson reported on membership. Current membership is 243 which is an increase of 12 since the last meeting. We have had 7 resignations and 6 lapsed members and since the 22.10 23 have recruited 23 new members. Thanks were expressed to Peter Rowsell for the work he does on publicity which is a major factor in Doncaster Ramblers maintaining its membership levels when many other groups are seeing a reduction in membership levels.
7. Publicity. See report below presented by Peter Rowsell. Peter advised that 3 questions had been asked on Facebook.
• Any walks suitable for wheelchairs and prams. Committee members suggested locations such Sandall Beat, Cusworth, Lakeside etc. Following the meeting an internet search was carried out and several links forwarded to Peter.
• Is it possible to get a route map of the walk. For Tuesday walks the route is added to the photo file. The question was asked whether a pdf of the OS map with the route marked would contradict copyright. It was suggested that previous contact with OS indicated that as long as their copyright is acknowledged it is ok. Further research is required and contact to be made with OS/Ramblers Central Office. If no copyright issue we could add the routes to the website.
• Best way to get to the start for non-drivers. The committee felt this was a problem which not a lot could be done about. Obviously for Tuesday walks if members can get the bus to the Rossington Park and Ride then they can participate in the car share scheme. This may work for some Saturday walks but unlikely to be useful for Thursday walks. Otherwise, non-drivers would be relying on living close to a walking member who is happy to pick them up and drop them off, this is relying on people’s goodwill and some members maybe wary about picking up a person they have not met before.
Peter also asked if anybody was available to attend a Get Doncaster Moving (GDM) Network Meeting on the 01.03.24. Following the meeting David Gadd agreed to go with Peter Rowsell to the GDM meeting.
8. Rights of Way and maintenance. See report below presented by Tony Marsh. Following the meeting with CDC RoW Section on 24.01.24 Stuart Twell will provide some information on the 2024 proposed work sessions so that a group email can be sent to raise the profile of the work in the hope it attracts more volunteers. Stuart Twell reported on the last work session of 2023 which was at Rossington and the provision of a steel kissing gate which was paid for by Wadworth Parish Council after he contacted them. Stuart is to explore the possibility of other Parish and Town Councils having money available for work on the CDC footpath network. He will raise this at the meeting with the CDC RoW Section to check he is not going to upset them. Stuart also wants to raise awareness with the Town and Parish Councils on the capabilities of our maintenance team. Stuart also raised the issue of the lack of CDC approved pick up drivers if Stuart Horrocks is not available on the date selected for work to be carried out.
9. Any other business.
• At the start of the meeting David Gadd advised that following his resignation as Chair at the AGM he had reconsidered his position. Taking into consideration that other committee members had reduced the workload of the position he was prepared to withdraw his resignation and continue as Chair. This was agreed by the committee and David was reinstated as Chair.
• Martin Wyman expressed concern that all the walk enquiries by email were being sent to him rather than the Walk Coordinators or Walk Leaders. Following the meeting the reasons for this were investigated and it was agreed that Peter Rowsell will act as the initial point of contact for enquiries. Peter will either deal with the enquiry or if it is walking related pass onto the walk Coordinators or walk Leaders for action. Martin Wyman in his role as Webmaster should be able to make the change.
• Update on Central Office draft document about “Safety on Group Walks”. It was confirmed that no new information had been made available on Assemble since the issue of the draft document for comment in November 2023. Subsequent to the meeting an email was sent to all Volunteers by Central Office summarizing the feedback from Volunteers and they are currently working on a new draft which should be available for review in the spring.
• It was confirmed the new Doncaster Group email system using Mailchimp is up and running. We can only use this to send information to members who have signed up to receive email marketing. Latest information was that 126 members, out of 239, had signed up, plus 30 who have a single email address for joint membership gives us access to 156 members (65%). We have 19 members who we have no email contact for. The indication is that members who are active in Doncaster Rambler are signed up and receiving the group emails.
• The question was asked wether we should use Mailchimp to send a newsletter to members two or three times a year. The Committee were not in favour of this and preferred to use it for notification of special events such as coach trips, Xmas lunches etc. and call for volunteers for footpath checking and maintenance. It was suggested that Mailchimp could be used to send minutes of the Committee Meetings to all members, the committee was not in favour of this action.
• David Gadd advised that in October 2025 it is Doncaster Ramblers turn to host the Ramblers Area AGM. It was agreed David would arrange for this to take place in Tickhill as on previous occasions rather than reinventing the wheel.
The meeting closed at 2045
S J Tomlinson 25.02.24.
Publicity Officers Report.
After much to and froing we finally got a site visit from Ramblers Central Office to highlight the efforts of our maintenance team carrying out repairs to the CDC footpath network. Unfortunately, we missed the deadline for the last edition of WALK magazine, hopefully an article will appear in the next. Almost by coincidence there appeared, earlier this month, a news item on the BBC entitled “Public rights of way blocked in 32,000 places” so I contacted both BBC Radio Sheffield and Look North highlighting the work of our maintenance teams. Amelia Shallish from BBC Look North responded by asking when our next maintenance session would be? The implication being a team would be sent to observe/film. Timing is critical as news rolls on relentless. In addition, I had a short fifteen-minute telephone interview with Mick Lunney of BBC Radio Sheffield. The clip was scheduled to be used on Saturday 13.01.24.
Facebook updates
| Post reach |
98,229 |
| Post engagement |
15,096 |
| New Page likes |
21 |
Total likes |
3.9k |
| New followers |
65 |
Total followers |
3.5k |
Feedback and questions asked on Facebook.
1. Are there any local walks suitable for wheelchair/pushchair users.
2. Is it possible to get a route map of the walk.
3. Best way to get to the start point for non-drivers.
Peter Rowsell
22 January 2024
Rights of Way and Maintenance Report.
Path Inspections.
• The yearend total of footpaths checked in 2023 was 490 paths out of a total of 603 in CDC. However, it is worth adding that a large proportion of the paths not checked, were done in 2022.
• A few additional comments about last year's inspections. Of the 29 geographical areas (squares) we cover, 16 reported a range of issues which included overgrown and blocked paths, missing or damaged waymark posts and broken gates and stiles.
• Four areas,50SW,50NW,51SE & 61SE, reported problems in double digit figures.
• I assume that most of you are aware that the role of coordinating the Footpath Inspections will, in future, be in the capable hands of Dianne Scolari.
Path Maintenance
• There is very little to report with just the one maintenance session at Rossington since the AGM in October. Stuart will talk briefly about this at the end of my report.
• The two final maintenance meetings in November and December 2023, were cancelled, due to the weather, which meant we carried out 9 of the 11 planned sessions.
• We aim to try and resolve many of these outstanding issues in 2024 and we have a meeting arranged with Stuart Horrocks and Julie Guest from Rights of Way on Wednesday 24 January 2024 to discuss and plan what we intend to do on each of the 11 monthly maintenance sessions already arranged and added to the Doncaster Ramblers website.
• The first maintenance session is on Wednesday, 7th February where we intend to carry out clearance work.
Tony Marsh.
22 January 2024.
