DONCASTER RAMBLERS
Minutes of committee meeting held on 18 July 2022
Finningley Village Hall
Committee members present: David Gadd, David Horne, Peter Gravestock, Dave Binnington,
Norman Lewis, Peter Rowsell and Stephen Tomlinson.
1 Apologies. Tony Marsh.
2 Review of the minutes of the meeting on 23 May 2022. These were accepted as
accurate.
3 Matters arising from those minutes. None
4 Financial report. Since the last meeting expenditure of £22.50 to Peak and Northern
Footpath Society (PNFS). Credit of £10 received from the Walking Partnership. Hall
rental (4 at £20 each) for the committee meetings to be paid as a single invoice at the
year end. David also confirmed we know have to ability to make BACs and online
payments. The current balance stands at £2287.83.
5 Walking programmes.
Tuesday walks programme. Full to the end of October.
Thursday walks programme. Peter Rowsell has recently added some
walks to the programme and providing he can arrange transport he is ok to
lead Thursday walks. Tony Foster has been giving Peter a lift and helping
him to lead the walks, cover needs to be arranged for when Tony is on
holiday. Programme is currently full until the end of September. Peter
Rowsell expressed his thanks to those who had kept the Thursday walk
programme ticking over during his absence.
Saturday walks programme. Saturday walks are few and far between on
the programme and DG asked if anybody had any suggestions how to
improve the situation. ST offered to switch to walking on Saturday for a
couple of months to try and improve the programme and encourage regular
Saturday walkers to become walk leaders and add walks to the programme.
This was dependant on agreement by his wife. It was agreed ST should
liaise with Trevor Jenkins, still to be done at the time of writing.
Subsequent to the meeting ST has confirmed he can only walk alternate
Saturdays and from the start of September. Collaboration with other local
groups for Saturday walks was discussed but it was agreed this had been
tried before and not worked plus we do not want members moving
permanently to other groups. Since the meeting ST has contacted Angela
Gibson and she has added walks for the 20 August and 24 September 2022.
Carers walk. Latest carers walk was at Brodsworth on Wednesday 13 July
and was successful though only 3 carers did the longer walk. No walk in
August. Next walk Canon Hall on 14 September 2022 and the last one for
this year is on 12 October 2022, the location changed to Wentworth
Woodhouse
6. Publicity.
Peter Rowsell’s report is presented below in blue text.
DFP entries have gone back to (almost) each week now, and encouragingly they are digging
out archived copy, if I’m late posting copy. I also like the fact the editor must read it to
come up with their own title.
Facebook – more or less the same as in previous months. One note of interest, a member of
Lakeside & Bessacar FB Group messaged “Why are you posting this stuff” (our walk
reports and photos) I answered, “I thought it might be of interest to their group, but if it’s
not I’ll happily exclude you from future posts”, within minutes someone wrote “No I enjoy
reading them, and it was one reason I joined Ramblers (Kerensa Barker)
Advertising
Cost for a quarter page in DFP is £129.28 plus VAT Monday deadline for that week’s
edition
Cost for a full page in Arrow is £99.00 plus VAT
(There are eight editions – see left I assume
price is per edition. Circulation is 31K)
Costs for full page in Today is £125 plus VAT
per edition
(there are five editions – Tickhill; Bawtry; Rossington;
Harworth & Biircotes; Bessacarr & Cantley – discounts
available for appearing in more than one edition - 2
magazines = 5%, 3 = 10% 4 = 15% 5 = 20% Circulation
26k)
Get Doncaster Moving – should we send them a copy of the ad?
See Section 8 Membership below for discussion on advert in the Free Press and other publications
7. Membership. David Gadd reported that the current membership stands at 238, with
membership being very stable. A discussion was had on the proposed advert for the Doncaster
Free Press that Peter Roswell (PR) had put together. Some amendments to the text,
photograph quality and strap line were suggested by various committee members. PR to make
amendments and submit for approval, done on 19 July 2021. It was agreed that the advert
should be placed in the Free Press at a cost of £129.28 for a one-off advert. It was agreed this
should not happen until September when hopefully we have more clarity to the Saturday
programme. Frees Press lead in time is a few days. The aim of the advert is to increase
membership, though the committee felt it was happy with our membership levels, Central
Office are always pushing for more to increase revenue. PR also suggested an advert in the
Arrow, it was pointed out this publication only covers the south of Doncaster, but it is free to
people where they have to pay for the Free Press and the Arrow tends to sit in peoples houses
where as the Free Press gets disposed. Further adverts in other publications to be reviewed
once the effectiveness of the Free Press advert is known.
8. Rights of Way (RoW) and Maintenance. Tony Marsh was unable to attend the meeting
and sent the following report (see below in blue text).
We have had two sessions with the maintenance teams since the last committee meeting on
May 23rd
On Wednesday June 8th, 8 volunteers removed damaged stiles and installed two new
galvanised kissing gates at Hayfield Fishing Lakes in Auckley. This was our first attempt to
fit these metal gates and once we had mastered the technique all went well. Thanks to a new
volunteer, Andrew MacArthur who kindly offered to help.
On our second session a month later on Wednesday July 6th, eight more volunteers installed
two more kissing gates out at Claybridge Farm at at Sykehouse. Another successful
installation which met with approval from the farmer. Particular thanks on this occasion to
another new volunteer, Pal Atick for his help.
Two very productive days, thanks to our excellent teams of volunteers who freely give up
their time.
Our next session is planned for August 3rd - task and location as yet unknown as I await
information from RoW.
We are ok for volunteers on the maintenance teams and non-members have clearance to work
on maintenance. There is plenty of outstanding maintenance work to go at as nothing was
done for two years due to the pandemic.
Concern was expressed about footpath checking not being carried out annually due to the lack
of volunteers. The Doncaster area is split into 5 x 5 km (25 sq km) squares and more
volunteers are required.
David Gadd reported on the continuing problems the Tickhill Footpath Group are having with
a tenant farmer where they want to replace stiles with kissing gates to improve access for the
less abled. The farmer is adamant he will not allow the stiles to be replaced as he wishes to
restrict access to his land and minimize nuisance. It was suggested that the landowner is
approached before representation is made to DMBC footpath officer.
8 Information for new members and walk leaders. David Gadd has prepared from the
information provided by Dave Binnington at the meeting on 23 May 2022 a draft guide to
new members and walk leaders. This was discussed and a few amendments requested
following which it will be uploaded onto the Doncaster Ramblers website.
10. Any other business.
.
It was requested if the location of the walk reports on the Doncaster
Ramblers website could be moved to a tab in the menu bar, similar to the
photos. This will allow walk reports to be retained on the website rather
than the short-term availability governed by their current location. D Gadd
to speak to Martin Wyman to arrange. This task was completed by 21 July
2022.
Next meeting Monday 19 September 2022, 7.15 pm at Finningley Village
Hall.
The meeting closed at 21.15.
S J Tomlinson 22.07.22