DONCASTER RAMBLERS
Minutes of committee meeting held on 19 September 2022
Finningley Village Hall
Finningley Village Hall
Committee members present: Peter Gravestock, Dave Binnington, Norman Lewis, Tony Marsh, Brian Milne and Stephen Tomlinson.
1. Apologies. David Gadd (Chairman), David Horne (Treasurer) and Peter Rowsell (Publicity). David arranged for Peter Gravestock to chair the meeting.
2. Review of the minutes of the meeting on 18 July2022. These were accepted as accurate.
3. Matters arising from those minutes. None
4. Financial report. Since the last meeting expenditure of £155.14 for a group advertisement in the Doncaster Free Press and £67.76 for publicity flyers etc. for “Get Doncaster Moving”. The current balance stands at £2064.93.
5. Walking programmes.
a. Tuesday walks. Charlie Pratt provided an update before the meeting. Still some gaps but Charlie is confident these will be filled.
b. Thursday walks. Peter Rowsell has indicated he will continue to lead Thursday walks. Last walk on programme is currently 06 October 2022, Peter had indicated in the walk briefing on Thursday 16 October that he was struggling to cover the Thurs-day walk programme. Several members during the walk indicated they would be willing to lead walks. SJT forwarded to those interested details of how to book a walk, prepare a risk assessment and the requirement to register as a volunteer, for insurance purposes, on Assemble. Peter R and SJT offered to mentor new walk lead-ers through the process. Note: In late September Peter Rowsell had to withdraw from leading Thursday walks due to ongoing health issues.
c. Saturday walks. Still having problems with walk leaders due to the reduction in walk numbers on a Saturday following the pandemic and changes to the way walks are advertised. Programme is full to 5 November and two walks promised in Decem-ber one by Kim Poskitt and the other by Carmen. SJT indicated that he would have to reduce his current commitment to leading Saturday walks due to family concerns. No easy answer to the Saturday walk programme without more walk leaders.
d. Carers walks. SJT reported Carers walk at Cannon Hall on 14 September went well with six DR volunteers attending. Due to David Gadd being out of action SJT has taken on the Mam Tor walk on 30 September 2022 (6 DR volunteers so far) and the last Carers walk of the year at Wentworth Woodhouse on 12 October 2022 (recently changed to 26 October 2022), pre walk still to be done for this.
6. Publicity. Peter Roswell’s. report is presented at the end of the minutes
7. Membership. Brian Milne reported that since the last meeting membership had dropped
from 238 to 231. Four new members have joined since August 2022. It was advised that of
the last 40 new members 28 were female and this appears to be an ongoing trend. Brian also
provided to the meeting a copy of the letter he sends to each new member affiliated to the
Doncaster Group. He is advised by Central Office when a new member joins. David Gadd
advised by email he had written 29 letters to 37 couples whose email addresses we did not
have or were incorrect on the database to encourage them to provide the correct details.
David has some concern this may prompt people to cancel unused Rambler’s membership.
We have not yet seen any up turn in membership from the recent advert in the Free Press but
this will take time to come through.
8. Rights of Way (RoW) and Maintenance. Tony Marsh gave a detailed description of his
current issues with the DMBC Right of Way personnel and their inactivity. Tony also
addressed the current situation with Martin Wyman and how he had dealt with Martin’s
decision to no longer maintain the RoW spreadsheet because of DMBC’s lack of action.
Tony’s report is presented at the end of the minutes. It was suggested that if the current
situation with DMBC Rights of Way personnel that we write to the Chief Executive of
DMBC to express our dissatisfaction. It was considered at the moment that this would be
counterproductive and Tony would keep the position under review.
David Gadd provided a written update on the replacement of three stiles at Tickhill with kissing
gates. David wrote to Mr Matthews, the farmer, at the request of DMBC RoW Department.
Despite lack of support from DMBC David tracked down the address for Mr Matthews and
wrote to him and received a very negative response. David wrote to Julie Guest of DMBC RoW
on 2.08.22 with an update asking where we go from here. No response so a reminder was sent
on 05.09.22, a reply was received on 09.09.2022.
9. Information for New Members and Leaders. Dave Binnington led this discussion and
raised the issue on whether the document “Information for Doncaster Ramblers Walkers”
finalised at the last meeting would take precedent over the information published by
Ramblers on Assemble and if so, what was the legal precedent and how this might affect
insurance cover for walkers, walk leaders and people who volunteer on RoW work who may
not be members. It was agreed that the committee members would read the relevant
documents on Assemble before the next meeting and a discussion held then.
10. Any other business.
a. David Gadd had expressed concern, by email before the meeting, about the
increasing age of committee members. It was agreed that this was a potential
problem though age should not be a barrier to serving on the committee. It was
generally agreed that it was difficult to attract people to take up committee roles,
especially people of working age, though we were unable to provide a solution to
this problem. Dave Binnington advised he had hoped, from discussions on a
Tuesday walk, that several none committee members would attend this evening’s
meeting but they had not turned up.
b. The shortage of walk leaders for Thursday and Saturday and how to persuade
people to take up this role was discussed. Buddying up a new walk leader with an
experienced walk leader may help.
c. Next meeting will be the AGM and is to be held on Monday 17 November 2022.
The meeting closed at 21.30
S J Tomlinson 22.07.22
Publicity Officers Report
Nothing major to report on print or social media.
I attended “Get Doncaster Moving” annual conference with a modest stand a pop-up
banner (on loan) and a collection of pens, buttons and posters. Their aim was to outline
what DMBC is doing in the community to improve the health of citizens. Over
100 delegates were in attendance many council employees, but also some local
NGO’s. A hand full recognized The Rambler’s and acknowledged the work we do,
but admitted we were better suited for those who were already fit and active. Several
mentioned the “Wellbeing Walk Initiative” and the weekly Hatfield walk,
A few people were looking for some kind of collaboration including Alex Liversage
from Don Catchment Rivers Trust, e-mail
www.dcrt.org.uk. They want to create access along the river Don from Doncaster to
Thorne and beyond
Caroline Brooks of Doncaster Mumbler, e-mail
www,doncaster.mumbler.co.uk. This is a hub for parents and children.
In both cases I could post our activity on their FB page.
Also met Lauren Beaumont, Public Health Officer, Well Doncaster-Community Led
Health and Wealth. Contact External 01302 736087 Internal 36087 at Bentley Resource
Centre, High Street, Bentley, Doncaster, DN5 0AA. She claims to be able to
distribute Rambler’s leaflets among the GP Surgeries in Doncaster.
Our advert appeared in the DFP but as yet haven’t been able to judge what impact it
has had.
Finally, we have printed some glossy flyers for distribution to libraries and tourist
offices
Rights of Way Officers Report.
1. Martin Wyman’s recent email and other concerns. From the end of 2022 Martin will only
record faults reported by Footpath Wardens. He will no longer keep records of the number of
footpaths checked each year. However, the reporting system need not change since I can keep a
simple tally of all paths walked and faults found. Will Path Wardens please continue to send
reports to the following
Julie Guest
Martin Wyman
Tony Marsh
Significant concerns. Reports from DMBC listing problems fixed, worksheets raised, and
outstanding issues, indicate that the number of outstanding problems was getting longer and that
some were being reported year after year with no action. Our attempts to claim 2 new Rights of
Way, based on 20 years usage have made little headway. Also, the ‘The Rights of Way Forum’
where DMBC informed members of progress on ‘Orders’ has not met since 2019.
2. Meeting with Julie Guest and Stuart Horrocks on 30th August 2022 in which various issues
were discussed.
(a) Checking Footpaths. Issues reported are not resolved, with the same problems being reported
each year..
(b) There is less enthusiasm from Square Wardens when issues are not resolved.
(c) The difficulty of finding replacements to walk and check paths as some retire. Quite a few
now have no warden.
(d) Difficulty in obtaining maps for those who do offer to help.
(e) Replacing Maintenance Volunteers is also becoming harder. Fortunately, we have a loyal
group who continue to give up their time.
(f) Reports received from the public and forwarded to ROW are sometimes not dealt with.
(g) The disappointing lack of support for our long-standing Footpath Claims in Sprotbrough and
Tickhill.
Outcome - Julie Guest stressed that the contribution made by our Footpath Wardens and
Maintenance Volunteers is very much appreciated. It was agreed that they would look at all the
reports submitted by our Footpath Wardens and draw up a list of priorities in an attempt to
resolve the backlog of issues. The requested maps would be made available ASAP. This was
done virtually immediately.
3. Maintenance Volunteers.
Work carried out since the last meeting in July. On August 3rd 2022 a third and final kissing
gate was fitted at Claybridge Farm, Sykehouse, on September 7th 2022 repairs and clearance
work was carried out on steps and hand-rails at Sprotbrough and a replacement way-mark post
was erected at Barnburgh. The next maintenance session is on October 5th, location not yet
finalised. The latest figure for footpaths checked so far this year is 207. This is 10 of the 29
Squares in DMBC, 31 issues were reported.