AGM Minutes – Feb 2022

Salt Way Activity Group

AGM 8pm 21^st Feb 2022 Bodicote Church Hall

1. Annual Report – any comments our third to date
2. Treasurers report
3. Face book report
4. Planning
5. Promotion – Phil has suggested commemorative trees as a possible way to raise funds, lottery.
6. Website – “what you can see along the Way”
7. Groups and activities – how we develop.
8. Health and Safety
9. AONB

What we could do with:

1. Someone to do publicity and fund raising
2. Have two leaders so we could meet every week over the winter period.
3. Should we have a week day session on a regular basis.
4. Hire of chipper.
5. What we are doing – should we be doing anything else of doing it differently?
6. Improvements to the surface.
7. Website – I thought it would be a good idea to include something along the lines of “What can you see along the Way”.  Trees and shrubs, birds, flowers, ferns, insects – a brief description and a photo

MINUTES OF THE ABOVE AGM

Attendees: David Balcomb (treasurer); David Russell (Chairperson); Trevor Byne (Sustrans); Phil Street, Janet Curr (Bodicote History Group); Bob Campbell; Laurie Cunningham; Anne Tustian; David Coates; Kim & John Shaw; Jason Hawkes; Judy Marshall.

Apologies: J Sacha (BPC); 

1. I gave a brief summary of what we had been up to and asked if there were any comments.  I said we receive a lot of compliments from local people for the work we do. 
2. David told us we had some £1600, still in the bank. Our two major spends were the felling small trees course with LANTRA and the battery operated hedge trimmer.

We had received small amounts of money from Cherwell lottery and a large grant of £1,000 from Waitrose.

1. Phil – said there were some issues with people posting unsuitable articles and had one lady from Canada wanting to join the group.  Otherwise it did advertise our presence.
2. Planning – David Coates offered to look into the original S106 agreement, as he had some experience with this matters, liaising with Bob and Laurie.  It was thought that this included provision for surfacing the Way. I also said one of our local councillors held that it should not be just tarmaced but should be in keeping with the informal walk it was now.  We discussed issues with vehicles going along the way, one had been reported driving on the way from the Morris Homes site – Kieran had urged us to keep some narrow sections to avoid this sort of activity.  Laurie had already expressed concern at the poor state of the surface in term of puddles.  Trevor had asked his managers to pursue the matter and held that the CC were responsible.

I explained that my only way to get a response from CDC planning was to make a formal complaint.  None of the officers had ever walked the Way.  During my meeting with them I had asked that they make a feature of the paths going through the housing estate rather than just two fences back to back.

1. Promotion,  Phil had suggested we plant commemorative trees, the CC (Beth’s comments) would be unhappy having to record where trees were in relation to donations.  David suggested developers might be willing to partnership work and have some of their staff volunteer to do work – business Staff development.  We had some discussions around this matter.

Publicity – this really needs to make the community aware of us as a group and what we are trying to achieve.

Put an article together for the Banbury Guardian.

Cherwell lottery – need to raise our profile here.

1. Website – I explained what I was after, which met with general approval.  Comment was we need to keep the Website fresh.  I later found out that Ben our Webmaster has been hosting the site free of cost – usually he charges £100/120 for this service – thanks to Ben for this.
2. Groups, I explained that it would be good to develop so we could meet every week and have others who could lead a session.  No general call for weekday meetings although evenings in the summer was suggested.  Steffan asked for some Saturdays too.
3. Health & Safety – David explained his “tool box talk cards” and promised to forward the draft to me, so I could send it on to Beth (OCC).  He also added that access to the public to the Way at all times was a priority.

It was suggested that records of attendees on work days should be kept.  I told them I do this as a record of our activities in any case and this was felt sufficient.

1. AONB – none.  Attendees were thanked and we broke up for informal discussions, tea, coffee and biscuits.  John Philbins has been making his own input to the Way and he was thanked for this.  There are few people who make their own input – one had planted snow drops, another regularly litter picked as does Steffan (under CDC scheme).