East Surrey Walkers’ AGM 2022
REPORTS
CHAIR'S REPORT
So, here we are. I’ve been Chairman now for (nearly) a year – at the time of writing. It’s been a slightly strange year, certainly for me, as I had an operation on my foot in March & so have been out of action this year. I’m pleased to report that I am getting much more mobile, but haven’t yet been out on an ESW walk. The year’s been strange in other ways too. We’ve had an extra two bank holidays this year – the first for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee & the second for her funeral. Certainly the end of an (Elizabethan) era. For most of us – anyone aged 70 or under - Queen Elizabeth is the only monarch we have known, until now. We now have a new King to get used to, as well as a new Prime Minister, &, at the time of writing, we’re about to have another new PM…. Strange times indeed!
What’s been happening in ESW & the Ramblers this year? Well, Covid is still around, but happily, seems to be much less of a problem & so life has been much more normal in 2022 than in the previous 2 years. (I’ve even had a holiday, abroad! – first time since October 2018, so long overdue!)
Within ESW
40th anniversary celebrations – we are of course celebrating 40 years of ESW next year &, as you will know, have produced a calendar at the very reasonable price of £6. If you need one posted to you there will have to be a £2 charge, or you can collect one from a committee member’s house – we have stocks in Caterham, Limpsfield & South Godstone - just contact one of us for more details.
For the 40th anniversary, we are planning a Walks Festival – a week of walks in late April, starting with a repeat of the first walk done by ESW (or East Surrey Ramblers, as it was then), and a dinner one evening, details TBC.
Steve Hanks, who was our Publicity Officer & also a Footpath Secretary stood down for personal reasons &, to date, we haven’t found someone to replace him in either role, so if you would like to volunteer for either or both roles, please see/contact a member of your committee for further information.
As I’m sure Helen McDonnell will say in her report, we have struggled to find enough walk leaders to put on the number of walks we would like to put on. Leading a walk is not very onerous & can be good fun. If you fancy having a go, talk to anyone on the committee or any walk leader & find out a bit more about it. It’s good to talk to leaders when you’re out walking as they can give you quite a bit of information & you can enjoy the walk at the same time! ESW operate a buddy system for new/aspiring walk leaders, who will “hold your hand” – metaphorically, not physically – for your first couple (or more) walks, until you feel confident to lead a walk on your own. The best way to start leading is by picking a walk that you know well & do often – most likely this will be somewhere close(ish) to where you live. By doing a walk you know well, you don’t have to rely on being able to read a map/worry about getting lost etc. The key thing with leading walks is to enjoy it & to get pleasure from seeing other people enjoy it.
We have had a number of social events throughout the year – cream tea at St Andrews, summer buffet at Christine & Ian’s house (thanks to them for allowing us to invade their garden again!), a coach trip, with long & short walks, to Canterbury & our upcoming autumn social. There was no “New Year’s Lunch” this year due to the Covid restrictions over the Christmas period, but it’s all on for next year – put a note in your diaries now – Sunday 22nd January at St Agatha’s Hall, Hurst Green. We’re not taking bookings yet, but keep an eye on Notice Board emails for further information.
Within Ramblers
There’s been quite a bit happening within Ramblers this year, with a new website launched (although the old one is still there too). I think, like many businesses, Ramblers are still blaming Covid for things not happening as fast as we might like or expect. In my humble opinion, that’s a pretty poor excuse now as the rest of us are pretty much back to normal. We’ve also had/having rail strikes & a heatwave, but as many people continue to work from home at least some of the time, I don’t think those excuses wash either!
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the committee, the footpath secretaries, Barbara & her gang on Ken’s Krew and everyone else for their efforts during the year. Special thanks to Sue Halsey, for organising the cream tea & refreshments at the AGM, & to Nigel Poulter, who has the job of sorting out the walks planner etc. &, with Helen McD, trying to persuade leaders to lead more & others to start leading! Thank you all. Your efforts are much appreciated.
Deb Skinner - Chairman
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TREASURER’S REPORT
This being my first year as Treasurer, it has been reassuring to see a return to normality; with walks, socials, holidays, volunteer activities etc. all resuming.
Our income from Ramblers Association this year was £2,200 and a significant part of this, £1,000, was requested specifically for the installation of Kissing Gates, so was transferred to the KG Fund on receipt.
Our cash balance at year end was £18,700.36, although it should be noted that £12,371 of this relates to Payments in Advance from members for the Hayling Island holiday, which has since been paid out.
General
Our main source of income, as always, was the £2,200 received from RA and our year end balance stands at £1,083.63 after transfer to Kissing Gate Fund.
Ramblers Worldwide Holidays had announced a halt in advertising payments this time last year however, we continued to advertise in our Quarterly Walks Programmes and, as Covid restrictions relaxed further, we managed to retain their £50 per quarter payments throughout. HF Holidays however, have cut their marketing budgets significantly and we now receive £50 per annum, rather than £50 quarterly as in previous years.
ESW also received £20 rebate from Ramblers Worldwide Holidays, from members who have booked direct and quoted ESW as their registered Group; so please can I remind everyone to nominate ESW if booking with RWH.
Expenditure was primarily Practical Work, including Ken’s Krew volunteer expenses and purchase of Waymark Discs, with additional spending on last years’ AGM, Prizes, Gifts, Awards and Zoom costs for Committee meetings.
I requested a budget of £1,120 for the coming year, which has been approved. As our Kissing Gate funds were (at the time) £5k in credit, I did not feel we could request any more this year.
Kissing Gates Fund
£1,000 was transferred into the Fund, as mentioned, and x3 gates were purchased by ESW during the year (with others installed funded elsewhere). Surrey CC (as negotiated by Barbara Bulman) charged us at source price (£350 each) rather than current rates (£500 each), as they were in stock at time of installation. Balance stands at £4,086.49 with a number of projects having been signed off by the Committee, although Surrey CC’s staff shortages hinder the efforts of our volunteers.
Social Fund
The aim of our Social Funds is to balance out income and expenditure throughout the year and, with changes to catering and formats this year, it has been encouraging to see a healthy profit build up, balance standing at £1,033.95. This enables us to pay in advance for deposits and hall hire for future events (i.e. deposit paid for New Year lunch). The Autumn Social, Cream Tea and Summer Buffet all went ahead this year and were well attended. Helen McDonnell also organised a coach trip to Canterbury in September.
Holiday Fund
It was good to see resumption of holidays this year, with trips to Bournemouth in December, Isle of Wight in May and Littlecote in October. In the last week of September we received final payments from members for Hayling Island (December), which were not paid out until the following week, therefore resulting in payments in advance of £12,371 inflating ESW’s year end balances.
Ken’s Krew
A cash float is maintained by KK organiser, Barbara Bulman, to reimburse travel expenses for volunteers and was topped up by £150 this year, with volunteer expenses donated (and paid to KG fund) at £184.45.
Karen Holdsworth - Treasurer
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MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY’S REPORT
Members at 30th Sept 2021= 471 plus 3 affiliates (with an additional 12 pending payment)
30th Sept 2022 = 471 plus 4 affiliates (with an additional 7 pending payment)
New/Reinstated Members: 63
Leavers/Movers: 63
In terms of membership this year has been a quiet year. In comparison to last year new members are up but so, sadly, are the numbers of people who have left or have moved to a different area. Looking forward, the numbers of people leaving each month recently has slowed and the numbers who are pending payment are significantly down on the same period last year. If this trend continues then the prospect for membership this time next year is promising.
A new Ramblers database was introduced in Q1 this year with the inevitable teething pangs. One or two of our members discovered their membership had officially lapsed even though they had renewed their membership. These cases were discovered by trial and error so if anyone does not receive a renewal notification and expect to do so, please let me know or contact Ramblers directly.
Deaths
Sadly during the year we lost 2 of our members. Their passing was communicated to members via Noticeboard.
Noel Cunniffe died very unexpectedly in May. He was a sociable, interesting man always looking for the next challenge. A man who really knew how to enjoy life and embraced it wholeheartedly. He was very active within ESW and many members would have met him either on a walk or at one of the social events. Our thoughts are with Pamela and the rest of his family.
Alice Pickford who will not have been known by the younger/more recent members, died in July only a few short months after Stuart. Until her health failed her Alice was a very keen walker and dedicated ESW member
(The official membership numbers for 2022 include Alice’s death but not Noel’s but the 2021 nos do not include Stuart’s)
Surrey Area comparison
Area membership as at 30 Sep 2022: 6534
Area membership as at 30 Sep 2021: 6358
Area change in numbers: +176
Area percentage change: + 2.8%
Janette Ruiz - Membership Secretary
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WALKS COORDINATOR’S REPORT
Happily life has returned to something resembling normality this year and so our walks programme has also come back to life. I attach Nigel’s analysis for the year and you can see how many more walks we have managed than last year.
However, you know what I am going to say next – until we get more leaders we are never going to get back to the vibrant programme we once had. I ran an exercise this quarter to contact all the leaders still on the list who have not led since before Covid. Suffice to say that 25 leaders no longer wish to lead (having led for many years and certainly ‘done their bit’) and another 12 are unwell, injured or the main carer for an unwell partner. So you can see what we are up against. And walkers too have to show their support and turn out for our walks. We have had some very disappointing attendance numbers this last month, even for weekend walks, which we have less of these days and thus I assumed would be better supported when they occurred.
But enough of that, as I have said before, when I speak to walkers on our walks, most are happy with what is offered and are enjoying the walks and the social interaction. And when I look at Nigel’s analysis I can see that most quarters, an awful lot of members do take a walk.
We had a successful walkers’ coach trip to Canterbury this year. The weather was certainly kind to us and we had about 40 people walking or simply enjoying a sight-seeing day trip. I blatantly followed the example that Helen and Amanda had set in pre-covid times and the format seems to still work well.
So onwards and upwards. I for one still thoroughly enjoy our walking community so fingers crossed for bigger and better next year.
Helen McDonnell - Walks Coordinator
ESW Walks data can be viewed here. NB. Revised on 4th November 2022
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FOOTPATH SECRETARIES' REPORT
We rely on Surrey County Council to ensure that public rights of way are not blocked and can be easily accessed. For over 30 months now, the practice of SCC has been to only deal with reported problems that represent a danger to the public. In the whole of Surrey there were 2,433 reports logged on the system as at 30 September 2022. We are told that additional staffing resources are now being put in place, we wait to see what impact this will have. On the positive side contractors have been employed to install new fingerposts at roadside around Tandridge district.
Six of our volunteers are authorised to do bi-annual inspections of a random selection of local rights of way. The latest exercise in May indicated that 82% were “easy to use” for Surrey overall; for Tandridge and Reigate the figure was lower at 75%.
Our Volunteer Path Wardens have continued to deal with path defects that can be dealt with individually, e.g. small scale vegetation clearances, installing waymark discs, checking the state of particular paths etc. Some of these tasks are allocated out by the Local Footpath Secretaries, some are just dealt with as VPWs walk in the area. All of their work is much appreciated.
During the past year the ESW Gates Fund has been used to acquire 3 gates in Lingfield near Park Farm and these were installed by Ken’s Krew volunteers. We have agreement from landowners and Surrey CC for 4 gates to be installed on a footpath off Tandridge Lane (ESW will fund 2) and 1 gate near Oxted Mill to be funded by Titsey Rotary. There are other stiles that need to be replaced but we need action from Surrey CC to obtain landowner agreement. Limpsfield Parish Council continues to be very supportive and has employed contractors to install 5 gates within the parish this year, funded by the PC and landowners.
Sibelco's application to extend its excavation operation north of Bletchingley continues. We continue to review and comment on proposals, in particular supporting moves to speed up restoration of rights-of-way in areas no longer being excavated.
Limpsfield Parish Council has recently created a 4.5 mile route between Limpsfield Village and Limpsfield Chart with a different return route.and we have helped in its design. The route is way marked and there are 4 information boards at strategic locations giving information about the locality. An ideal route for an ESW shorter walk, with refreshment stops at either end.
We presently have 4 Local Footpath Secretaries as follows:
Bletchingley, Caterham on the Hill, Caterham Valley, Chaldon, Chelsham & Farleigh, Tatsfield, Warlingham, Whyteleafe, Woldingham.
Burstow, Horne, Nutfield, Outwood.
Dormansland, Felbridge, Limpsfield, Lingfield.
Oxted, Tandridge, Titsey.
Following the resignation of John Morgan, the parishes of Bletchingley (Richard), Crowhurst (Tony) and Godstone (Ian) are being covered on a temporary basis until a member comes forward to take on the role of Local Footpath Secretary for these parishes.
Richard Mascall, Roger May, Tony Pearson, Ian Simm
Local Footpath Secretaries
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KEN'S KREW REPORT
Surrey County Council (SCC) Rights of Way (RoW) are currently reviewing their policies, procedures and general ways of working, in the hope they can make substantial improvements. That and after a huge staff move around, and a few new faces, we’re all rather hoping for noticeable improvements.
What have we done this year? Well, rather unsatisfactorily, we’ve been tasked to do a few out of area jobs, but I guess all improvements to the footpaths network have to be good, or beneficial?
January, vegetation clearance at Sheridan Farm, Felbridge.
February, we were tasked to refurbish the flight of steps at Gangers Hill, but were stood down, with no replacement task. They do ‘belong’ to the Downlands Project team, but we have repaired and replaced about 30 steps, and the viewpoint, at a previous visit. I guess they reclaimed them?
March, we installed three kissing gates at Park Farm, Lingfield. The landowner advised that the developers is planning to create a retirement village on part of the land owned by St Piers, have offered to improve the surface of the adjacent paths that their residents may wish to use. Brilliant for walkers, and Brownie Points for the developers.
April, we installed two kissing gates at Wards Farm, Felbridge.
May, we installed a flight of steps and a finger post at Broomlands Farm, Limpsfield.
June, we were tasked to reclaim FP412, between the A217 and Westvale Road, Sidlow, and SCC delivered the brushcutters and hedgecutters to us.
July, another out of area task, bridge refurbishment at Newdigate, deep into MV territory, but apparently we have skills that they do not.
August, partial clearance FP275 Horne, we came across a badly damaged bridge structure, so SCC had to close the path. No news yet, about when the repair will be completed.
September, try as I may, I can’t get anyone to recommend a path to clear, apart from FP163 Bletchingley, which appears to be a contractor task, a tad too much for KK, including the need to remove some derelict wooden sheds.
October, still stood down by SCC RoW.
We have also attended a few additional clearance tasks, and refurbished three dangerous stiles for a Charity run on the Surrey side of the Kent Border, so haven’t been wasting too much time, while stood down from SCC.
Any recommendations from ESW members for clearance tasks gratefully received.
SCC dropped the cutters off to us for one day in June, I have suggested if it can be done once, it can be done again, for additional tasks. I still have not received a response.
We, and the rest of Surrey Area Ramblers task groups are still awaiting First Aid training, we haven’t had any since 2017. I did contact their provider earlier this year, and they had said they could deliver the training in August, or September. My concern being, that the SCC insurers may, not unreasonably, expect us to have ‘in-date’ First Aiders on site when on tasks, and Adrian’s not always with us. That and our kits obviously need refreshing / replacing.
SCC has recently appointed a Volunteer Co-ordinator, but we don’t as yet know who it is.
I am advised that we need to tell potential gate donors that the price is whatever’s currently advertised on the McVeigh Parker website, and be grateful if we’re charged less. Somewhat disappointing, when McVP say they give SCC a flat rate discount, regardless of the size of any specific order. Gates are currently £579.00 ex VAT, with a 6 – 8 week lead time. They don’t retain stocks. Staggering, when you think we were paying £317.00 in 2019?
Gates etc are substantially cheaper from Centrewire, but SCC say they don’t have adequate storage, to order from them.
Barbara Bulman - Ken's Krew
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