Minutes of the EdaN Steering Group Meeting, Tuesday 17th June 2008

Attendance

Alan Williams, Vicky Lee, Kathy Bovington, Richard Dorrance, Elizabeth Braiden, Mick Yates, Chris Yates, Karen Coppen

Apologies

Jim Wright, Kathryn Day, Malcolm Grant

Action items from previous minutes

Finance – still expenses outstanding ACTIONAW

Mailing list to be finished by June 30 ACTION AW

Status of the ‘final’ plan

Although the plan is essentially finished, some facts are being verified, spelling checks, punctuation etc are still being done. But it is very close to being ready for printing. Everyone who has seen it so far is very complimentary of all the work done. Well done to the writing team and particularly to Jim. ACTION JW

Review of print quotes.(to be finalised with the Parish Council at their 19th June meeting)

AW circulated a series of printing estimates, it looks like they will cost £2.50-3.00 per copy. The overall cost is nearer £3000, rather than the initial guess of £1500. The PC will have to decide if this cost is acceptable. Decisions still need to be made about whether we should give a copy to every household, or do a summary for some. Should we try and charge for copies? ‘Portrait’ orientation would be cheaper, wire bound or saddle stitched makes a price difference too. Paper quality will give us scope for some cost reduction. In summary, we still have lots of options, and choices to make. AW will get further quotes on a ‘cheaper’ basis, before taking them to the parish council meeting on Thursday evening. The final decision will be theirs, as they will fund it. Alan will advise us of further costs in due course. ACTION AW

Distribution of the final plan (to be finalised with the Parish Council at their 19th June meeting)

One potential problem may be in getting an A4 sized plan through letter boxes!

We will need to ask for volunteers to do the distribution, and AW will see if any of it could be done with Focus distribution. ACTION AW/ALL

Parish plan launch event

a. Do we want one? Do we need one? What form should it take?

Not sure if we need a party or similar launch event, (other than for the steering group!), what purpose would it serve? The printed plan will be a self evident launch through people’s doors. Decision taken not to organize a launch event.

Print (and laminate?) a copy of the plan to go on up on display at the Carnival. Action plan summaries for the Carnival can be produced, print 200 or so copies. ACTION JW/AW/VL

Status reports from live Project Action Teams

b. Post Office –mentor Jim

David Taylor – new leader. They have been collating details of post office usage – eg post codes. Lots of publicity planned. Summary attached below.

c. Beautifying the Village – mentor Christine

2 meetings so far, many interested parties only wish to be contacted when physical help needed. Agreement so far to progress installing large wooden planters near village signs – shouldn’t need a cultivation license, do a couple for each village initially. Other suggestions include – bulb planting, new Village signs, external lighting of Edlesborough Church. All these initiatives will require funding! Need to raise money to pay for some of this. The Parish council has indicated that it will be assessed for the ‘best kept villages’ competition next year.

Litter will be tackled, including the waste from the Edlesborough Doctor’s Surgery, a polite letter has been drafted, but will not be sent yet. It was proposed and agreed that a meeting be held with the surgery to talk about the litter/waste, parking and implications of polyclinics. JW, CY and EB will arrange a meeting with the practice. ACTION JW,EB,CW

Christine has the full notes of the meetings if anyone would like more detailed information

d. Footpaths- mentor Kathryn

The first meeting has been held and there is an agreed date for the next meeting on 9th July. Some questions have been posed for the Parish Council. Minutes attached below.

Project Action Team Briefing

A revised copy was agreed ACTION MENTORS

Finalise mentors for project teams

A list was circulated for people to volunteer as mentors. Some more gaps were filled. It may help to have two people mentoring initially. The target for each mentor will be to call/contact all the volunteers before the end of June. ACTION ALL (see separate attachment)

St Mary’s Carnival

Agree plans for participation – BCA boards, Church boards, Karen to collect both sets of boards. We will need two tables, Kathy and Vicky to borrow from Dagnall School. Chris and Mick will help on the day. Do a name the teddy competition. Alan will send out a note confirming the arrangements. ACTION AW

12 AOB Focus article, PR person

Advert for a PR person has gone into July edition of Focus.

Summaries from each action group will be used for future articles, ACTION MENTORS

AW to send the comments on the back of the questionnaires to KB to get them sorted into topics for each project group. ACTION AW/KB

 

Date of next meeting is Wednesday 16th July 7.45pm, venue to be arranged. Please confirm attendance to Vicky or Alan. ACTION ALL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POST OFFICE GROUP 

As promised, here is a short write up on progress from the PO subcommittee.

 

We have collected 2 weeks of sheets showing the usage of the PO together with data showing how much each respondent uses the facility, there post codes and comments.  These could form the basis of a petition and even a scatter diagram showing the distribution of the population. NB  I stopped collecting these on Mon 15 June as they were becoming repetitive.

 

We have a letter of support from John Bercow MP, although it is a bit short on practical help!

 

Posters have been displayed in Edlesborough, Dagnall & Northall - "Use it or lose it"  Similarly we have a large quantity of flers and posters from the Countryside Alliance, saying "love your Post Office"  Also we have hundreds of stickers to distribute at the Fete.

 

Peter Bennett of the Fete Committee has given us a free stall from 12 till 5pm and is preparing a banner to publicise our presence at the Fete.

 

Our next meeting is at 4pm on Tues 24 June in the Methodist Chapel.

 

We now await the publication of the List from Post Office Ltd., but we are in a pretty good position to move quickly into producing a petition, a form letter for distribution to every household in the Parish and putting together our counter proposal along the form suggested by CAPOC ( Communities Against Post Office Closures ) in their website.

 

I hope this will help you in your meeting this evening.

 

Best wishes

 

David Taylor

EDaN Project – Footpaths & Pavements meeting

Wednesday 11 June 2008, 7.30 pm, All Saints’ Church, Dagnall

 

Present: D Benfield (Northall); Mike Scott (Northall); Colin & Mai Provis (Dagnall); Chris Biggs (Dagnall); Doreen & Brian Westwood (Dagnall); Kathryn Day (Dagnall); Paul Wright (Edlesborough); Audrey & Peter Osborn (Dagnall).

Apologies: Sue Parker (Edlesborough – although she no longer wishes to be involved in this project); Peter Barrow (Dagnall); Geoff Spencer (Dagnall); Kevin Cubbage (Northall); John Alexander (Dagnall); Philip Wood (Dagnall).

Kathryn welcomed those present. The meeting commenced at 7.30pm.

1. Explanation was given as to what EDaN is about and the role of the Steering Group, using information contained in the Terms of Reference for the Steering Group.

2. As a means of reference information contained in the Parish Plan concerning

footpaths and pavements was used as the basis of the meeting. Kathryn

explained that people had been contacted by phone/email/in person as they had

indicated a willingness to become volunteers to move forward on footpaths

and pavements.

3. Also outlined was the requirement to establish an Action Team. Kathryn discussed what is required using the Terms of Reference for the Action Teams. Those present understood that there is a need to identify willing persons to become the Officers to run the project, but no-one came forward to do this from this meeting. Another meeting, with absentees, to be called to see if anyone would take up the challenge. ACTION: KD

Emphasis was placed on the fact that without willing Officers this project is dead in the water.

3. There is a genuine belief amongst those present that this is an achievable project, but some wished to attend the next meeting of the full Parish Council on 19 June to question the Parish Council directly on certain points, namely:

Parish Council to provide a copy of the annual budget for footpath and pavement maintenance in the Parish. A map of the footpaths to be provided by the Parish Council.

The Parish Council needs to indicate what is their responsibility, and what is the responsibility of Highways, concerning footpaths and pavement maintenance such as the borders of house boundaries on a pavement.

An answer from the Parish Council why is a team being established to do this work, on behalf of the Parish Council, when the parishioners of the Parish pay towards this? Duplication of actions/abdication of responsibility?

Meeting finished at 8.45pm.

PS Next meeting arranged for Wednesday 9 July, 7.30pm, All Saints’ Church. Notices of this being sent out shortly.