Minutesof BASTON ANNUAL PARISH MEETING held in The Barn, Thursday 12th April 2012 @ 19:30hrs.
Present- Cllrs. Mrs E Mort, G Baxter, Mrs L Colbourn, J Affleck. N Rickett, T Squires. Mrs K Nicols, Lisa Squires, Mrs D Savage, S Lloyd,
Clerk – Ms R H Woolley
Cllr. Mrs Mort opened the meeting.
001/12 Apologies
Mrs Wyman, Kirkstone House School,
Sandra Kirk-Tap at the Barn
Thomas Brand-Secretary Langtoft, The Deepings and District Royal British Legion
Alan & Maggie Wood-Traditional Music and Song.
Matt Lee, John Savage,
002/12 Minutes of the last Annual Parish Meeting
It was proposed by & seconded by Cllr. that the minutes of the last meeting held on 14th April 2011 be received. It was resolved that Cllr. Mrs Mort sign the minutes as a correct record. All agreed.
003/12 Matters arising from the minutes
None
004/12 Report by the Chairman of the Parish Council– Cllr. Mrs E Mort (report attached)
005/12 Reports from Village Organisations
- Kirkstone House School
- Baston Cof E Primary School Governors
- Baston Church ofEngland Primary School P.T.A.
- St. John the Baptist Church
- Baston Fireworks Committee
- BPFMC
- B-Active
- Women's Institute
- Baston Tennis Club
- Baston Baby and Toddlers Group
- Baston 1st Rainbows
- Baston Environment Group
- Baston Against Over Development
- Allotment group BAGS
- Baston Football Club
- Baston Cricket Club
- Cameo
- Royal British Legion
- Tap at the Barn
- Traditional Music & Song
- Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Group
006/12 To consider comments, concerns or resolutions raised by electors of the parish – None
007/12 Date of the next meeting. Thursday th April 2013 @ The Barn, 19:30 hrs.
Meeting closed 20:30hrs
Copy of Reports Attached to Annual Parish Meeting
Item 004/12 Report from the Chairman of Baston Parish Council – Year ended 31st March 2012
This year we have had a few changes of Parish Councillors. Alan Hutchins, Lee Lawes and Larry Knight joined us and sadly we lost Evan Sloss and then more recently Steve Saunders.
Each year tends to be busy and comes with fresh concerns. As ever some planning issues have been difficult but we always listen carefully to what everyone says and try to make the best decisions for the community. SKDC Strategic Site Allocations were submitted to the Secretary of State showing that Baston was not suitable for further large scale housing in the period up to 2026. However, the Inspector has raised concerns about the exclusion of some Local Service Centres, of which we are one, so we await further details from his investigations.
Recently there have been concerns about a Household Recycling Centre application on the Fen and following a Site Visit by Lincolnshire County Council a decision is awaited. The concerns are about additional traffic from Bourne on Main Street and at the A15 junction.
The Parish Council has received two presentations from Larkfleet, initially to build 53 houses on part of Inholmes, South of Chesham Drive and subsequently to build 72 bungalows and houses for people over 55 on the same site. Here initial concerns by the public were about extra traffic on Aveland, lack of School Places and infrastructure abilities. Subsequently the concerns from the public related to lack of garages, no parking near front doors and lack of gardens plus properties seemed to be very small and close together. Both schemes include the provision of allotments and a formal planning application is now awaited.
Despite new signs the topic that comes up regularly is about Dog Fouling. There is just a very small group of people that allow their dogs to spoil things for others.
At the beginning of the year we set up the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Group with representatives from the local Schools and Organisations and this now stands alone and is called Baston Party in the Park. We have contributed towards expenses preparing for the special event on 3rd June 2012 and for Diamond Jubilee Medals that will be given to children.
We continue to work in partnership with Village Organisations giving support both financial and practical to BPFMC, Fireworks, Primary School, Football, Cricket, Tennis and Babies and Toddlers. On request from the WI a new Projector Screen has been fixed in the Barn and is available for everyone to use. We still have just over £4,000 Capital towards a Village Project.
We have continued to work with the Baston Environment Group who recently replaced the surface on the footpath between Church Street and Aveland Way.
We undertook our annual walkabout with the County Councillor and Highways recently inspecting pavements and roads. Basically most pavements and roads were in good condition with Cardyke Drive pavements resurfaced last month. Some of the pavements on Main Street will be resurfaced later this year and those on Church Street were identified to be included next year.
We wish more people would regularly come to our monthly Parish Council Meetings especially now that the Barn is looking so much more inviting and warmer. We continue to communicate by means of Baston News and our Web-site plus a periodical Agenda Newsletter. In addition a brief report appears in the Bourne Edition of the Stamford Mercury each month after our meetings.
During the year we deposited £10,000 with the Melton Mowbray Building Society to achieve a better rate of interest. This has enabled us to keep the 2012/13 Precept at the same level as the two previous years.
Once again I would like to thank all the Councillors for their support to each other and the Parish over the year and also thank the County and District County Councillors for attending our meetings and sharing their knowledge and giving advice. We are all kept up to date by Rosemary, our Clerk, whom I personally wish to thank for all her help to myself. Finally we are lucky to now have a Village Cleaner, Megan Hutchins, who does a sterling job of keeping the Village tidy.
I now wish to welcome Village Organisations and thank them for coming along today to give their reports.
Eileen Mort
Chairman Parish Council
005/12 REPORTS FROM VILLAGE ORGANISATIONS
(b) Baston Cof E Primary School Governors
Thank you very much for your kind invitation to attend this meeting. The Governor in attendance and giving this report is Mrs Katie Nicol.
The school has continued to be increasingly successful over the last year, in various areas.
All those involved in thedevelopment of the schoolcontinue to beproud of thelearning experiencesbeing provided and are alwaysseeking to improve present practice to ensure that all pupils are receiving a wonderful education.
We wish to continue this provision in these financially challenging times and the kind donation by theParish Councilfor swimmingwillsupport us in its delivery. Pupils are thoroughlyenjoying the opportunity of swimming lessons with their peers, with themain aims of the programme being to continue to improve stroke technique, stamina and completion of 25m on both the front and back.
Baston C of E School continues to be very grateful for the support of the Parish Council and we would like to take this opportunity to convey our thanks in anticipation of any support you may be able to provide to us.
Any such donation has proved invaluable in the past in helping us to provide swimming and transportation costs for all children within our school.
Mrs M Brebner, Chairperson of Governors.
(c ) Baston Church ofEngland Primary School P.T.A.
Baston Primary School PTA re-elected Lisa Squires as Chair from September 2011. We are a group of 14 mums all with children at the school, who all work together with the teachers of the school to provide fun activities for the children, whilst at the same time raising funds to purchase items which will enrich their school day and learning experience.
The majority of our events are repeated annually and here is a summary of what we have achieved over the past year.
On the 28th April 2011 we held a Street Party Style celebration to celebrate the Royal Wedding. The children all sat outside at tables with many cakes, which were made by our very supportive parents, and the children made hats, decorated royal bookmarks and also designed their own royal plate. It was a really successful afternoon.
We then held our sponsored obstacle course for all children at the school in May which is always a welcome relief to children, and staff, after all of the children’s hard work after completing their SATS tests. Also in May we had our annual fashion show which the children can take part in and they really look forward to showing off their talents on the catwalk.
With Fathers Day then upon us, we held our gift stall in school, where children purchased items for their dad’s, in secret! Again much enjoyed by children and repeated for Mothers Day, and again at Christmas, this time with presents all being gift wrapped.
During Sports Week we funded a company to come into school and teach the sport of fencing. All of the children got to have a go at something they may never normally get the chance to do. We also brought t-shirts and fabric decorating pens for every child to design their own olympic t-shirt. They had a great time doing this and the PTA was very busy ironing around 170 t-shirts to set the pens – this has to be extreme dedication from the PTA!
We were once again extremely fortunate with the weather for our Summer Fayre and it was very well supported with lots of new faces which are always welcomed. Villagers were able to enjoy performances by the school choir and some of our talented children on their instruments. It was a great atmosphere with lots of really positive feedback so all of the hard work that goes into organising an event like that makes it all worthwhile.
We started back to school in September and we organised our Family Bingo with Fish & Chip supper to help welcome new families to our school.
With Christmas then upon us, we held our annual Christmas fayre, this year we were lucky to have a mixture of shopping for the parents and stalls/games for the children and a very popular Santa’s grotto.
The children also had their Christmas party day, which sees them enjoying a magic show, Hip Hop Dance lessons, party lunch and a special visit from Santa with all children receiving a gift, all of which is funded by the PTA. With plenty of planning and hard work by all the committee this can be one of our busiest times of the year but so rewarding to see the children having such a fun day.
In February, we held our Valentine Disco for the children which almost every child in the school comes to – it is extremely popular and fun for the PTA to organise and run.
We have also ran some after school clubs where the children in KS2 can learn some new dance moves with a Street Dance teacher coming into school.
We had our first ever Baston Bake Off in March which is always a little worrying when you try a new event but we needn’t have worried. It was very well supported. It was nice for our school to be more involved within the village and the judges had the difficult task of tasting over 100 entries. This is definitely something we will be doing again next year.
We have just completed our Easter activities which included the PTA assisting the School Council in organising an Easter Egg Hunt and we also ran an Easter competition alongside it. We also ran an after school Easter craft session to which we had 90 children in attendance. Much fun, much mess and much clearing up but again, much enjoyed by the children.
Amongst these activities we also run a healthy tuck shop each week and organise several cake tuck shops thoughout the year the proceeds of which go to various charities such as Macmillan Nurses, British Heart Foundation and Sports Relief to name a few. We are also there to support school in providing refreshments at many events throughout the year such as nativity plays, school concerts, sports day and open evenings. We also organise book clubs/fares, non-uniform days, all run by the PTA and we also provide parents with a uniform ordering service.
The PTA is a very dedicated organisation and is well supported by the school and parents and we are also very keen to support the whole community in their events. You will always see us with a stall at the village fun days and we are also very involved in organising activities for the forthcoming Jubilee Celebrations “Party in the Park”.
Fundraising over the past year has allowed us to purchase an outdoor stage, replace a damaged trim trail with a more challenging new one which the children love and we have also purchased several new instruments including some outdoor drums.
As Chair, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me over the last year.
Lisa Squires, Chair – Baston School PTA
(d) John the Baptist Church report
2011 saw the tidying up of all the loose ends connected with the Restoration Work and we can now concentrate on general maintenance of the Church and also the Mission of the Church trying to keep it alive and well for generations to come here in Baston.
The Church was packed on a glorious day in June when the Bishop of Grantham came to rededicate the Church after all the work had been completed.
In 2011, we had 4 weddings, 3 funerals, 1 burial of cremated remains and 17 Baptisms.
The flexibility of having chairs had proved its worth during the year when we have rearranged them to suit Lent Lunches, Christmas Tree Festival and different services. Also the Servery area has been well used, not just for coffee after services but to provide refreshments during all our activities during the year. The Lent Lunches proved very popular in 2011 so we decided to repeat them in 2012. Our Christmas Tree Festival was a great success over two days and we shall be having another one 8/9th December this year.
The Family Services continue to do well and other service numbers have shown a very slight increase during the year, which is encouraging, after numbers dropped during the Restoration.
Kirkstone House School and Baston C of E Primary School have continued to use the church for a variety of services.
We continue to support the Church Missionary Society Jigsaw Project in the Philippines (working with street children), and Dawit Tsuram in Ethiopia through the Children’s Society.
At the Church’s AGM in March I resigned after 16 years as Churchwarden and I am pleased to say Nick Garner from Tongue End has taken over from me, although I shall still be involved in many other ways.
We thank the Parish Council for their continued support in matters regarding maintenance of the detached churchyard and in all we try and do, as much of our work is for the Parish of Baston as a whole.
Diane Savage
(e) Baston Fireworks Committee
The 2011 Firework event was the most successful one so far with over 3,000 people attending during the evening. This was a fantastic effort by the small group of committee members and I’d like to take this opportunity to recognise their hard work, so thank you to Andrew Winham, Mark Richardson, Simon Watson, Paul Allen, Darren Parker and Nick Rickett. I’d also like to thank all those who help on the day, as without them we wouldn’t be able to stage the event. You’ll be pleased to know there are too many of them to mention here!
The event raised a profit in excess of £8,300 of which the firework committee agreed to donate up to £7,000 to local village organisations.
As always, we had a large number of requests and the committee had a hard job deciding which organisations should receive a donation. The decisions were based on the principles of ensuring the money went to the organisations who made a real difference to the village as a whole and as a result we decided to give the following:
BPFMC - to pay for the new floor in the Barn £4,000, Baston Cricket Club - to pay for new balls and registration fees £250, 1st Baston Rainbows - to pay for dance and game equipment £150, Mums & Toddlers - to pay for instruments and soft play equipment £350, Party in the Park - to pay for PA and stage equipment costs £1,500. In addition, we also gave a £30 donation to Sophie Patman to support her Duke of Edinburgh award tennis event and £450 to fund a village event display board, which will be erected outside the Post Office, which Nick Rickett will be progressing. The remaining profit will go towards the 2012 event, which is to be held on Sunday 4th November. We hope you will all come along.
A Squires
(f) BPFMC
BPFMC has had a successful 12 months due to the hard work and on-going commitment of its Committee. At the last AGM, we saw Trevor Gibson step down as Chair and I would like to take this opportunity to formally recognise and say thank you for his commitment and dedication as both member and then Chair of BPFMC.