Essex Area Update

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Essex Area Update

Volume 10. November 2011. Issue 7

The newsletter of the Ramblers’ Association Essex Area

“The Ramblers’ Association is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales. Company registration number: 4458492. Registered Charity in England and Wales number: 1093577.

Registered office: 2nd floor, Camelford House, 87-90 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TW.”

Your friends and colleagues can get their own copy simply by emailing:

Or take a look at our website:

Contributions

Essex Area Update is published every month. We aim to publish on the fifteenth of the month prior to the issue description. Hence we hope to publish this edition (November) by 15th October. Contributions need to reach us by the 10th.

Contents.

Page.02. Summery of the Board of Trustees Meeting (17th.to 18th.September.)

Page.06. Tom FranklinChief Executive leaving for a new post.

Page.06.Award forBryan Amery.

Page.06. Essex Leader Mike Whiteley.

Page.07. Special National and Regional Meetings 2011 - Book your place

Page.07. Obituary.Les Jessen.

Page.08. The National Map Centre Is Closing.

Page.08. Tollesbury Toilets

Page.08. Book it.

Page.09. A Training Day.

Page.11.Chelmer & Blackwater Quiz Night.

Page.11. The 2012 Essex Area Ramblers Quiz

Page.12. Dates for your Diary.

Summary of the Board of Trustees meeting 17-18 September 2011

The Board of Trustees met at Glenmore Lodge, near Aviemore in the CairngormsNational Park, on the weekend of 17th and 18th September. It is believed to be the first time in the 76-year history of the Ramblers that the Board has met in Scotland, and as well as undertaking our usual business, it gave us an opportunity to get better understand Scottish issues.

On the Friday evening, we met members of the Scottish Council Executive Committee (SCEC) at a dinner hosted by the Ramblers Scotland Convener, Dennis Canavan, having enjoyed a bit of whisky tasting before dinner thanks to the generosity of David Lyle the chair of the Badenoch and Strathspey Group. On the Saturday afternoon we went on a walk in the Cairngorms led by Ramblers Scotland staff, Dave Morris and Helen Todd.

It was also a fitting occasion in which to sign the new devolution agreements for Ramblers Cymru and Ramblers Scotland, which give greater autonomy over policy and decision-making in the two countries, as well as greater financial certainty. It's now over a decade since political devolution, and many issues regarding walking, rights of way, and access are decided by the respective governments in these countries. It therefore makes sense for Ramblers Scotland and Ramblers Cymru to have greater autonomy too. The text of these agreements will soon be available on the Volunteers/Governance section of the website.

We also spent much of the weekend thinking about the future ‘vision’ for the Ramblers. We are now more than half way through our current strategy, Fresh Air, Firm Ground, and we’re kicking off a process to draw up a new ten-year vision for the Ramblers, based on the question, “What do we want the Ramblers to be in ten years time?”

Announcements

The Board welcomed Nicky Philpott, our new Director of Policy and Campaigns, to her first Board meeting.

We noted with sadness the death of Audrey Lennox, former Chair and Countryside Officer for Avon Area, and Fred Forrester, former Chair of Forth Valley, Fife and Tayside Area and a member of SCEC.

New Partnership with HF Holidays

The Board received an update on our new partnership with HF Holidays, which had been announced on 18th August, and agreed to go ahead with a start date of 1st October 2011, as planned. We thanked the staff for their work in gaining the HF Holiday partnership, and hoped this would be the start of a series of such partnerships.

For more information about the new partnership see our announcement, and our follow-up briefing.

Unacceptability of personal abuse

The Board expressed its great concern regarding the abusive remarks made about members of staff, including the Chief Executive, on this subject by a small minority of members. It agreed for the Chair to make a strong statement, which has been issued as follows:

“Over recent weeks, particularly in relation to the announcement of our new partnership with HF Holidays, a small minority of members have behaved in an abusive manner towards our staff, including our Chief Executive. This has gone beyond acceptable debate, and has been very distressing and undermining for our staff. Much of this has been via the Internet discussion group, Ramblers-net. Many members have rightly expressed their disgust at the behaviour of a few.

“Our staff have a right to work in an environment free from personal abuse and attacks. We know that the vast majority of our members will support us in having a zero tolerance of such behaviour.

“From now onwards, the Board will take action against anyone who is offensive to our staff, including if necessary expelling the perpetrators from membership of the Ramblers.

“While the board was pleased to note that the moderators of Ramblers-net had made a posting in August regarding the abusive content, we urge them to take steps to ensure they do not publish any such content in future.

“If this continues on Ramblers-net, we will instruct our staff to withdraw entirely from reading, contributing or answering questions on this forum. While it is appropriate for members to have their own discussion forum separate from the organisation, there are many other ways for members to contact staff or trustees with questions, suggestions or other constructive comment.” Open discussion of issues is fine, and the board doesn’t expect everyone to agree with all its decisions. Nor is there any issue of censorship. It’s simply the abusive manner in which certain individuals express their views which has caused great concern among staff at all levels.

Chief Executive’s Report

The Chief Executive reported that over 1,500 Mystery Walkers have been recruited, and the first survey is currently being published, with the national picture based on a random sample of 1,690 miles of rights of way by volunteer across the country. As time goes on, and more people join in, we hope the survey will get ever larger. More than half of the mystery walkers are not members, and we will be doing a membership drive amongst these people shortly.

He also reported that the Government was likely to shortly issue a consultation paper to take forward the recommendations from the stakeholder-working group on recording lost rights of way. The recommendations were agreed by a range of stakeholders covering walkers, farmers, landowners, etc, and we are keen that the government implements the proposals as a whole rather than selectively.

He thanked all of the volunteers involved in training other volunteers at a very successful practical path workday, attended by 50 people. We have come a long way from a few years ago, including the provision of insurance for Ramblers work teams. More and more Ramblers groups are getting interested in practical work to help to keep paths clear.

Finances

The Board considered both the current financial accounts, the budget for the coming year, and five-year forecasts. For the financial year just ending, our finances are healthy, with a likely surplus of around c£430 compared to a budgeted deficit of c£316k – in other words, about £700k better than budgeted. This is mostly due to unbudgeted legacies, but our membership income is also above target (in contrast to membership numbers – we believe partly due to a change in ‘mix’ of members, with the change from ‘reduced rate’ to ‘concessionary rate’). It will leave our reserves in a health state by the end of the financial year, at around £2m in free unrestricted reserves, plus about £350k in the pension reserve (which is being topped up by an additional £100k, to take account of the current state of stock markets) and £210k in the legal and national casework fund.

However, looking forward, our finances will get much tighter, particularly until we reverse the long-term downward trend in membership (which is why this is such an important priority). We are budgeting for a deficit next year (mainly comprising the spending of this year’s surplus), due to investment in membership-promoting activities; and the five-year forecasts suggest a continued tightening of our finances.

Key Performance Indicators

The Board reviewed the latest monthly Key Performance Indicators. These are 16 key indicators – covering finance, membership, campaigns, and organisation –, which give a snapshot of how we’re performing against the Business Plan targets. We are on track with most of these targets, but the two where we have not been successful are: membership (with the trend still downwards) and footpath successes (which we believe is down to under-reporting of local successes – we need to encourage footpath secretaries to report successes, to help with campaigning and membership recruitment/retention).

The Board also reviewed the feedback from Areas about the main priorities for next year, and approved the targets for the coming year based around the four priorities: more members (to increase our income, our volunteer base, and our campaigning clout); more income (to increase our ability to fulfil our charitable purpose); protecting of footpaths; and promotion of walking.

Area and Group Budget Allocations for 2011/12

The Board approved allocations to Areas and Groups of £425k, with a further £25k to be allocated as needed (a total increase of £25k on the current year). We agreed that recommended volunteer mileage expense rates would remain at 28p per mile, but that trustees would continue to claim 20p per mile on a voluntary basis.

Walking for Health divestment

The Board agreed (subject to details particularly on finances) to move forward with preparing a bid to host Walking for Health, which is being divested out of government over the next few months. This presents the opportunity to bring together the two major walking schemes in the country. Submission of a formal bid will need a separate decision when the government has released more financial information.

General Council resolutions

The Board received an update on resolutions from General Council. This will be circulated to General Council delegates and Areas.

Chair and Treasurer succession

The Board agreed to advertise for the posts of Chair and Hon Treasurer, which both come up for election at General Council in 2012. In accordance with our constitution, the post of Chair will be advertised internally, and that of Treasurer both internally and externally.

Confidentiality of minutes

The Board agreed that the minutes of meetings, once agreed, would be published on the volunteers section of the website, but with the following information removed (unless otherwise in the public domain at that stage):

• The appointment, promotion, dismissal and any other matters affecting the personnel affairs of individual members of the Ramblers, or individual members of staff
• Personal information relating to individual members of the Board of Trustees
• Commercially sensitive information
• Legally sensitive information
• Anything, which the Chair, having consulted with the Chief Executive and Honorary officers, deems inappropriate for an open forum.

These would be clearly marked as the Published Minutes.

We agreed the governing principle of the Published Minutes would be one of openness and exceptions would be kept to a minimum. It would also be made clear that the Chair would not enter into correspondence about excluded matters.

Tom Franklin Chief Executive leaving for a new post.

By the time you receive this edition of EAU you will probably have heard that our Chief Executive will be leaving for a new post at the end of 2011. From January he will be the new CE of Think Global, which is a membership-based charity that works to educate and engage the UK publicon global issues. It works on a wide range of projects with schools, NGOs, the private sector and others. It aims to help people in the UK learn about global issues such as poverty and climate change and find out how they can play a part in creating a more just and sustainable world.

Tom Franklin joined the Ramblers at the most dfficult period in its history; it’s financial procedures were hopelessly out of control and it was saddled with a new computer system for which there had been totally inadequate preparation or training.

The measures which had to be taken to bring the situation under control included a considerable number of redundancies; cost cutting; and the closure of the Scottich and Welsh Ramblers Offices.

The response by many was angry and, at times abusive. Although members were justly annoyed with the Trustees, it was Tom who bore the bulk of the discontent. Few people would have put up with the pressure he has had to endure from a relatively few people who wanted to turn the clock back to some golden age of the past. It says a lot for his energy and tenacity that he has stayed the course to ensure that our Charity is now on a firm financial footing and that the majority of the technological problems have been solved.

Whilst our membership has continued the decline which started some 15 years ago, Tom has overseen the emergence of a service arm of the organisation which is beginning to work in partnership with the NHS to provide a nationwide system of health walks which, it is to be hoped, will lead to recruitment opportunities for us.

Many things have changed during his period of office: we have a new brand which is recognised throught the country; we have commercial alegiances which mean that our members benefit from discounts and the effect of grants.

Above all Tom has maintained the emphasis on footpath work and access as key aspects of the Ramblers rasion detre.

I will personally miss his sheer energy and enthusiasm.

Len Banister

Award

Bryan Amery has been running the excellent Rochford and Castle Point website for ten years. Over that time he has also run the Group’s walks programme. In recognition of this substantial achievement he was awarded the Ramblers Good Service Certificate, signed by Rodney Whittaker, Chair of the Board of Trustees.

Well done Bryan.

LB

Essex Leader

Mike Whiteley, Secretary of the West Essex Group, annually leads the Centenary walk through Epping Forest which is designed to commemorate the granting of the Forest to the City of London. There has been a fall-off in participants in recent years but this September saw resurgence as numbers at times topped 150. People can join the 15 mile-in-total walk along the way, going at easy pace and stopping now and then to hear various forestry experts explain something of the history and environment. One of those who talked was Ken Hoy who has published a revised and expanded version of his definitive Getting To Know Epping Forest (If bought fromthe Friends of Epping Forest,the book will cost £8.95. Copies can be obtained from

Judy Adams 2 High View Close, Loughton, Essex IG10 4EG Please send Chequespayable to 'The Friends of Epping Forest'if ordered by post, add £1.75 for p + p and enclose delivery details, please).

Mike Whiteley also led the final leg of the Capital Ring walk organised by the Ramblers Greater London Forum. As the seven-day walk wound its way around London it occasionally attracted 60 walkers and probably about 250 different participants in all.

12 Ramblers were awarded certificates for completing the whole route.

Special National and Regional Meetings 2011 - Book your place

Meetings across Britain for volunteers with the Chair and Chief Executive this autumn. Events: posted 20 September 2011.

Meetings will take place in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff.

The two-hour meetings are being held to discuss the latest membership research results – what do members want from their membership, and how do we encourage more people to join, and renew? As well as a short introduction presentation, there will be lots of time to ask questions and give feedback.

Each will involve both, Rodney Whittaker, Chair, and Tom Franklin, Chief Executive. All volunteers are welcome, although as space is limited early registration is recommended to avoid disappointment (see booking form below).

The dates and times of the meetings are:

• London - 20 October 2011 – 6.00pm – 8.00pm (Ramblers central office)

Please note that spaces are limited, you are recommended to book early to avoid disappointment. Complete one form per person, following the instructions on the form and submit.

Click on the Registration Form to register your place.

Obituary

Les Jessen, died 3rd October 2011

Les was an excellent walking partner: he was a good navigator, a strong walker and good company. Furthermore he was a Meteorologist by profession – always very useful to have on a walk.