Ouse & Adur Rivers Trust
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting
Held on the 13 April 2016
Plumpton Village Hall at 7.00 pm
1. Welcome
The Chairman Hew Prendergast (HP) welcomed thirty five members and seven guests. He advised that copies of the agenda and short form accounts had been placed on the seats. He also let the attendees know that there was an opportunity to meet members of the committee at the end of the meeting.
2. Apologies for absence
Apologies were received from 17 members and one invited guest.
3. Guest Lecture: Knepp rewilding: a naturalistic grazing project
Penny Green from the Knepp Castle Estate gave a very interesting talk illustrated by an excellent and very descriptive slide show, both still and video. Farming on the estate, which extends to 3,500 acres in central Sussex (and straddling the Adur) was historically very difficult due to the poor quality of the land, being mainly clay soil, and was losing money despite being highly intensive. About 15 years ago a new form of management was introduced that was inspired by the work of Dutch ecologist Frans Vera and a project in the Oostvardersplassen in Flevoland, the Netherlands.
The current aim of the estate is to improve the biodiversity of the land and enable natural processes to take place which will encourage the return of native wildflowers and grasses, trees and shrubs, insects and butterflies, birds and small mammals. The original dairy cows have been replaced with a herd of old English longhorn cattle. Exmoor ponies, fallow deer, red deer and Tamworth pigs have been introduced and have been set loose to roam at will. The estate runs wildlife surveys to establish how the project is affecting/helping the other native species. Already Knepp hosts the largest UK population of the Purple Emperor butterfly, as well as good numbers of declining bird species such as Cuckoo, Turtle Dove and Nightingale.
There were several questions for Penny, the main one which interested several people was ‘how is the project financed’. Penny explained that, while the estate sold meat from its animals, conservation funding, primarily via the European Union, was very important. They were also able to rent out for holidays the old farm workers cottages, run a camping facility and do tours (‘safaris’) of the estate. Other questions covered subjects such as invasive species control, the impact of badgers on hedgehogs (surveys had found none but visitors and neighbours reported sightings) and, in answer to a specific question, Penny also said that the whole experiment was getting the support of neighbouring farms despite initial misgivings.
Members gave generous applause to Penny and some signed up to receiving email information from Knepp.
4. Minutes of the meeting held on 23 April 2014
The minutes had been placed on the website and HP asked if they could be accepted. They were proposed as correct by Robin Akers, seconded by Mike Aldridge and approved by the floor.
5. Chairman’s Report
Hew Prendergast started by saying that the hiring during the year of Rachel Paget (RP), whom he introduced to members, was further evidence of OART developing as an organisation. He explained the important role that she performed. This included assisting with the running of our volunteer Task Force, helping to build up the numbers of volunteers, and assisting Peter King (PK) with the planning, implementation and raising funds for projects. RP had also taken over the production of the quarterly newsletter.
HP explained that the role of Trustees was now more focused on matters such as governance and dealing with the Charity Commission – like trustees of every charity –and, with the professional involvement of PK and RP, less involved on the whole with day to day project management/work. One matter on which Trustees had spent considerable effort was updating the Articles of Association. He hoped members would support the changes which Keith Hollis will deal with under Item 9.
HP emphasised that OART was still membership based and also very much relied on the assistance of volunteers. Water testing and biological monitoring, and counting sea trout redds, are still keystones of our regular activity along with the Task Force work. Some members had voiced concern that on occasions either the Ouse or the Adur seemed to get greater attention but HP emphasised that the amount of effort/work on each river will by its nature from time to time depend on outside pressures such as flood alleviation but they are both treated with equal importance. For example, 6,500 trees have recently been planted by our volunteers on the Adur at Twineham, a tremendous achievement with assistance from Plumpton College students and a team from the Environment Agency (EA). On the Ouse, construction work will begin soon to enable fish passage at East Mascalls with the Environment Agency (EA) providing the base finance and OART organising the work.
Funding is an ongoing challenge that is exercising PK and RP. Sources such as the Heritage Lottery Fund and the EU can support large projects but applications are time-consuming and the competition very high. The problem with many smaller sources is that they do not cover staff costs. Cuts to the EA are having an impact. HP said that OART sympathised with EA officers and staff who, despite uncertainty about their own funding, were always found to be very dedicated and supportive of OART. As an organisation that has no land or water of its own, OART relies entirely on partnerships with land owners, fishing clubs and other river related parties and HP stated OART’s gratitude to those with whom we work.
Lastly HP said that we are always very appreciative of the suggestions and help we receive from our members and will always welcome new ideas.
6. Finance Report
Tony Peel Cross confirmed that OART’s finances were in good order and that the accounts for the year end 31 December 2015 were complete and audited. He ran through the short form accounts that had been distributed; copies of full accounts are available to members on request via Sam St Pierre.
Page 2 shows a small increase in total funding of around £7,000.00. We have also closed our deposit account with Barclays and transferred it to NatWest. Page 3 shows the income received reduced during the financial year primarily due to the timing of grants. The expenditure is more or less in line with the previous year with the exception of grant expenditure but again this is affected by project timing.
There was one question from the floor asking what was the ‘grant expenditure’ of circa £86,000. This was explained by PK as the monies that were spent on undertaking and paying for the project work on the rivers.
HP thanked Tony for his excellent work on OART’s behalf during the year and his clear explanation of our financial position. Tony’s voluntary effort on behalf of the Trust is very much appreciated by Trustees and members.
7. Project Oficers Report
PK first explained that the website had been redeveloped and was now more interactive; he thanked Simon Turner for his excellent work. The work that was started in 2013 at Twineham had gone well. Four weirs had been removed; this had dropped the water level by some four foot and made the river look less like a rather boring canal. However OART had excellent help from the landowner, the angling club, Plumpton College, the EA, the local community group and our Task Force volunteers enabling meanders to be created along with five fish refuges. As mentioned by HP there had also been 6,500 trees planted.
PK showed the before and after pictures of Hempstead Mill on the Uck where the gates had been removed. The river was full of rubbish including a motor cycle that had to be cleared and it was also badly overgrown with Himalayan Balsam that needed removal. The banks were stabilised and rock features introduced into the river. The owner is now very pleased with the end result.
Lewes District Council are to provide OART funding to be spent on the Ouse north of Barcombe Mills primarily aimed at alleviating flooding. The East Mascalls fish pass (funded by the EA’s Catchment Partnership Action Fund) should be completed in June. Work is also being undertaken to look at providing a wetland area opposite the Anchor public house. Other projects are to be looked at which include providing fish passage at Barcombe Mills and further work to improve both the Longford and Tickeridge streams. OART will also be working with West Sussex County Council to help find solutions to alleviate flooding around Hassocks.
RP then outlined the work that she had been undertaking. In particular she had concentrated on revitalising the task force which goes out each month and which deployed eleven times during 2015 amounting to 150 volunteer days. These days have included raking gravel on the Longford and the North End streams to improve sea trout breeding and the removal of invasive Parrot’s Feather as well as the work described above by PK. Also, along with the tree planting at Twineham, a further 340 other trees which have been donated have been planted in the catchment. OART has also started to build up a store of brushwood bundles gathered by the volunteers to be used for future stream meanders and bank stabilisation projects.
A major river clean-up has taken place in Uckfield below the road bridge with the help of both the fire brigade and the local community group; this attracted a lot of local press coverage. Work has been undertaken with the local Hassocks community group including a river clean-up, bank work and biological invertebrate training. This is continuing has also resulted in a number of new members in the Adur area.
Fundraising both at a high level and a local level is a major priority and is being worked on together with PK. Recently OART has been part of the Waitrose green counter scheme in Lewes which raised just over £500 and it is also now running at the Uckfield store.
HP thanked both PK and RP for their very hard and productive work.
8. Election of Trustees
Dave Brown and Hew Prendergast, are due to stand down by rotation, both put themselves forward for re-election. Dave Brown was proposed by Robin Akers and seconded by Tony Peel Cross. Hew Prendergast was proposed by John Whiting and seconded by Chris Batey. The motions were put to the floor and passed.
9. Approval of the revised Articles of Association
Keith Hollis (KH) went through the proposed changes to the Articles and gave the reasons they needed to be amended, primarily since they required compliance with the latest Companies Act (2006 rather than 1985). Prior to setting out the changes KH had studied and compared the articles with those of other rivers trusts and similar charities. In particular they now show more clearly where we work, and include an explicit educational remit of aiming to improve public understanding of the need for our work.
There had been changes to the powers of the members and now any ten members can call a meeting. Trustees must now be members and a written code of conduct has to be signed by all of them (this has been done). For the ease and speed of decision making purposes a clause has been added to allow trustees to hold a meeting via email.
The new articles were proposed by Tony Peel Cross, seconded by Paul Nicholson and accepted by the floor.
10. Presentation of the Tony Barnard Shield
The Tony Barnard Shield is presented each year to a person or group who have given outstanding support to the Trust. Unfortunately his son Mark Barnard could not be present this year. Jim Smith performed the duty of presenting it to the Environment Agency Fisheries and Biodiversity team, headed by Charles Bacchus, for their outstanding help and support throughout 2015.
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