Sheffield
Group of the Ramblers’ Association
Annual
Report 2008
REPORT
FROM THE CHAIR (Terry Howard)
2008 has been
one of the most successful and stimulating years we have had. Our success is not measured in how our
membership is or is not growing but in what we have done and in what we are
doing. The Group is firmly recognised throughout the City as representing walkers and
walking and has achieved much credibility.
All this is due to the incredible commitment by all our volunteers.
You deserve all our thanks – well done!
Our walks programme offers an increasing number and range of walks
suitable for most people in both rural and city locations. We will continue to strive to cater for all
walking needs across the city. The “Walking
Out” project continues
to be very successful offering much shorter walks for those who want them,
whether members or not. We remain the
only Group in
We continue to be involved with Sheffield Walking
Forum, the only one in the country.
This body promotes walking across the City for everyone and has an
influence on the City Council by promoting and supporting initiatives, plans
and strategies.
The work carried out by the Group is very wide
ranging and a workplan was drawn up earlier in the
year. Its intention was to make members
more aware of the range of work being done but it has developed into what we
need to do in consideration of financing and budgeting
our work. In a sense it has become the
blueprint of what we intend to do.
Our footpath and access work continues to bring many
successes with more paths, access land and access points coming on stream. It is right to say we have more walking
opportunities now than have existed for very many years. Well done everyone concerned. What is needed now is for everyone to use
these new opportunities.
The slide lectures continue to interest and inspire
and the news letter “Sheffield Rambler” is keeping members up to date with what
is going on. The other work which is
done in the Group is not always high profile but it is nevertheless vital for
the work of Ramblers, our members and all walkers such as the coach rambles and
public transport. We must not forget
those who support, enable and carry out the fundamental work which is the
backbone of the Group. Also there are
members who sit on Local Access Forums and work on a wide variety of groups and
committees promoting the interests of walking and the Ramblers.
When one looks at the work we have done in
VISUALLY
IMPAIRED PERSONS’ RAMBLES
(Betsy Wilson Chairman)
The Group continues to get more visually impaired
people and sighted guides out on the footpaths. We have 90 members, one third of whom are visually impaired, i.e. partially sighted with
macular degeneration for example, or registered blind with all sorts of
conditions. Our youngest member is 18
and our oldest 85. Three members are
over 80 and most members are over 60.
It is difficult to keep the interest of young people as they gallop off
to college and other social activities.
Whilst we have two ‘official’ rambles each month (2nd
Wednesday and 4th Sunday) in fact we ramble every Sunday under the
leadership of our partially sighted Vice Chairman, John Bater. Usually we are also out Tuesdays, sometimes
with the RA ramble but often with John as he explores an interesting path. We also walk with the Peak Park Rangers
every other month, and once a year with National Trust Rangers. Occasionally we vary our programme
with our annual motor cycle ride, a tandem ride, a carvery
at the Shoulder of Mutton, a stone wall building day or a New Year walk and
meal at the Little John at Hathersage. In short we have had a busy year and look
forward to an even busier one. Of
course, we could not do this without our wonderful guides, so we salute them
with gratitude. Thank you also to our
skilled walk leaders who start with apprehension but soon learn that even
totally blind people can gaffer Kinder Scout.
If you are interested, ring Betsy Wilson.
RIGHTS OF
WAY (David Woodhead
Footpath Officer)
Over the last twelve months we have continued our
regular meetings with the officers in the Sheffield City Council Rights of Way Unit. There are positive signs that these meetings
are worthwhile and we are consulted on all rights of way and access
matters. In the last twelve months we
have seen the start of the Rights of Way Improvement Plan with funding of
£450,000 for next year.
A number of byways have been
reclassified and should be on the new OS Dark Peak Map – these are
A new footpath
has been created through the woodland on the north side of Broomhead
Reservoir.
At a recent weekend seminar at Losehill
Hall, run by the Ramblers for members of the RA who are on Local Access Forums,
Sheffield City Council owned Public Open Spaces shown
on Ordnance Survey Maps are accessible to all, and it will now include green
open spaces and woodland.
Another item which has emerged during the last months
is that the
Negotiations are progressing with all interested
parties, land managers and local authority legal personnel to resolve the
issues at Blacka over dedication, and at High Riggs
near Crawshaw Head on some common land enclosed with
a wire fence, which is restricting access to a piece of access moorland.
We reported again early this year of restrictions on
moorlands to the west of Sheffield – i.e. Hallam, Bamford, Moscar and Strines moors, this did happen (28 days in May and June),
but the possible closure of the path on top of Stanage
Edge from Long Causeway to Moscar Top was averted and
kept open, thanks to some early telephone calls to the local authority and
subsequently to the landowner.
We thank all those members who are using the open
access land, and keep on sending in any new access points you spot in our area
so it can be added to the list on our website.
PUBLICITY REPORT ( Christine
Hewitt Publicity Editor)
Patricia Lynn has stepped down as Editor of the
“Sheffield Rambler.” Patricia started
the newsletter at the time of the foot & mouth outbreak, and has nurtured
and developed it over the years, devoting many hours of hard work to keep us
informed and up-to-date on relevant news items. We are all grateful to Patricia for her hardwork. From my
point of view she is a hard act to follow, and I can only hope I can do half as
well. We produced three newsletters
this year, and raised the possibility of distribution by Email, but there were
only 24 responses (out of some 600 addresses).
There was a
good attendance at most of the lectures, only one being badly affected by the
weather. The programme
ranged over at least three continents with the majority of Jack Ashcroft’s
reminiscences of rambling relating to trips to the
Most of the
post Christmas programmes were
dedicated to items of local interest.
Martin Olive took us along the South Yorkshire Navigation whilst my
unrelated namesake took us on an underground tour of the local cave and lead
mining systems. Mary Bagley's
presentation had to be delayed until this season and the season ended with a
talk about the CPRE and Friends of the Peak District.
On a sad but
inevitable note some of our speakers are getting older so we need to attract
new ones; I will be standing down at
the
We have a
varied programme for this year which started on a
distinctly Scottish note when I was privileged to give a talk on the
TRANSPORT REPORT (John Brightmore Transport Officer)
This year has
been mixed for public transport in our area.
Derbyshire is giving consideration to discontinuing the excellent
comprehensive timetables which cover the whole county in three volumes, contain
route maps and a whole wealth of other information. This is due to escalating production costs. There has been much protest over this, and
the timetables are certainly safe for the rest of this year, but the situation
will have to be closely monitored. All
local authorities are under Government pressure to provide more information by
electronic means and more and more authorities are thinking that bus
information can be accessed using web sites.
This is no substitute for a proper timetable book which you can carry
with you on a journey.
Since the
introduction of free travel for senior citizens some services normally operated
by single deck buses have experienced overcrowding problems. First Service 218 to Bakewell
and Buxton is one, and so in July they altered the route into Buxton so that
double deck buses could be operated.
However, this has not happened yet due to several locations where
overhanging trees prohibit the safe use of double deckers. This has now mostly been dealt with apart
from two locations at
RAMBLES REPORT (Judith Gathercole
Rambles Committee)
Once again we
have had a successful year with the Walks Programme. Numbers seem to be growing on all walks and
several newly retired people have joined us both during the week and at
weekends.
We continue to
expand the types of walks we are providing with Moorland and City walks in this
year’s programme as well as the themed walks and our
normal club walks. We will continue to
provide these next year although all our walks now have a title as this is
necessary to go on the Walks Finder pages of the National RA website. Thanks are due to Neill Schofield for
transferring the walks to the website – and up to now for thinking up all the
titles! Next year we are also including
some Saturday afternoon and Thursday evening walks during the summer so do come
along and support them.
All this is
only possible with the help of our leaders and we thank them all for their
support and for the great walks they lead.
They are being joined next year by several of our ‘new’ walkers who have
volunteered to lead so thanks also to them – please don’t let that put off any
of you who have not yet started leading – we always need more, not just to
expand our programme but to replace the many ‘old faithfuls’ who have to reduce, or retire from their
leading. Thanks to them for the many
years you have been leading us.
We held a
‘thank you’ event for our leaders last March and several ideas (including our
new walks) came from that. It was also
felt that we needed some sort of training event for leaders as a refresher for
experienced leaders and to help those starting off. This has been arranged for the evening of
February 26th next year. If
you haven’t led yet but would like to come along and see what is involved please
contact me.
Trouble with
transport again during the year prompts a reminder to always check buses and
(especially) trains. We have tried to
avoid Sunday walks in the winter by trains next year as this seems to be the
worst time.
Finally, thanks
are due to the Rambles Committee for their help in compiling the programme and to Paul Pugh who prepares the final draught
for the printer, takes the photos etc, and gives us such a good-looking programme. And, of
course, thanks to you all for coming on the walks – please keep it up in 2009.
COACH
RAMBLES REPORT (Susan Rushworth/Jan
Randall))
This year’s
coach rambles have taken us to Ironbridge, Roseberry Topping and Hawarth. Everyone who took part appeared to enjoy the
walks, the fine views and the various refreshment establishments. Thanks to all the walks leaders – Diane and
John Barker, Dorothy Birch and Paul Crofts, Cath and
Malcolm Mackay and Paul Shannon.
For 2009 we are
planning coach rambles to the
Prices were increased
for 2008, and when all the monies are in we hope to break even on the
year. Prices will probably have to be
increased again next year to cover increasing costs.
MEMBERSHIP REPORT (Malcolm Mackay)
The end of
September 2008
membership figures
are as follows:
2008 2007 2006 2005
Life 18 19 20 20
Single 483 474 463 476
Joint 395 402 428 426
Total
membership 896 895 911 922
Total
individuals 1291 1297 1339 1348
The decline in
Sheffield Group membership has occurred during the period of formation and
rapid growth of the