Mins May AGM 2010

Annual Parish Mins.doc of 6

Minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting of Tasburgh held on

Tuesday 25th May 2010 at 8.00pm in Tasburgh Village Hall.

Present: Dave Moore Parish Councillor (Chairman)

Brian Hill Parish Councillor

Keith Read Parish Councillor and Tasburgh United Charities

Don Proudfoot Parish Councillor and Social Club

Deborah Sacks Parish Councillor, Village Hall and Preston Primary School

John Mann Parish Councillor

Julie King Parish Clerk

Ann Gibbons Over 50s Keep Fit

Graham Pates Scout Group

Julie Lawrence Recreation for All

Alison Thomas County Councillor

plus nine members of the public

1. Apologies

Apologies were received from:

Roger Burnett

Geoff Merchant Parish Councillor

Lynn Cutress Redwings

PCSO Rebecca Holden

2. Minutes of meeting held on 12th May 2009

Minutes were agreed as a true record of proceedings proposed by Keith Read,

seconded by John Mann, all in favour.

3. Parish Council Reports

a. Chairman’s Report

Dave Moore explained that he had recently taken over from Brian Hill as

Chairman of the Parish Council. Brian had served as Chairman for 21

continuous years and had been on the committee that had decided to set a

maximum term of office for the Chair of the Parish Council of seven years. He

said that Brian’s record of 21 years would therefore never be matched or

beaten. Dave took the opportunity to thank Brian for his dedicated hard work

over the years on behalf of everyone who had benefitted.

Brain said that he had, for the last time, been through the minute book and

picked out the highlights of the previous year. He said that although he

wouldn’t read them all, he would pass a copy to the Clerk for the record and he

summarised some of the activities.

Dave spoke of the Advisory Committees set up by the Parish Council to report

and make recommendations to the full Council. He said that a lot of work went


on in the background on behalf of the Parish. He ended by thanking the Clerk

for her hard work during the year.

b. Financial Report

The Clerk presented the Parish Council’s accounts for the year ending 31st

March 2010, explaining the major variations from the previous year and budget.

The main expenditure had been the establishment of Burrfeld Park, just over

£24,000 had been spent to date with £21,600 coming from grants and

donations.

c. Burrfeld Park

Deborah Sacks, on behalf of the Council, presented a short report on the

progress of Burrfeld Park. She began by thanking John Mann for his hard work

in establishing the Park. She said that three volunteer days had been held,

during which 80 native trees and an apple orchard had been planted. The Parish

Council had arranged for the mowing of the site during the summer months and

shortly a small amount of weed killing would be undertaken. She said that the

project would develop over many years and she would welcome any

suggestions for the site.

d. Traffic Solutions

Deborah Sacks presented a report on the work of the Parish Council’s Traffic

Solutions Advisory Committee. Amongst other things, the committee had

looked at traffic calming on Low Road and Saxlingham Lane and had decided

to establish a Community Speed Watch group in the village. It was noted that

there was one more volunteer needed for the Community Speed Watch, anyone

interested was asked to approach the Clerk. A footpath around the bends a the

bottom of Grove Lane had been the subject of a petition of some 188 names,

nearly 20% of the village, and two meetings had been held with Highway

Officers to try to progress this.

A member of the public asked if the subject of Grit Bins for Valley Road had

been discussed. The Clerk confirmed that at the Council’s last meeting it had

been agreed to purchase one bin. The member of the public explained the

difficulty faced by the residents of Valley Road during the previous winter and

suggested that four bins were required; he agreed to speak with the residents of

Valley Road and to come back to the Council with suggested sites. Dave

Moore agreed that the Parish Council would take another look at the issue.

A member of the public asked what ‘traffic calming’ had been considered for

Low Road, Deborah Sacks said that either traffic bumps or narrowing, however

there had not been a consensus amongst Councillors.

e. Parish Plan Deborah Sacks said that she had written a ‘Monitoring Report’ for the Parish

Plan. She felt that with the change in Government, such documents would

increasingly be used to shape communities. She said that it was important that


the Parish Plan was revisited to establish progress made and to move forward.

Communities needed carefully thought out policies, which other authorities

would be obliged to take into consideration. The document looked at the

progress made to date with the Plan and the areas still to be tackled. Deborah

outlined the report.

A member of the public raised the subject of ‘adopt a garden’ where those who

were interested in cultivating a plot were put in touch with those who could

spare some space in their garden. It was confirmed that this was an idea that

the Council was aware of. Keith Read said that he had been charged with

trying to find a site suitable for allotments in the village, however despite

speaking to a number of land owners he, so far, had been unsuccessful.

Tony Lacey spoke of the website he had established on behalf of the Village

Hall Management Committee. He said that during April it had had 18,000 hits

and thanked the Parish Clerk for introducing him to the site providers. Tony

went on to explain about a new service he had been made aware of, ipatter was

aimed at companies and community groups and could prove to be a very useful

tool for direct marketing.

Tony also said that while promoting the Recreation for All’s Festival, he had

found that the local media were calling out for information relating to village

life.

4. Reports from Village Organisations

Tasburgh Social Club

Don Proudfoot said the Club had been founded in 1993 and it had seen good and bad

years. He said that the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 had been

traumatic, with customer levels dropping, cancelled functions, an overstocked cellar

and few customers, the club was operating on a shoe-string, finally the Club Steward

resigned and half the committee left. During June 2009 several new members joined

the committee and by the end of the month a full committee of 13 had been

established. A six point plan had been drawn up with a target of six months to put

things right. The whole committee had worked hard, various events had been held

and membership rose again. He said that thankfully the rescue plan had paid off and

by the end of 2009 all debts had been paid and the club was back in the black. Don

said that during the year he along with two other committee members attended

Norwich City College to learn about the 2003 Licensing Act, all had passed the

exam. The Club continued to work with other village hall user groups, some had had

very successful events using the facility of the Club, and he hoped more would

follow. Don said that Tasburgh Social Club was a facility for its members, their

families and friends and paying guests to socialise and enjoy the functions that were

held. It was not in competition with any other establishment and any excess profits

would go back to the members and the community via the Village Hall. Don

finished by saying that there were 171 members, ten less than the previous year, 79

were on the e-mail list and 117 lived in Tasburgh. He thanked the committee and all


the members for their continued support.

A member of the public added that during the previous nine months there had been

serious upheaval. In addition to the points Don had already raised he said that the

Club had decided to embrace a green future. All alcohol was sourced from within 30

miles, any food was purchased locally and significant time and effort had gone into a

major refit, resulting in a lowering of electricity consumption and less cleaning

products being used.

1st Tasburgh Sea Scouts

Graham Pates, Chair of the Executive Committee, reported that the group continued

to grow, attracting children from Tasburgh and surrounding villages. There were

Beaver, Cub, Scout and Explorer sections and he outlined some of the activities that

each of the groups had been involved in in recent months. He said that in addition to

the adult leaders for each of the sections, they had nine young leaders supporting all

of the younger sections in the group; they had also had help from a number of young

people working towards their Duke of Edinburgh award. He said that later in the

year the Scouts and Explorers would be attending a jamboree at the Norfolk

Showground, where they would join 6000 other members of the Scouting

organisation. He said that Don Proudfoot remained the Group Scout Leader and that

they had an Executive Committee that consisted of interested parents who organised

fundraising and supported the leaders in the running of the group.

Tasburgh Over 50s Keep Fit Ann Gibbins said that this was a group established in September 2008, which

continued to meet under the instruction of personal trainer, Craig Flemming. The

group consisted of 15 members (only two men!), who enjoyed the hour long sessions

and kept fit. She said that they had initially benefitted from a grant from South

Norfolk Council for equipment and that their only difficulty was with storage, it

would be most beneficial if storage could be made available at the village hall.

Tasburgh Village Hall

Deborah Sacks as Chair of the Village Hall Committee said that the committee

continued to look at extending or redeveloping the Hall, one of the aims would be to

provide additional storage. She said that after a false start, two further plans had

been drawn up. One was for an extension which would provide the much needed

storage and a new roof and was priced at around £250,000; the other was a complete

redevelopment and was likely to cost around £750,000. She said that the Village

Hall and community had to decide which would be the preferred option and she said

that there was a debate to be had.

Recreation for All

Julie Lawrence said that Recreation for All was a new group supported by

representatives from most youth based user groups and ‘fat dads’, but anyone was

welcome to join. Its purpose was to provide outdoor play and recreational facilities

to be placed around the Village Hall.


Tasburgh United Charities

Keith Read said he was one of the five trustees of Tasburgh United Charities. He

said that there were two charities. The ‘Sand Gravel and Marlpit Charity’ owned two

or three parcels of land in the Parish, one of which was Burrfeld Park. The ‘Poor’s'

Charity’ held investments from land that had been compulsory purchased by

Depwade District Council and bequests left to it, from which they helped the ‘poor

and needy’ of the village.

He ended by saying that it was becoming increasingly difficult to find ‘poor and

needy’ Parishioners and asked that if anyone was aware of someone who may benefit

from assistance from the Charities to speak with one of the Trustees.

Preston Primary School Deborah Sacks, as a governor of the school, said that the school went from strength

to strength and was a ‘cracking school’!

Redwings Horse Sanctuary

Lynn Cutress, Chief Executive had sent a written report. 2009 had been their Silver

Jubilee year which ended with a successful Auction hosted by Paul Martin of TV’s

‘Flog It’ fame.

It had been a challenging year with a large number of admissions as well as a drop in

income due to the financial climate. The number of ‘Case Animals’ for the RSPCA

and other prosecutors continued to rise, however the Hapton site, being use only for

overflow quarantine and serious medical cases was largely the same as the previous

year. Details were given relating to a major case they had been involved in.

The report ended with details of a feature on TV’s ‘Escape to the Country’ and their

horse show at Easton College. The open weekends for 2010 would be 17th/18

th July

and 3rd/4th December.

5. Reports from Other Bodies

a. District Council

There had not been anyone present from the District Council.

b. County Council

Alison Thomas reported on the highlights from across the County Council over

the previous year. They included the lowest ever Council Tax rise of 1.9% and

careful budget management which had led to a reallocation of an additional

£2million to the Highways budget, to target potholes and surface dressing.

The Council achieved three stars for Adult Social Care and she was pleased to

report that six new schools would be delivered via the ‘Building Schools for

the Future’ programmed, including Chapel Road special school which served

children from South Norfolk. Numbers using the county’s libraries continued

to rise with the Millennium Library still the most used in the whole country.

She finished by saying that Norfolk was desperately short of Foster Carers and

anyone who may be interested should contact the Council.

Alison was asked about the programme for reinstating the County’s road


surfaces following the bad winter and whether there would be any redress from

the contractors who had recently resurfaced the roads. She said that,

countrywide, there had been a new way of resurfacing roads; the winter had

proved that it had not worked and at this stage she was unsure of who was

responsible. She said that the important thing was to get the roads repaired and

to concentrate on whose fault it had been, and therefore who would pay later.

c. Police – written report from PCSO Rebecca Holden

PCSO Holden’s report spoke of the recent defacing of Conservative signs and

an issue, raised by the school, of a vehicle regularly parked on the junction of

Church Road and Henry Preston Road. She ended by giving details of the

members of the Long Stratton Safer Neighbourhood team and confirming that

she continued to the PCSO representative for Tasburgh.

6. General Parish Issues

No further issues were raised.

The Chairman thanked everyone for their attendance, he said that he was heartened by the

reports that had been given and the enthusiasm they showed, the meeting closed at 9.24pm.

Mins May AGM 2010

Documents

Transcript of Mins May AGM 2010