Welcome to another Summer newsletter! There has been plenty of activity to report at the D&K in this our 50th Anniversary Year. Here is a summary of what has been happening since our last report.
Our Annual General Meeting on 24th March, chaired by our President, Sir Geoffrey Newman, proceeded as usual in a most efficient manner. To mark the celebration of our Anniversary, the formal meeting was followed by 'Recollections of 50 Years at the D&K'. With some fascinating photographs, this presentation by Doug Twigg and Eric Preston highlighted some of the successes and struggles over the years and included a most amusing personal recollection by Beryl Calder.
The Spring Outing on 30th May took us to the Dartington Estate in glorious weather. We were allowed special access to High Cross House – the 1930s Modernist Headmaster's house – and, after lunch at the White Hart, were given a fascinating guided tour through the gardens by the Head Gardener. It was a most relaxing day with truly interesting insights into features which are often missed.
The final event of the season was our Summer Party on 26th June, when we marked our Anniversary by 'splashing out' and taking a RiverLink boat on a cruise up the Dart. We invited some local guests to join us and were delighted to welcome a number of supporters and friends. With almost 100 on board on a beautiful evening with some good music, we had an excellent trip; the caterers somewhat under-estimated the amount of food needed but made a generous apology afterwards.
Thanks are due to our Events Secretary, Liane Baldock, and her team, for the most efficient organisation of these social events.
Our programme for the year is shown on the Programme Page, Talks in the Autumn and Winter include:
As usual, all meetings are set for Tuesday evenings starting at 7.30pm at the Flavel, with the season beginning on 6th October. As a change this year we decided that the February meeting would comprise a talk rather than an Open Forum, giving your Committee a little 'breathing space' in finding new original subjects for the Forum! The AGM will be on 23rd March, to be followed by a talk by Di Summers on 'Dartmouth in Bloom' – of special interest to the D&K, which was one of the original sponsors.
Our social programme for 2010 includes the traditional and popular Winter Market-Day Lunch, to be held on Friday 29th January, again at the Royal Castle Hotel, where we have enjoyed excellent occasions in recent years. For the Spring Outing on Thursday 20th May we will be visiting the Lukesland Gardens near Ivybridge with a stop for lunch at Riverford Organic Farm. Finally we will end the season on Thursday 24th June with our Summer Party; we are still considering the best venue for this and will announce it well in advance.
The new Committee elected at the AGM saw a few changes from the previous year. John Dingle stood down after several years as our Vice-Chairman, with Peter Shaw taking his place. Paul Moynagh relinquished his position as Planning Secretary after a number of years of hard work; this post is currently vacant with the work being shared amongst the Committee under Eric Preston's guidance. The other Officers of the Committee volunteered to continue in their current posts and are therefore Doug Twigg as Chairman, John Baldock as Secretary and Jill Rowe as Treasurer: Tessa de Galleani stood down as a general member of the Committee, which now comprises: Liane Baldock, Phil Charlesworth, John Dingle, Griselda Guthrie, Paul Moynagh and Nick Wood. Our Vice-President, Eric Preston, also attends the Committee meetings. Thanks are due to all the Committee for their continuing hard work.
We are currently keen to recruit new members of the Committee in time for the start of the Autumn season. We are a lively group and are enthusiastically involved in a wide range of local activities. If you would like to contribute to the work of the Society, please approach one of us; we can co-opt new members at any time.
The results of the planning appeal on the redevelopment of the old St John's Ambulance site in College Way were announced in March. Disappointingly the appeal was up-held, although we (and others) had expressed the view that the plans looked out-of-scale and not in keeping with local styles. South Hams District Council has now started the review of both Dartmouth and Kingswear Conservation Areas. The first stage has been circulation of a questionnaire to local householders; however this has not been received by everyone and the deadline for comments has been extended, although we are still pressing for better publicity of this process. We have already submitted the results of our detailed work on Dartmouth (presented at the Open Forum) to SHDC and are commenting separately on Kingswear.
The Council has also started work on the Local Development Framework document for Dartmouth and surrounding area. We were invited to attend a workshop to identify some initial local views; this proved useful and we await the subsequent public consultations. We continue to monitor all local Planning Appljcations and we object, comment or support where appropriate.
We continue to support efforts to improve parking arrangements in Dartmouth. Recent informal discussions, which included representatives from Devon County Council and SHDC, were useful in identifying specific improvements which can be made to the Park & Ride.
As a stakeholder in the Government review on coastal flood protection in Devon, we have attended a further briefing which set out proposed short- and long-term guidelines. These recommendations appear sensible, although they contain little detail at this stage.
Following SHDC's allocation of significant funds for improvements to Coronation Park, we attended a workshop on how to allocate the funds and how the leisure usage of the Park might be improved in the long-term. Public consultations are expected later in the year.
We continue to monitor many other local issues and will keep you informed as these develop.
Best Wishes
Doug Twigg,
Chairman
August 2009