News

news updated: 07 Oct 2008

September 2008 Minutes

LOCHMABEN & DISTRICT INITIATIVE MEETING   2nd September 2008

Welcome:    Chairman Sandy Grant welcomed all to the meeting

Present:    Tom Russell, Sandy Grant, Sue Coulthard, Maurice Green, Ross Gemmell,
                  Derek Whiterod, Jack Wade, Chris Brown, David Mair, Alistair Brown

Apologies:      Isabelle & Paul Gow, Michael Dickie, Anne Johnston, Barry Dunne, Kath Ward

Minutes:        The minutes of the previous meeting held on 1st July 2008 were taken as read and were adopted.

Matters arising    The Guides    There is no further update on their activities
                              Litter bins    These are now in place at the Mill loch site
                              Membership    No further info on this subject at present

Finance:        There is a balance in the bank of £8191

Countryside Ranger Report:   Ross reported that he had conducted 2 guided walks and a separate walk around Lochmaben’s lochs. A group of 6 volunteers had cleared a 50 bags of Japanese knotweed from the Castle loch area. He is looking to spray this weed in the vicinity of the Lockerbie road.  A quantity of bird boxes had been made by the cubs as a project led by Sheila Kingstree. Nine of these had been placed in various trees at the Castle loch with another 40 or so to go. He was pleased to report that a good number of local children was getting involved in various projects. He reported that there were signs of camp fires near the car park area of the Castle loch, presumably from visiting fishermen and there is some evidence of minor vandalism. The police had been informed. He talked about a system of “geo cashing” which he thought might interest the Initiative. This was discussed and is to be further pursued.
He has organised a bat walk for the next volunteer’s meeting on 21st September. He reported that he has had an encouraging response from local schools in Annandale & Eskdale to his approaches to become involved in environmental projects.  There was further discussion about the hedge alongside the path at the Castle loch.

Economic Regeneration:    Chris Brown representing Dumfries & Galloway Council briefly talked on her remit as a facilitator of small projects in this area. These projects are more concerned with promoting economic growth areas in the town.

CLD Worker:   Sue Coulthard reported on the caring baby project which gives youngsters a practical insight into active caring for a baby (actually a life size dummy) over a period of 24 hours. This had lead to some excellent feedback from those taking part. She is to arrange courses in First Aid, a loch side clean up, a rave and a trip to London.

Paths report:    The last meeting learned that this project was running into great difficulty due to lack of agreement by various landowners. However, since then, meetings with councillors had alerted them to these difficulties and great progress had been made towards securing landowner’s agreement to allowing access over their land for the Annandale Way walking route. The Initiative could help by installing signposts and arrow direction boards.
There have been some incidents of petty vandalism to the woodwork of various kissing gates which is very disappointing. It is reported that this was caused by fishermen using the timber for firewood. It appears that only the owner of the land can disallow such campfires on his land. The flooding at the upper end of the Mill loch is still a problem. It was suggested that some dredging of the burn flowing into the loch might help to alleviate the situation and creating a bank to prevent overflowing the path area.

SNH report:    Barry Dunne was not present. It is recorded that this has been a very difficult year due to the weather. There were only 3 occasions when spraying could take place and the use of glyphosphate had not been entirely successful. There needs to be more use of dichlobenil but its use is going to be banned by end November. There will be an attempt to attack affected areas before then.

Working groups:  Paddling pool:   There have been no further meetings as yet. We await an engineer’s report on the loch-side wall and railings. Sue and Jack are to meet with the paddling pool group to progress.
Publications:    Newsletter:    Anne Johnston is seeking assistance with this project and David Mair   
                                                    agreed to help.
                       Town Trail:    The proposed leaflet composed by Isabelle and Paul Gow was discussed and there was a good positive response. It     only requires some correction and tidying up before going for publication in an A5 format booklet of about 4 pages or so. It was suggested that some local sponsorship could be sought.
Website:        Tom reported that the number of visits was down slightly.

Council Report:    Michael Dickie was not at the meeting to give a report

AOCB:                  There was no further business

Next meeting:      This was arranged for Wednesday 5th November in the Town Hall at 1400.