We have had a very busy year and I have endeavoured to keep the Chairman’s Report as short as possible. Some items from the report will be elaborated on later.
Our first Inaugural Meeting was on 16th May 2005. So we must take ourselves back to then.
Thanks to Kath McCall, Romangate, for her drawings of logos. The Directors chose one, which we hope meets with your approval.
Our first Event the Teddy Bears’ Picnic in the wood was a real old fashioned fun day, with a Teddy Bear leading everyone to the wood. A great time was had by all especially the children.
Our Carol Service was held in the picturesque Duncrub Chapel with Christmas atmosphere and lovely singing led by Karen Downes, Janet Crowe, Alan McFarlane, Alan Kelman and Grace McFarlane at the piano. All thanks to James and Wilma Marshall for the use of the venue.
We then had Iain Buick doing a marathon reciting of Robert Burns’ work in Tesco’s, Crieff Road. The shoppers got involved as well, and the staff shouting ‘That’s the third time you have done that one’!
The first Dunning Pudding Club was held all thanks to everyone involved in providing the tasty puddings. Entertainment of well kent songs and original down to earth recitations by Jim Douglas were much enjoyed. The evening being organised by Lyndsay Robertson to whom we are indebted.
The Festival Weekend involved a mammoth amount of organisation but thanks to the Sub Committee of Ailsa Fossett, Mary Ritchie, Carol Dorsett, Angela Armstrong, Jane Graham, Shona Ferguson, Louise Newell and myself we managed to pull off a Black Tie Ceilidh - great food a wonderful atmospheric evening in the magnificent marquee, a superb colourful Fashion Show which could only be described as Top Notch and a Jazz Night with wonderful music where we danced the night away. Of course, the Sunday Fun Day with its side shows, hog roast, art display, face painting, games etc, etc, attracted people from all the airts. Three of us at the height of the Fun day did a head count and there were over 1,000 people enjoying themselves as families, as visitors and friends all part of a community in the Park. I must record that extra gratitude is due to my fellow sub committee friends - the weekend took over our lives for the fortnight before but we all stuck together - everyone worked really hard. Big big thanks and result fantastic (I am not only talking about the money) but also for the way which you provided something in a unique way which will be remembered as a spectacular event in the Community for a very long time.
Our Cream Tea Members’ Afternoon at “Corshellach” gave us a hospitable time together, all thanks to the generosity of Pam and George Wilson for the use of their garden and home. The jammy cream scones went down a treat but then, listening to all the chattering, so did the Pyms.
Recently, 50 of Dunning Primary School children, under an open sided marquee loaned to us by Victor Westwood, had a morning which can only be described as a Magical Time with Authoress Jess Smith the Traveller/Tinker. Jess not only enthralled the children, but also their teachers, with her tales of tinker things round about and experiences sleeping in her family’s bus in Mi Ladies Wood.
The Board of Directors
Vice Chairman Ian Philip is a power of strength to us all because he is always there helping - a tremendous asset to have.
We had a Membership Secretary, Jane Graham, last June but we needed a Treasurer so, after discussions with her, we co-opted Jane as a Director and she agreed to become the Treasurer. Little did she know at that time the Festival Weekend would be on her plate. Special thanks are due for all her extra work
Our Secretary, Andrew Thomson, having put a lot of time and effort into the start up of the DCT unfortunately was unwell, undertook an increased workload at his day job and also family matters required his attention, so he had to stand down as Secretary. Our thanks go to Andrew for the initial secretarial assistance and for his continued help especially about woodland matters. Carol Dorsett was elected as Minute Secretary and we are very grateful to her.We get home from the meeting one night and virtually the next day we have the minutes. Also, at the same time, Jane Graham was elected as Secretary and we thank her for her added willingness. Arthur Wright and David Myles are the practical men. When we have agreed certain things have to be worked on in the wood they are out there in charge.
John Ritchie is our backbone when it comes to filling in forms and being in touch with outside bodies ie Entrust and all that it entails. We have to be seen to be spending the money on the wood and John keeps notes on how much more we have to spend and reports to Entrust. Awards for All - it was due to all John’s methodical work that we got the £5,000 as an Award when we proposed the weekend. He is now doing a full Report complete with photographs of the Weekend to let them know exactly where their money was spent. Historic Scotland - all the meetings and the legislation to meet their criteria, the form filling and correspondence was done by John. He also maintained a calm sooth as he filled in the majority of all the Forms again and again for the Land Fund Grant Bid to no avail. Our summing up is if our benefactor, as an individual, had tried to buy the wood and hand it over to us we are pretty sure the offer would have been turned down because we have been told our offer was not the highest one. The community name bid did make a difference to the owner’s decision but at this point we were wrongly advised. What we could have done was immediately put it over into our benefactor’s name and our application for funding may have been successful. As you know we did have Nuala Mackay from the Land Fund at one of our meetings. She was present when we told everyone exactly what we were doing and that we, as DCT, had put in an offer. If she had informed us at this point that we did not have a hope, then we would not have spent a year continually having meetings, John filling in forms phone calls etc. We were led into a maze but now we must turn the page and put all the so called hopes from this source behind us.
Charity Commission - other forms for John but we are going to explain this to you later in our Agenda. It must be mentioned that we benefit from Mary’s input as well as she fills in forms from John’s notes, very neatly. Our appreciation to you both.
Andrew Thomson has now agreed to put in place the Management Plan. We have £5,000 lying in the Forestry Commissions which is already allotted to us - thanks to Paul Cookson’s efforts. Paul was also the Representative for the Community Council and gave them updates on what was happening. My thanks to Paul for the work he did and I wish him well in his new position.
My personal thanks to all the Board of Directors and to our Company Secretary, Douglas Graham, who has done all the necessary work for us to keep Company House happy.
Thanks are due to our Webmaster, Malcolm Nixon, for burning the midnight oil and putting things up on the site for us and his worthy assistant Jan Peebles who, if he doesn’t respond to my emails, puts notes - (no rephrase that) - Orders through his door.
As stated we received money from James Marshall through Entrust and also Awards for All gave us an Award which really gave us confidence to go ahead with the Festival Weekend. The Millennium Committee paid part of our legal fees. A Grant of £500 towards the hire of the generator was received from Scottish and Southern Energy because of Peter Lodge, an employee, who applied on our behalf. We have also received many private donations from near and far and we have been very grateful for every one of them.
We have also had initiatives like Paul and Pauline Cookson with the Christmas Tree Chippings and The Bird Boxes very much led by Bill and Zenka Howie, Ken and Rosemary Cameron with David Doig and greatly helped by John Bancewicz. Our thanks to them for such a wonderful effort and a great financial result. We are hoping very shortly to get the map on to the website indicating where every bird box is so everyone can go on a hunt.
A Community Survey, led by Paul Cookson, was carried out last August and an initial application put forward to the Forestry Commission. They know we are here and hopefully, after the Management Plan is complete, they will release the first phase of money to us.
The idea of a Forest School has been passed by the Clutch of Schools, Auchterarder, Blackford, Aberuthven and Dunning. We will now have to do some work on this but with the backing of all the schools and the biology department at Auchterarder. Sally Rose, the Head Teacher, at Dunning has been particularity helpful and also Mr Mike Flynn, a Forestry Schools Officer.
Historic Scotland is on board and thought we had made a super job of the first phase of clearing the Roman Dyke. They have provided us with a Map of their designated portion. My thanks to everyone who turned out to clear the part of the Roman Dyke - a marvellous job on not as nice a day as we would have liked.
On the same day we took some trees down near the paths which were dangerous.
The Directors have discussed the position on the general principle of Kincladie Wood being a site where people can scatter their loved ones ashes but, because of the size of the wood and maintenance implications, there should be no memorial plaques.
We have an Accordion and Fiddle Concert with the inimitable Jim Douglas and his poems on 26th October at 7.30 in the Hall. The cost is £3 a ticket.
We must get registered as a Charity because there are other sources out there which will give us funding but it is essential to be charity registered.
The Pavement to the Wood, from the 30 mph to the Dump Road, hopefully will go forward after April. The budget is in, it is £27,000. At one time we were seventh in line and now, unfortunately, we are fifteenth. It operates on a points system and we are still working on getting more points allocated to us for the project.
BBC Scotland approached us a month after the Festival Weekend to help them put on a programme about what goes on in a successful community. We decided to decline because there could be outside implications in this. They then asked if we would like to do a programme based on the wood and they would like to help raise some funds by inviting a personality to put on an evening in the village. The funds would have to go towards a certain project in the wood. We said please make it next year and that is where we stand with the BBC.
Because of the very hectic year please forgive me if I have left anything out. If I have, apologies, and many thanks to those I forgot to mention.
Lastly to you, the Members, for all your support and help and especially for turning out in excellent numbers to all our functions. Thank you.
Elspeth Pentland,
Chairman - Dunning Community Trust
( Chairman 2004/08 ).
Last edited:- 09-Nov-2008
