Normally Chairman of Companies give a very short Report of the year’s activities but I have a suspicion that most of you would like to know in more detail what has happened, remembering of course, for the  AGM  I am covering from April 07 to March 08.

As Directors of Dunning Community Trust we had a very full year.  The Garden Party at Ang and David Armstrong’s; Bodger in the wood where all the children had a great time playing instruments and making things with wood; the dreamy Carol Service at Duncrub - a real Christmas treat under the auspices of James and Wilma Marshall.

Fungi was the talk at the last year’s AGM with Liz Holden of Mar Lodge known to be the person with the greatest knowledge of fungi in Scotland. This was followed by a showing of part of the collection of 183 photos, which Trevor Williams is storing on a CD.  Liz Holden received a copy of this CD and helped name quite a few. She has now stated that this is possibly the best collection of clear photographs of fungi from a single Scottish wood.  Trevor is still collecting and taking notes.  We hope to do something as a project with this.  We then had an evening in the wood with Bob Fryer of Comrie at which we all learned such a lot and never thought we had so many different mushrooms or fungi in our wood.

We have gained charitable status. Our charity number has to be put on our entire correspondence, accounts etc.

Thank you to everyone who gave DCT money donations and also those who gave in kind like Darrell Fossett’s wooden bowl, which was raffled and Pauline Silverman’s gift of wood, now part of the rustic seats.  The sale of grapes from Desmond Carrington and David Allyot - a big hit in the village.  Also our thanks to James Marshall, to whom we were very grateful for Entrust….. that has now finished.

We carried on with the Forest School. Each Friday some of the children were brought to the wood. This happened after the school moved to Auchterarder.    Carol Dorsett and Dave Wood gave a talk in the hall to the school about plants, bushes, fungi and animals found in the wood and they took with them a special cage made by Davie Doig.  Our thanks to Davie. This is to feed the red squirrels.  Because of our interaction with the school and some of our other activities, DCT won a Perth & Kinross Countryside Trust’s Award for Education

We were offered the piece of ground with the path on it up by the burnside, which runs parallel with the Newton of Pitcairns. After having a real look at it, turned this down because the insurance liabilities were too great.

We had a visit from Forth & Tay Access for Disabled as we had made an effort for at least some access with wheelchairs.  They were pleased that they could access the wood.

In regard to the bird boxes.  We unfortunately did not follow up the survey in January 2008 to catch birds.  David Oliver of Freuchie had offered his services to see how many ringed birds would turn up from the wood.   There was a census taken when cleaning out the bird boxes led by Bill Howie and Andrew Dickson in March 08. This is on the website. Our grateful thanks to them.

We also have a red dog bin at the Dunning end of the wood and the P & K emptier tells me that it is well used. Thank you dog owners.

We have made sure that we had a proper Risk Assessment carried out of the wood and all the Directors have had a meeting with Steve Goody the Risk Assessor. He was most helpful about what we should look out for.  Director Peter Lodge is monitoring risk assessment for us. 

In May 2007 we were awarded £9,560 from Breathing Places; the Bill Oddie, Kate Humble Lottery Award Scheme This was all thanks to a well completed  Application Form with photographs etc. by John Ritchie.  The grant was given for tree felling and scrub clearance, replacement of trees/plants, signage, seats, footpath works, hard standing, drainage, hire of equipment, planning application, consultancy and to deliver the  project.  We had to apply and were granted a Tree Felling licence.

We brought in a Consultant, Penny Martin and with the help of Phil Gordon, a silvacultural plan was drawn up.  All members received a copy of the plan.  We were rather held up with the bad weather during the winter and did not get started until later than hoped but we also had the restriction that the work had to be finished by May 2008.

If anyone wishes to know the monies allotted to us and how we spent them, there is a copy of the Breathing Places Restricted Money Account on the website.

We were also told by Perth & Kinross Roads Department in November that work would be started on the new pavement from the 30 mph signs at Romangate to the wood. Great news for us and the workmen did well in the awful weather to get it finished between their winter jobs.

It was also held up because some of the original plans had to be changed due to an objection and some of the drainage was taken across the dump road into the Historic Scotland’s scheduled site.  We pointed out by letter to Perth & Kinross Roads Department that they should have asked permission from us and Historic Scotland.

The official opening of the pavement took place on 22nd March with each person receiving a paper badge saying “I opened new pavement to Kincladie Wood 22nd March”. We therefore know that 142 pairs of big and wee feet walked over the pavement at the Opening boosted by Dunning Stepping Stones on the same day having a very successful and happy children’s event with an Easter Egg Hunt

Just as the pavement was being excavated in December/January, we had been told by several walkers using the wood that the circular path in the wood especially running along the south side in from the road, was becoming eroded so it was agreed to ask Robbie Gordon, the “paths” man from Perth & Kinross Countryside Trust to come out and have a look; which he did.  After Robbie had given us his observations, we convened a special meeting to talk about the findings and I will read from the Minutes what is recorded

“Although the Directors stated they would really prefer not to touch the path and keep it quite natural, the usage has gone up, which also may increase with the new pavement, so an all weather path would require to be looked at.  It was decided, by a majority of those Directors present, that if we could get a grant to do this and the work be done by outside contractors; we should now look into this.  The two Directors not present would be informed of the situation.”

This resulted in an application being put in to Perth & Kinross Countryside Trust.  We were also advised by the Countryside Trust to put an application in for a grant from the new Scottish Rural Development Programme.  Before we did this we had to measure and estimate the cost of this path which Robbie Gordon did for us and the figure is £28,000; quite a large amount.

To turn to the website. This has again this year been ably managed by Malcolm Nixon whom we are very grateful to. We have been a bit remiss insofar as  we have not been feeding Malcolm with as much information to put on the website as we should and Malcolm keeps getting on at us for not doing so.  We hope this will improve in the coming year.  We also are aware that the website is being visited quite a lot especially with the Breathing Places project highlighting us as one of their successes.  Thank you Malcolm.

To Ailsa Fossett our Company Secretary, who keeps us in line especially with our responsibilities as Directors and all the changes that are about to happen regarding Companies House.  One of which is that we now do not really require a Company Secretary.  We have had a discussion and it was unanimously agreed that we definitely need a Company Secretary, especially one like Ailsa  We very much appreciate what you do for us. Thank you Ailsa.

We are also grateful to Jim Slater our independent Financial Examiner, who always does things so willingly and explains everything to Jane Graham our Treasurer in detail.  She is then able to come to us  well prepared.  Thank you Jim Slater.  Talking about accounts, Jane our Treasurer our thanks too for doing such an especially difficult job when there is now the OSCR forms and Annual Accounts to do.  Also the extra work entailed with the Breathing Places Restricted Funds making sure we did not overspend.

To Carol Kinross our Minute Secretary, who keeps us on track if we forget dates of things that happened. Prepating the Minutes and Agendas are onerous jobs and we are grateful to Carol for agreeing to do these for us. Thank you Carol.

To all the other Directors, well I just want to say that this year has been a lot of work for most of us and if we had not had such a great team, who have all worked together and carried out the agendas way beyond the call of duty, especially the Breathing Places Project.  At times we never thought we would deliver on target, the main problem being the bad weather. Then contractors having other commitments which they had to fulfill before they got back to us.  But the phones never stopped ringing and as a group we pulled it off, and the Breathing Places Lottery Grant people were very happy with what we achieved.

Now I have to remind you that some of the original directors will have to retire as Directors in the next three years because our time comes to an end, so if some of you would like to take over please think about this seriously.

We are also sorry that we did not bring out more Newsletters but this was because our Editor, John Ritchie had to go in for a very serious operation and although he came through this very harrowing time… fighting… he was first and foremost making sure from his bed that we delivered the Breathing Places Project in time.

I should say that the new Directors who joined us last year have proved that they are worth their weight in gold when it comes to the bureaucracy of looking up websites, what or what not we can or can’t do.  Their wealth of knowledge and how to extract the knowledge has enhanced the Board of Directors and helped us enormously.

That is my Report up to March 2008.

Elspeth Pentland
Chairman 2004/08,
Dunning Community Trust

End of Report

( Chairman 2004/08 }