Dear Friends
I do hope you are all well and have found some joy during this long distanced summer. Thank goodness for our green valley!
There are some news items I need to share with you before the end of this month and our newsletter will not be on your screens until October.....its usual autumn appearance. So here are some quick updates:
The good news is:
· Our enthusiastic conservation workers have been out twice a month since June and are making a huge impact on all the neglect. An average of 20 to 24 Friends have joined each time to work in teams of 6 (social distancing rules applied with rigour!) and it has been wonderful to meet up again at last.
· The Calendar, Christmas Card and Christmas Fair organisers have been hard at work too. The 2021 Calendar will be out in early October at last year's price of £7. The Cards will be available a little later and will sell at £6 for a pack of 10. We will be selling them along with the makings of Christmas door wreaths and garlands, Walking Booklets, knitted goods, spring and Shepherd Wheel cards and other goods at pop up tables near Forge Cafe: look for us on sunny conservation work mornings and weekends between now and Christmas.
· Your AGM and good governance have not been forgotten. All the usual papers you need to check that the charity is functioning well will be with you for comment, question and approval by mid-October, and we are now looking at ways to hold a “virtual” AGM by Zoom on the 4 November.
The not so good news is that:
· We still cannot hold members meetings, or easily send out bulk post, or arrange large group activities like walks, talks, community events, the AGM, open weekends at Shepherd Wheel and so on. This is hard on members who have not got Wi-Fi or mobile facilities and still rely on face to face and postal communications. Do help any Friends whom you know are cut off from our news?
· Our ash trees are inevitably facing felling wherever they are showing symptoms of die back. It is tragic to lose so many mature specimens and our woodlands will look rather different in time unless this disease can be stopped. Council workmen have already started taking out those marked with pink blobs from Porter Clough down ......Endcliffe Park has yet to see the chainsaws at work.
Sheffield's draft Local Plan for the years to 2038 is now out for statutory consultation with a deadline for comments of 13 October.
Click Here to see the full details.
Unlike the 2015 Plan, it contains an option to develop housing and infrastructure in the green belt. Do please consider making a comment on the Council website HERE
Keep well and keep in touch
Ann le Sage
Chair
Friends of the Porter Valley