2017 Annual Report

The annual meeting of Barford Heritage Group was held on 13th December 2017 in Barford Village Hall.  The business meeting was followed by a fish and chip supper provided by Patrick and Alan.

There were two main reports, from the Chair and the Treasurer

CHAIR’S REPORT

My Thanks first to the officers Hilary Maynard and Doug Warne for their Sterling work. They have worked consistently throughout the year.  My thanks, also, to our small but knowledgeable committee who have taken over specific roles and made my job so much easier.

Welcome to our new member Simon Rutherford.

The Year 2017

We have held 11 group meetings and a number of editorial meetings for the Scouting book.

After a number of discussions we have purchased 2 invaluable pieces of equipment this year

Some new recording equipment as our original equipment has been super ceded by more advanced ideas. Our thanks to Ed Kirkby for researching the new kit.

A small digital scanner which is so easy to use and so portable. Our thanks to Carole Whitely for the research.

The Village Trail has been undertaken by Maggie Hayward and has a changed format .She showed us a draft of the upgraded version.We look forward to more of this in the New Year

The Tree Study Over the year we have recruited help in the Village Mag (Plurality) and on posters to start a village tree survey to update the excellent WI survey of 1971. We held our first meeting in early spring to look at the original version and create enthusiasm.12 people have joined and we have decided that this is something that ought be done over a number of years. Thanks to David Hall for his valuable input.

2 tree identification walks have been completed and over 30 species found –thanks very much to Hilary and Matthew Macfadyen for their expertise. Our next step is to leaflet villagers with a form so they can identify trees  in their own gardens. The school have said they will identify trees in their own grounds.

Scout/ Guide book

This has been an amazing and successful undertaking by Doug Warne with help from Carole, Hilary and Ann and has been so well received in the village. People are still telling me where we went wrong and then discussing with others all the possibilities .Memory is a strange thing! Many villagers of course helped out but the major work went to this editorial committee led by Doug .We are now quite an expert group at publishing. The Book Launch went smoothly and was well attended with excellent refreshments and the attendance of uniformed groups (who were so polite and well behaved).Grateful thanks to Alan for his expertise with the many slides.

We do this sort of event well. Congratulations all.

The book launch also led to the group being asked to participate in ‘Historical Words’at the Globe in Warwick. Hilary, Jan Bradley and Doug attended, talked about the process and read extracts.  It was pronounced a lovely evening.

Research

Doug has also been writing up the Hunt family History complete with family tree (with help from Ann McDermott).This is now in a very effective leaflet form which is on sale for a small price and it has been decided that this is an excellent blue print to follow in future. Thanks to Carole for the artwork.

Doug is also researching the origins of the Dovecote in the Glebe garden and the Carter family. The latter is well advanced.

Ann has done great work on the Harriet Hewitt story after I suggested to the school that re-instating the ‘posy’ giving in April would be an interesting and community minded thing to do. We now have links with the Harriet Hewitt Girls School in New York and have their book which fills in a lot of Miss Hewitt’s background. I have tracked down the Harriet Hewitt board that was in school and we now have to decide where it could go.  Patrick Norton has attempted to clean off the Hewitts’ grave stones with limited success.

Carole and Ann visited Dudley museum to view contents removed from Barford House on the death of Brooke Robinson.The curator sounded a most interesting individual and was very helpful. Some excellent photos were taken and though the museum is currently closed– when it reopens I hope there will be opportunities to see more

Hilary is currently researching the Cooke family

Derek Powers is planning to write his family history –re-creating his childhood with help from Maurice Gale

Doug has done an excellent plan of the Red House Building and Ground from a sketch I had been sent by the previous owner.

Our tree map  on the Green

This has started to look really poor and it was felt it will have to be replaced after all the house building is finished and we have new place names to add. Carole has done some excellent costings.

Website

The barfordheritage.org website was down in March so it was decided to start another website to run in tandem with the old site. Barford Heritage is now fully accessible.  Kirsty Healey and Ed Kirkby said they would take on the website but needed training and support. Ian Grant at the communities website was asked for help.The training is now complete. Well done and thanks to Kirsty and Ed for taking this on.

Since then a number of interesting items have been added to the website .Perhaps we just needed inspiring! All members welcome to upload items.

Charles Hanmmond gave some balance sheets of the Barford Friendly Society with fascinating information. Kirsty has scanned these.

Helen Hurst an, ex villager, sent me her Short History of Barford which she completed for her B.A.This is an excellent quick view of how Barford evolved. Once again Kirsty saved my bacon, typed it and put it onto the website

Carole and Doug have scanned more photos.

Phone Box

After many of us had visited T.Wimpey about the telephone box Gerard Veness took it on board, he has been very forceful with a number of people and it has been reinstated, painted, has a new floor, backboard and grid. The door has also been repaired. The village bench has also been renovated. Many thanks to Gerard. Also to Bill Worrall for re-guilding the crown. It has been used since to great effect to advertise ‘Be Prepared’ and ’Cider with Rosie’

School

We have continued to give ‘Becoming Barford’ to the school leavers as a reminder of their Village Background

Visiting Speaker

In October Chris Pickford gave a talk on the Architectural history of Warwickshire .This was accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation.Thank you Alan for helping out again.It was a fascinating talk but there was possibily not enough detail on Barford .Thanks to Rod Scott for the bar, Jacqueline Norton and Ann for refreshments.

It certainly pointed up that perhaps we could put together a talk, as a group, on the various interesting houses. We have the knowledge!

Sharing Expertise

Patrick expressed a need to find out more of the mysteries of Archives. Ann very kindly took him to Stratford Archives and Patrick said he had had an excellent time and learned a lot.  He and Ann are researching the Mills family along with Simon who got involved and is an enthusiastic  convert. This points up how important it is to share our knowledge and expertise.

Jan held one of her reunions  and though not under Heritage auspices it proved extremely productive in terms of stories and photographs of old villagers.

The Future

Over the year we have included in our meetings more and more decisions made locally or nationally that have or will affect our village.  I think we have all felt the need to discuss the latest village building developments, planning decisions, sand and gravel extraction, the threat to the use of the Memorial bus stop, names for the new roads.  The list goes on.

In the past these have felt like political points that were not within our remit. I feel now that these sorts of things will impinge on the health, security and above all Heritage of our village.   We may only see ourselves as recording the past but I feel for the next generation we sometimes need to stand up and say things that will create a future that will value the best of the old with the new.

 

Treasurer’s Report 2017

Receipts & Payments Account –1st December 2016 – 30th November 2017
2016/20172015/20162014/2015
£££
Opening balance5196.934163.567876.58
INCOME
     Becoming Barford237.5690432
     Barford Remembers27011463284.7
     Barford Be Prepared74500
     Barford history leaflets1700
     A living history weekend0195.560
     Hire of screen5000
     Donations331.2200
TOTAL1650.722031.563716.7
EXPENDITURE
     Becoming Barford000
     Barford Remembers06.453983.98
     Barford Be Prepared1397.2700
     Barford tree binder29.9900
     Materials0488.390
     Exhibition  (Barford at War)00137.74
     A living history weekend026.950
     Speaker – Chris Pickford6500
     Audio recording equipment13300
     Web site4803603218
     Hall hire41.686.40
     Hire of scout hut – tree survey800
     Donation to sand and gravel appeal10000
     Storage03090
TOTAL2254.86998.197429.72
Closing Net Balance4592.795196.934163.56
     Plus un-presented cheques000
     Less deposits outstanding0300
Bank  balance – 30th November4592.795166.934163.56
Note: Book assets held (at cost)7193.756748.3

 

This page was added on 08/12/2017.

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