[reeve]

BMC access negotiations for climbers and walkers really benefit from us being seen to be engaged custodians of the places we love. For example, the ring ouzel work around Stanage and Burbage buys the BMC a lot of credibility with other user groups throughout the country. By coming along on Saturday you can help demonstrate that engaged-custodian ethos.
The Stanage Forum Open Meeting is your chance to hear updates on the management for the North Lees Estate (basically Stanage), and to ask questions and have input into it. I can see how this might sound fairly dry, and I can’t promise that it will exactly be adrenaline-fuelled (although there will be entertainment in the form of photos, history, and archaeology from the area!). And just in case that isn’t persuasive enough – I’ll be on tea duty and will serve you a nice cuppa.

[reeve]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/161377224@N08/45180869102/





I've been trying for 20 minutes to get the poster to embed. Can a mod make it work please?

[mrjonathanr]

http://flic.kr/p/2bQtLiL

Sorry I can’t either

[remus]

[reeve]

How did you do that, witchcraft?! Seriously, what did you do differently?

[cheque]

He rehosted it on Imgur by the looks of it. I tried getting it to work from Flickr myself last night but it seems they’ve just killed the ability to link from there.

[remus]

How did you do that, witchcraft?! Seriously, what did you do differently?

What Cheque said. Basically what you need is a link to your image that has a .jpg on the end (like i.imgur.com/LevBSeF.jpg I used above) and then stick the [img] tags around it.

Flickr seems to make it tricky to find a direct link to your image so I put it on https://imgur.com/ instead.

[reeve]

Just a reminder that this is today

[highrepute]

how'd it go?

[cheque]

how'd it go?

Reeve didn’t wear a pinny.

An Eastern Moors Partnership guy gave a report on Ring Ouzels (During which my other half came up with the pun “Mesut Ouzel” ) which was really interesting.

A Peak Park bloke gave an almost entirely information-free briefing (the current Stanage ranger left halfway through it never to return) and dodged any requests for specific info. The only things we learnt were that the Peak Park isn’t concerned about people sleeping in campervans overnight, the Plantation car park isn’t locked overnight any more and although policing the pay and display charges was meant to start in February, it hasn’t yet and there was no info on when it will.

There was a discussion on what to do with the cottage that the old Stanage ranger lived in. The only details given were that the Park doesn’t want to sell it but that it will need work doing before anything else can be done with it. The consensus seemed to me to be that turning it into a Whillans Hut-style bookable place would be a great idea but there was no indication from the Peak Park fella on whether this consensus would be taken into consideration or not.

[slab_happy]

how'd it go?

A Peak Park bloke gave an almost entirely information-free briefing (the current Stanage ranger left halfway through it never to return) and dodged any requests for specific info.

I admired Shark's heroic attempt to get him to answer an actual question (about the amount of external funding they now no longer had, IIRC).

If Peak Park Bloke had said "the exact figures are confidential" or some such, fine, but his commitment to dodging the question without acknowledging that he was dodging the question was notable.

(Um, hi everyone, I was the shy person sitting next to Offwidth.)

[shark]

Hi Mike

Sorry I didn’t get to say hello to you and Rachel.

Yes the mullet haired guy from PDNP was very evasive. When I questioned him on a broad figure for the budget for Stanage he claimed not to know despite saying several times that financing the management plan kept him awake at night.

One thing that he did let slip when I asked him about projects was an aspiration for a visitor centre.
 
My hitherto naive assumption was that a Management Plan was focussed solely on upkeep of existing amenities (campsite, toilet block, plantation car park), wages of the warden and environmental work – paths, stiles, bracken control etc and so their current lack of a Management Plan was per se a bad thing. I’m not so sure now.
 
I see how a visitors centre ties in cleverly with their vision of educating the public but it also diminishes their stated description of Stanage as an easily accessed wilderness (for want of a better word).

I think we should try and nip this one in the bud and lobby that the PDNP directs future educational investment away from a visitors centre and towards investing in social media and a website (Stanage.com!) which would be more effective in reaching a larger audience and less environmentally intrusive.

I’ve emailed as much to Henry and Rob Greenwood.
 

[shark]

(Um, hi everyone, I was the shy person sitting next to Offwidth.)

Ah! Wearing an Arch Wall tee shirt!

 

[slab_happy]

(Um, hi everyone, I was the shy person sitting next to Offwidth.)

Ah! Wearing an Arch Wall tee shirt!

Yup! I didn't have a BMC t-shirt to hand, so I made do, since I figured my major contribution was likely to be "turn up and be visibly a climber".

[Johnny Brown]

As someone who's been involve for a long time, i found it quite embarrassing to call such a meeting and then have so little presented for discussion. However it's a mark of how bad things have been that having a meeting at all seems like an achievement.

It is the first I've heard of a visitor centre. A long time ago, I forget how long but six years at least, plans were drawn up to knock down the current toilet block and build something more sympathetic to the location. There was some talk that this might include a small booth type shop selling coffees, chalk etc.  Plus the current toilets contain a little room used by the rangers etc, so I could see Chris (who has only been around a year or two) might have seen the toilet plans and come up with a grander term.

But overall it seems much work at the peak park has stalled in the last few years while they reorganised the management in response to ongoing budget cuts. Chris clearly has too much on his plate to give Stanage much attention.

It's quite depressing to keep volunteering time which seems so pointless. Ultimately national politics is to blame.

[shark]

Yup! I didn't have a BMC t-shirt to hand, so I made do, since I figured my major contribution was likely to be "turn up and be visibly a climber".

So no one is any doubt, next time wear a harness and I’ll belay you into the hall!

[Offwidth]

"I think we should try and nip this one in the bud and lobby that the PDNP directs future educational investment away from a visitors centre and towards investing in social media and a website (Stanage.com!) which would be more effective in reaching a larger audience and less environmentally intrusive."

Great idea.. visitor centres end up as expensive and usually very much dumbed down.

The pinny rumour swung my visit, so I was very disappointed. I expected the man from the park to be evasive... but " is that all you have come up with" on his miniscule management plan, that kept him awake at night, was class (in reality he was probably told not to talk about it).

The ranger did come back btw Mike: nice guy but with big shoes to fill.

Vans came up on the agenda and I was glad  it was pointed out they make Stanage accesible for some when the campsite is full and their presence can deter vandals and other trouble (no one seemed too upset).

[slab_happy]

Yup! I didn't have a BMC t-shirt to hand, so I made do, since I figured my major contribution was likely to be "turn up and be visibly a climber".

So no one is any doubt, next time wear a harness and I’ll belay you into the hall!

I ended up chatting with Mr. Zahid Hamid from the PDNPA at the bus stop later, and he commented in an impressed way about the proportion of climbers present, so evidently we did a good job of Looking Like Climbers even without that ...

[lagerstarfish]

I wasn't able to attend, but I would like to thank those climbers who did

thanks guys