Ardentinny Community Council and Ardentinny Renewable Trust both held their Annual General Meetings recently. Changes to the community council committee included long-serving member Marian Norris who stepped down from her Secretary role and new members Claire Florence and Mark Rowthorn who were co-opted on to the committee. Draft Minutes of the meeting are below.
Ardentinny Renewables Trust
At Ardentinny Renewables Trust (ART) AGM on 5 October, 2021, Treasurer Bill Tierney informed the attendees that between February 2019 and September 2021 the Trust had received £19,869.32 in income with some £14,281.28 being allocated to grants. Remaining monies in the Trust account was £9,236.82.
Stuart Gray is to take over the role of Treasurer and Kenneth Evans has resigned from the committee. New ART committee members include Jo Carr and Helen West.
The Trust currently has 58 members. Membership is open to all residents of 18 years and over. The membership form is available here. Requests for funding local projects can be made by submitting this application form. Notes from the ART AGM are below.
Report provided by Forestry & Land Scotland/Ardentinny Community Council.
Car park and picnic site
Forestry and Land Scotland employed 2 seasonal rangers over the summer months to have a visitor presence at key locations in Argyll Forest Park. It would be very useful to have the communities views on the impact of these staff on site.
The car park was part of the Stay the Night campervan trial. This finishes at the end of October when we will then start compiling the results of the surveys and site report. Initial feedback seems to show that the trial has been well received and successful.
The works to the water supply tanks seem to have predominantly fixed the issue of water supply to the toilet, however this year the septic tank has been a big problem. We have commissioned an investigative survey to ascertain whether there is a fault, under capacity and what our remedial options are. Results of this are imminent and we hope to undertake remedial works early next year.
Ravens rock, is due to commence felling on Thursday this week, or early next week.
Haulage will be via the forest road leading to the car park and then out via the nursery fields where lorries will be transporting timber to the boat transfer station at Sandbank.
The haulage contractors will install additional signage at the nursery field entrance before the commencement of timber haulage. As per the Timber Transport Management Plan, on the days where there is not a boat departure, there we be a limit of 10 loads per day, 10 hours per day, 5 days per week. However in the days preceding a boat departure this will increase to 40 loads per day over 3 consecutive days.
We have also just received news of further sites but are yet to be served the SPHN yet. Further details to follow
Operations in the surrounding woodland
Our stewardship colleagues are removing non native invasive species in the area. This will predominantly be carried out by spraying or pulling. Signage will be placed on site to advise if an area nearby has been sprayed.
Planning
Our planning team report that the Land Management Plan for Glen Finart was submitted March 2021. Scottish Forestry have asked for some changes before LMP is placed on Public Register.
Photographed, sketched, painted and filmed many thousands of times through the years by visitors to our village, she’s one of Ardentinny’s most famous landmarks.
The fishing boat Girl Sharon was, until recently, a working vessel, trawling for langoustine in Loch Long and beyond. Built in 1970 by Smith & Hutton Boatbuilders, Anstruther and with her distinctive BA-61 (Ballantrae) registration, she was cared for by her owner Graham (Noddy) Wilson who sadly passed away earlier this year.
Graham was a familiar character on the slipway beach, devoting much of his spare time to maintaining the 50-year-old boat and skilfully beaching her each spring for her annual paint job and maintenance. As can be seen from her many images online, Girl Sharon was originally bright red, but latterly was painted “saltire blue” as Graham described her new colour.
Sadly, this little piece of Ardentinny’s recent history is now up for sale. Our hope is that, under her new ownership, Girl Sharon will remain on Loch Long as a historic reminder of Ardentinny’s links with its past fishing community and a nostalgic memory of our well-kent character and friend, Graham Wilson.
Update: Girl Sharon has now been sold and we understand that she will remain at Ardentinny for the foreseeable future.
Ardentinny Bowling Club closed its green on Saturday 2nd Oct.
Due to the heavy rain we did not play any bowls. Instead we met inside the clubhouse where President Dougie Menzies gave a short speech officially closing the green followed by everybody tucking in to tea and home baking. A good afternoon with plenty of chat and laughs.
The bowling club is a small friendly club as a lot of you know but we are desperately looking for new members. You do not need to be an experienced bowler to join, in fact two of our new members last year had never played before. All you need is a pair of flat soled shoes and we will do the rest. Please come along and give it a try visit https://wildfirega.me/.
I will keep you up to date with any news from the club with especially the date of our opening day next April. Thank you.
Robert(secretary) 01369 840861 rbdevine0@gmail.com (The picture is some of our members at the closing day)
Argyll & Bute Council has announced an 8-week consultation for the public to consider how they participate in their local Community Council meetings. During the pandemic, the Council allowed community councils to hold meetings remotely, online. However, as this was a temporary measure, meetings should now be reverting back to face-to-face.
The consultation is for the public to consider whether online meetings should continue along with the possibility of offering a hybrid meeting format inpatient which would provide both face-to-face and online access.
These proposed changes in how residents get involved in their local community councils are to be welcomed. For too long access to these meetings has been restricted to those able and willing to attend in person, often in a cold village hall on a winters night.
Reviewing the meeting minutes of the respective Cowal community councils (where available), we did a quick check on attendance by the public at these meetings (see below). Due to the pandemic, the latest figures available are for 2019 to early 2020. However they do show very poor attendances throughout Cowal. Interestingly Ardentinny’s meetings fared quite well by comparison, but overall it would appear that there is little resident involvement in their community councils.
The hybrid approach would appear to be the more inclusive solution, providing maximum accessibility in compliance with the Equality Act 2010.
