Advance notice of AGM
We will be holding our next AGM on Wednesday 11th March at 19:30 in Barford Village Hall. The meeting will include a fun wildlife quiz that will test all your senses, created by our very own Susan “Suzie Q” Watt. Make sure the date is in your diary!
Full details of the AGM will be posted in the next few weeks.
I would like to attend the AGM and raise the question of cycling.
I was walking through the wood today and came a across a older Gentleman who was telling three 11 year old boys who were having great fun riding through the wood they should not be on bikes and they should leave. I was quite shocked and defended the three lads saying we should be encouraging the younger generation to be active and spend more time in the out doors in a safe environment. I would like to look at ways of creating a positive initiative rather than wanting to stop or banning these activities.
It turns out that I was the guy who you met in the wood, and you’ve given a pretty inaccurate account of what happened. When I came across the boys cycling my precise words to them were “Did you know that cycling actually isn’t allowed in the wood?”, and told them I was just passing on information from Warwick District Council. Almost all the rest of the conversation, including after you arrived, was taken up with you (all) telling me I was wrong. Perhaps I should have just left after suggesting that you could easily check the truth of what I was saying, but I decided to stay and try to persuade you – pointlessly as it turned out. At no time did I tell the boys to leave, and not even tell them to stop cycling – I don’t work for WDC as I told them so had no authority. I was just passing on information that I knew to be true because as a member of FOOW I’d had to answer a question on this subject only a short while ago. This is a case of shooting the messenger because of not liking the message.
That said, you are welcome to attend the AGM, as is any member of the public. How useful it would be raising the issue of cycling generally at a FOOW meeting, I’m not sure, as the ban on cycling is a WDC decision and it is them you would need to tackle over the subject. However, as I said previously, the fact that this ban in theory prevents kids having fun outdoors on their bikes is something I’m personally not comfortable with, when we should be encouraging them to get out and about and away from their screens. I think this *is* an issue that would be entirely appropriate to be raised with FOOW. You’re welcome to come along and make a proposal. A suggestion might be to allocate a small part of the wood where kids can rides their bikes, build ramps etc. I’ve no idea what WDC and WWT would think of this – a WWT representative will be at the AGM, and although WDC are invited they normally don’t attend. If you want to show up and make a proposal then this can I think be done under “any other business”. Alternatively you could ask for a item to be added to the agenda.