DRAFT NOTES

POTTERHANWORTH ANNUAL PARISH MEETING

Monday 22nd May at 7.00pm.

1. Review minutes of the Annual Parish Meeting held on Monday 16th May 2022 – no minutes from last year’s meeting due to Clerk vacancy.

2. Chairman’s Report – Chairman welcomed all and spoke of the thriving community in Potterhanworth who get involved in so many events, not only the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, the ceilidh and the Coronation Picnic, but also the regular Hot Pot Club meetings and the annual Litter Pick where the villagers collected 30 bin bags of rubbish.  With regard to the Hot Pot Club special thanks mut go to The Culfrey Land Charity for their additional funding, to Emily Webster for her amazing food and to the Chequers who in the early days allowed use of their premises till the Hot Pot was established fully at the Pavilion.

Noted this year has been the appearance around the village of the Green Historical Information Boards.  Cllr Ott obtained Heritage funding to enable the History Group to use their knowledge to produce these informative boards showing the incredible history of our small but amazing village.  Cllr Ott must also be congratulated for obtaining funding to enable a new Play Park which will be constructed later this year.

There have been changes of personnel within the Parish Council, we said goodbye and thank you to Cllrs Anabelle Battle and Nick Foster, to Acting Clerk Jackie Bourne and RFO Mel Gray and welcome to new Cllrs John Giles and Kirstie Nightingale and new Acting Clerk/RFO Lynda Bannard.

3. Local Groups, Charities & Organisations made presentations -

• Police Community Beat Manager Bracebridge Heath & Cliff Villages – Beat Manager Matt Roberts stood to talk.  Debate centred around the reduction of PCSO’s down to just Matt for 19 villages including Potterhanworth.  Matt felt that the newly built Superstation in Lincoln, instead of the smaller local stations like the one Matt used to be based at in Bracebridge, had led to no ownership of an area and consequently a reactive service with no chance for prevention.  He has said as much in an open letter to the Police Commissioner which requested Lincolnshire Police be put into special measures.  We in turn explained that we are wishing to create our own cross Parish request to the Police Commissioner to look again at the reduction to one PCSO in this area.

• LIVES Emergency First Responders - Pippa Crust came in to talk to us about the Lincolnshire Integrated Voluntary Emergency Service. A charity started in the 1970’s by Drs Michael Cooper and Richard Harper-Smith who saw a need, because of Lincolnshire’s scattered rural communities and unique limited road network, for emergency first responders providing clinical critical care skills at RTAs. Originally the Doctors joining the scheme bought their own equipment to each emergency they attended.  Pippa explained that these days the network of LIVES first responders log into their system and can pick up emergencies in their locality as they are rung into the ambulance HQ at Bracebridge, and as the responders are local to the emergency can be there in 80% of instances sooner than the Ambulance Services.  LIVES now have their own first responder training scheme and also now attend cardiac arrest patients not just RTAs.  Pippa was given a round of applause and was thanked personally, by Cllr Copsey, whose husband when involved in an accident, was attended by a LIVES First Responder who stabilised him, then stayed with him for half an hour till the Ambulance arrived. Pippa then accepted another round of applause on behalf of LIVES.

• Hanworth Country Park – Steve Plumb stood to talk about his ideas for his Park.  He is intending to plant areas of fruit trees and wildflowers to encourage wild life, and a further covered eating area.  He is enthusiastic for the Park to be an asset for the village, perhaps as a venue for wedding receptions, barn dances, maybe the lake could be used for paddle boarding and wild swimming.  He asked for feedback from the village.

• Potterhanworth Scout Group – Amanda Crombie is Scout Leader setting up the Scout group last year.  They now have a Beaver, Cub and Scout Group.  The boys are having a wonderful time with lots of activities, camps, picnics and sleep overs and more already planned.  They got involved in the Litter Pick and have taken on the task of looking after the Village Planters and the Memorial Garden maintenance.  The Scout Group now has a committee to organise fundraising and have already had funds from local organisations.  All this is less than 12 months. It can only be onward and upward.

• Potterhanworth History Group - Cllr Ott reported for the History Group.  There had recently been a meeting with Lincolnshire County Council.  Potterhanworth has a lot of archaeology still to be investigated in the village. This could be looked into in the future.  The History Group are booked to make presentations to the school to show to them the history that we already have lots of information on.  The History Group now has its own website, the Potter Times.  It was discussed whether the work that Ralph Wilford has done on scanning all the old docs in the Pavilion loft, should be passed over to the History Group to be put on the web site.  Ralph was delighted with the offer.

• Potterhanworth Beer Festival – Cllr Sardeson informed this year’s Festival will be on 15th July.  Potterhanworth Beer Festival is so successful, competition is popping up in several surrounding villages.

• Potterhanworth Autumn Festival – Jan Withers informed that this year’s Autumn Fest will be 16th September and that it will amazingly be the 10th anniversary. It will be funded as usual by the Beer Festival Committee, Christ’s Hospital Fund and the Parish Council.  This year will see a Gin Bar, Crazy Golf, a Bouncy Castle, a local band Deadbeat and lots of stands from other groups in the village.

• St Andrew’s Church – Mark Suthern introduced himself as Church Warden at St Andrew’s and Lay Canon at Lincoln Cathedral and gave us a brief history of the Church.  St Andrew’s is an integral part of the village.  During the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the Jubilee Flagpole was installed, on the death of Her Majesty, a Book of Condolence was opened and last year Remembrance Sunday was held at the War Memorial, organised by Christopher Woodcock. And as well as Weddings, Baptisms and Funerals the Church has a service every Sunday and is used by the School every Friday after Open Church, used by many as a time for quiet prayer and a Passover Supper. Potter Coffee meets monthly, successful annual Plant Sales, the Christmas Fair and Open Church during the Autumn Fest are all well attended and bring much needed funds to the Church.  We continue to employ a Gardener and are grateful to the army of volunteers who support our Church, Church Yard tidy ups, bulletin delivery, flower arrangers, cleaners, Organists and not least Lorna. Work has continued throughout the year and we are still looking to install new heating and lighting in 2023. To this end Mark wished to give heartfelt thanks to the Beer Festival and the Parish Council and other doners who kindly provide funds for the upkeep of St Andrew’s

• Culfrey Lands Charity – Martin Parry brought before and after photos in to show the impressive work done by them to restore the Culfrey Barn.  Costing over £21,000, the Barn is now wind and watertight and available as 2 units for anyone requiring to rent a handy lock up in the centre of the village.  This renovation has been partly self-funded using income from the Culfrey Caravan Storage and the Alms-houses but with additional financial support from the land owner?????  The Culfrey Land Charity is also funding in part the successful Hot Pot Club.

• Christ Hospital Endowment Fund – Mark Andrews Chair of CHEF stood to talk of the Christ Hospital Endowment Fund history.  Strange to think that when Dr Richard Smith decided his will should state his estates be used to educate 12 young boys of the parish of Potter Hanworth when he died in 1602, the first Queen Elizabeth was on the throne.  In 1982 CHEF registered with the Charities Commission and had gone from strength to strength, the new Dr Richard Smith Memorial Hall was built in 1993, and a new School classroom, a Pre-School building and playground appeared between 2015 and 2018. The Fund still provides assistance to children of the Parish for extra curricular educational costs, though this is reducing year on year as so many more of the children in the local school come from outside the Parish. The next project the CHEF will fund is the provision of assistance to the school to apply for solar panel funding.

• Over 60s – Maureen Good gave us a quick update of the happy band of 28 that is the Over 60’s, which has been running now since 1960.  Meeting fortnightly and funded by membership, donations from the Beer Fest, the Culfrey Land Charity and the Parish Council and by regular fund-raising events, such as Bring and Buys, Raffles and Tombola, they have a stand at the Autumn Fest this September.  They use the funds to get out on regular trips, musical, educational and scenic.  Maureen made a warm welcome to any one over 60 who would wish to come along.

• Hot Pot – Sarah Copsey stood briefly to add to what was said by the Chairman at the top of the meeting and to thank again the Parish Council, the Culfrey Land Charity and to add additional thanks to Lorna Brabin-Smith of St Andrew’s Church and to Emily Webster and her amazing food which is pulling visitors from further afield each week and we could have between 8 and 45 people at each meeting.  Hot Pot will close for a summer break and will open again in September with hot food on the menu.

4. Public Open Forum – Chairman asked for any additional items that may need discussion, and as nothing was forthcoming, he went on to thank everyone on behalf of the community for their hard work.

One final but most important task was to make a Presentation to Ralph Wilford.  Ralph has been a Pavilion Committee member for years and has put his retirement to good purpose, working through all the boxes of stored Parish records in the Pavilion loft, categorising and scanning each one.  Ralph was presented with a bottle of single malt whisky.  Ralph thanked the Parish Council for the gift and for their work and thanked again the History Group for offering somewhere for all his hard work to be stored and made available.