The Friends of Pewley Meadows - meetings and minutes

                    Minutes of the 2024 AGM

                                                       held at Holy Trinity Pewley Down (HTPD) School on 19th February 2024.

1.     Welcome
The Chair of the Friends of Pewley Meadows (FoPM)  Committee, Janet Davies (JD), welcomed the attendees and thanked HTPD School for their hospitality. She mentioned that this was the 3rd FoPM AGM and would outline the progress that had been made in pursuing the public stated aims re conservation, education, and public amenity.

2.     Minutes of AGM 2023
JD mentioned that the minutes from the previous meeting were both on the website and sent out with the agenda and that matters arising would be dealt with through the course of the meeting. She said that ‘A year in the life of Pewley Meadows - 2023’ could be seen on Facebook and the website.  

3.     Finance Update
Alan Schuster-Bruce (ASB) said that from the original grant from Surrey Wildlife Trust, £6600 remained at the start of the financial year. To date, £500 has been spent. This is made up of a subscription to Guildford Environmental Forum (GEF), the wooden posts for the seasonal routes and expenses relating to the violin recital in Pewley Meadows in June 2023.

In answer to a question about the potential for investing the money, he said that it      would happen as soon as the necessary administration had been completed.

4.     Committee Election
JD thanked David Stokes for his work in chairing the Committee until he stepped down last year, with skill and diplomacy. She confirmed that all members wished to remain on the Committee. There were no objections and so the Committee was re-elected. JD also said that special thanks were due to Jonathan Mitchell (JM) for his endless patience and knowledge and that David Cocovini had taken on a role as Voluntary Warden for the site.

5.     Pewley Meadows Viewpoint Project
JM and Liz Rogers (LR) then outlined progress on the provision of a viewfinder for the south side of the eastern meadow. LR said that posters sited at various points would encourage engagement with the viewfinder project. The viewfinder would give an artistic impression, etched in steel, of the landscape and features visible from the top of the meadows. She explained that the fund-raising target would be £4,500 to fund design, fabrication, and installation and the Just Giving campaign would be launched at the AGM.

Comments were received re the durability of the sign and the addition of augmented reality.

6.     Pewley Meadows chalk grassland management plan
JD introduced James Herd (JH) and Katy Fielding (KF) from Surrey Wildlife Trust (SWT) and invited them to talk about the meadows from a SWT perspective.

JH presented ‘The State of Nature 2023’ report on the health of our natural environment produced by the Surrey Nature Partnership. He said that the loss of biodiversity in the county echoed the national trend and that the message on this decline was ‘not getting through.’  He then talked about Biodiversity Opportunity Areas (BOAS) and landscape restoration in the county.

KF talked about grazing as a key management tool. She said that the conservation policy regarding Pewley Meadows was to adopt a ‘slow and steady’ approach rather than engage in radical management or premature intervention. Cattle, as grazers not browsers, were key to increasing biodiversity. They would control rank grasses such as false oat grass. KF then talked about introducing a new breed of sheep to the site to ensure a mixed grazing model. The sheep were described as being a cross between self-shedding sheep and goat type sheep, known as browsers, and would be able to tackle scrub.  

Site furniture: KF mentioned that SWT would install a bench of recycled plastic and  appropriate signage on the site in the coming months.

There were some questions from the floor relating to bramble control in the Western Meadow, possible overgrazing by sheep,  and engagement with Thames Water.

JD thanked JH and KF. She announced that KF would be leaving the SWT Central Area role and moving to the Nature Solutions Team, and her replacement would be introduced to the committee as soon as possible.  

7.     AOB
A question was raised about the purchase of the land by the School. It was stated that the FoPM Committee is not a party to the proceedings but understood that the contract was at the signing stage.

JD thanked the attendees and JM thanked JD for her chairing of the meeting.

There being no other business the meeting closed at 8.30 pm.

                      Minutes of the 2023 AGM  

                                         Held at Holy Trinity School on Feb 23rd 2023

1.  Welcome:
David Stokes (DS), Chair of FoPM welcomed the Friends and other attendees to the meeting, remarking on the good turnout. He reminded the Friends of our celebration of the purchase of the fields in November 2021 and the first AGM which was held over ZOOM. He noted that that the Committee of FoPM had met a few times over the year. He then introduced James Herd of Surrey Wildlife Trust (SWT).

2.Wildlife Talk
James Herd from Surrey Wildlife Trust  gave a talk illustrated by slides on the benefits to biodiversity of grazing certain habitats and the unique advantages of grazing over mechanical cutting. He explained the rationale behind choosing Belted Galloway cattle for the meadows and discussed the management of the herd.

DS thanked James for his talk and noted his own increased understanding of grazing management.

3.FoPM Committee report

Chairperson’s report:
DS reiterated the aims of the Friends of Pewley Meadows: to nurture wildlife, to provide amenity space for local people, to provide opportunities for environmental education and to prevent development. These aims inform all discussions.  He explained that representatives from the FoPM sit on the Conservation Steering Group (CSG) which interfaces between FoPM and Surrey Wildlife Trust. This group includes representatives from Guildford Borough Council, Guildford Environmental Forum, FoPM and Holy Trinity Pewley Down School (HTPDS). He reported that the CSG had met a couple of times over the past year.

DS then asked Steve Britain (SB), representing HTPDS Governors, to update the Friends on the land purchase by HTPDS.  SB reported that the purchase documents had been drafted and were now being scrutinised by Julia Stephenson’s Trust lawyers. The Diocese of Guildford had approved the purchase. He hoped for completion by the end of March.  SB confirmed on being questioned that the School’s plan for the acquisition was to maintain at least one third of the land as chalk grassland for the benefit and education of the children. There would be no building on the land.

DS then spoke about the restricted fund created by SWT to provide for the management of the land which would include provisions for infrastructure and insurance. DS mentioned that there would be future opportunities for volunteers to act as ‘lookers’ - people who kept a watchful eye on the fields with a view to raising early warnings of potential problems.

Lastly DS mentioned that the forthcoming Open Garden event could include a talking walk led by Jonathan Mitchell.

Report by Jonathan Mitchell (JM)

JM introduced his report with a map of the Meadows showing the perimeter paths, rights of way and access points to the interior of the meadows.

JM outlined the vision for the eastern area of Pewley Meadows and that it should be a sanctuary in line with the Rosamund Meadow. He stated that there was a need to balance the access needs of all members of the public with conservation-oriented non-access as outlined in the Pledge Document. He confirmed that the idea for a dew pond which had been in the original Pledge Document map had been shelved and that the school area would be fenced with no public access.

Seasonal routes allowing partial access into the interior of the fields by means of gates leading to mown paths were then discussed. The pedestrian gates could be locked when required and the impact of allowing interior access would be monitored and reassessed if necessary. JM showed the latest January update to public access routes with the overall area matching that of the indicative map in the Pledge Document but seasonal routes only on the north and south boundaries of the western area to reduce short-cutting.

Questions and comments were taken from the membership. Concerns about there being insufficient access were noted, as were concerns that encouraging children to walk to school along the northern boundary would lead to increased traffic in residential areas.

Treasurer’s Report

Alan Schuster Bruce (ASB) confirmed that a bank account had been opened with NatWest and had received a donation from SWT of £6.700. As yet, there were no firm plans as to how to spend the donation. ASB said that there were no plans to charge for the membership of FOPM.

4. Committee Elections

DS said that Richard Foster and James Potter would be standing down and he thanked them for their contributions. DS then asked for the election of new committee members.

David Cocovini was proposed by JM and seconded by Ginny Cook. James Marti was proposed by Sandra Robinson and seconded by DS. Both David Cocovini and James Marti were duly elected to be new members of the committee for the coming year.

There were no objections to the rest of the committee restanding and the following were duly reelected to the Committee:

Alan Schuster-Bruce

Ginny Cook

Jonathan Mitchell

Sandra Robinson

Ros Moss

Bob Bromham

Janet Davies

Vicky Rimmer

Katherine Wilson

Liz Rogers

Peter Curnock

Matthew Harwood

David Stokes

A.O.B: There being no other business, DS introduced Katy Fielding of SWT who gave a presentation on ‘The wonder of hedgerows

There being no other business, the meeting finished at 9.45.

Minutes of Friends of Pewley Meadows (FoPM)
                               First AGM

2nd February 2022 19.45 by Zoom

62 Online attendees joined the meeting and the meeting opened at 19:45 and agreed that the meeting could be recorded on Zoom.

Apologies: Francesca Hole; Daniel Gardner; Elizabeth Legrand.

1. Welcome: David Stokes opened the meeting, welcomed the 206 members of the FoPM group and gave an overview of the history of the purchase of Pewley Meadows and its lease to Surrey Wildlife Trust for 500 years. David mentioned that there is one last transaction to complete; namely the sale of the strip of land to Holy Trinity School. David also explained that the SWT have given the management responsibility of the Meadows to Katy Fielding who has visited the site and is putting together a management plan, which will include biodiversity surveys to be undertaken by SWT this summer.

2. Map: Jonathan Mitchell proceeded to give the meeting a summary of the geography of the fields and outlined plans for the site. He explained that the proposed fencing on the western block would not be put in before August ‘22 (to allow for summer nesting) and the site will not be open to the public until the fencing is complete. Cattle (Belted Galloways) will likely be brought into the meadow in the early autumn. The Eastern block is planned to be joined with Rosamund Meadow to form a large continuous grazing area. It was confirmed that the path near Burgess Way would be inside the field and the treeline, affording views to the North.

3. Terms of reference (TOR) for FoPM: David introduced the TOR for the FoPM and explained they are consistent with the objectives agreed with the community at the time of fundraising. A committee of up to 15 people is sought (which will be appointed by the members). In turn the committee will appoint officers (Chairman, Treasurer, Secretary etc). The committee will then provide 3 of its number to join the SWT Conservation Steering Group. David also explained that the FoPM were set up with £10k to run the group from the SWT fund raise. Some of these funds have been used – largely on legal fees – leaving a remaining £6700 for use of communications and running the FoPM.
The terms of reference for FoPM were put to a vote and unanimously approved.

4. Appointing a committee: John Redpath took over and explained that we would now hear from 15 candidates for the committee. John introduced in turn:

·Bob Bromham; Ginny Cook; · Peter Curnock; Janet Davies; Richard Foster; Matthew Harwood; Jonathan Mitchell;  Ros Moss; James Potter; Vicky Rimmer; Sandra Robinson;  Liz Rogers; Alan Schuster-Bruce; David Stokes; Katherine Wilson;

After hearing from each member, it was agreed that the committee brought a range of valuable experience. John asked for a vote on the committee and the committee was unanimously approved.
Next steps are for the committee to convene and appoint positions as needed.

5. Outgoing thanks: David took over to thank 5 members of the original Saving Pewley Fields group who are not joining the committee for their excellent efforts: John Redpath; Roger Harrington; Tony Hall; Steve Britain; Kirsty Garvey

6. Expense Items: David sought retrospective approval for fees incurred to date amounting to approximately £4000.

The members approved the use of funds so far.

7. AOB/ Questions:

· Fundraising: Jonathan explained that our fundraising to June had totalled £603k from >300 donors. Gift aid on top of this should be around £100k. The total purchase price was £1,420k of which FoPM put £462k. The balance of funds raised (circa £200k) is sitting with SWT to upgrade and manage the site going forward, with £20k-£50k needed for set up costs, and c. £10-20k for annual maintenance (SWT’s estimates from May ’21).

· Paddock: it was questioned whether we could investigate purchasing the paddock to the North. This was agreed to be a matter of interest for the future.

· Cutting grass for skylarks: it was enquired as to whether we could cut the grass soon to improve conditions for nesting skylarks. Jonathan explained he has already asked for this but will reiterate this request of SWT.     Update 4th Feb: SWT visited the site today for an initial walk by their grazing team, not accompanied by FoPM members. Katy Fielding (SWT) responded to our enquiry about a machine cut as follows: “walking the site it became very apparent just how many tussocks and ant hills have developed since machine cuts have ceased. If we were to do a machine cut a lot, if not all, of these lovely features would be damaged or destroyed. Additionally, if we were to do a cut-and-collect we would then have the difficulty of where to put the arisings. Ideally, we wouldn’t want to dump them on site, but it would be very difficult to take them off as well. It was agreed by all that it would be better to hold off from a cut and prioritise a good grazing season in the autumn.”

Jonathan’s view : Ant hills are very good for biodiversity. The effect on ant hills in the Western Block could be debated, as there’s been a cut there most years up to and including 2020, so they’re less developed here, and not mowing will temporarily impact other wildlife. Ant hills appear far more developed in the Eastern Block, which hasn’t been mown for a few years, but also does still hold Skylarks. However, taking the cuttings away and disposing/using them is a problem, with not much time left to do a cut-and-collect. We should accept SWT’s response. In the immediate term, our focus should be on achieving the best outcome on access/fencing/gates design and layout.

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