Rob’s Ramble
Summer 2024
Don’t take me to another Cathedral or Old Town. We crossed to Santander from Plymouth on May 1st and since then Gaenor and I have crossed central Spain taking in Burgos de Osma, Segovia, Toledo, Cordoba and Seville. The Spaniards do have a lot of Cathedrals and Old Towns – so many that I can’t remember which was which. We’ve now crossed into Portugal and find ourselves in The Algarve. It was supposed to be cooler here, but I’ve just walked inside from the car where the temperature gauge was showing 37 degrees – far too hot.
I managed to catch a bit of Springwatch on BBC yesterday evening and it seems that summer has still not really arrived in Purbeck. I hope that at least it’s getting drier. At the AGM part of the quiz was to guess how many walks had been cancelled between October 1st 2023 and March 31st 2024. The answer was 10, which is a record, but not a good one.
We had a very successful AGM which was well attended. In fact, we had to raid the church hall to get enough seats for everyone. It was good to see so many people over a drink and a bit of finger food.
Following the AGM our committee now consists of:
John Alldritt – Secretary, Brian Arnold – Walks Programme, Jane Hamilton – Social Events, Hilary Parascandolo – Welfare, Steve Williams – Membership, Pauline Williamson – Treasurer, and me (Rob Lobley) – Chairman.
Lesley Watts is looking after the excellent new-look website but she is not a committee member. Jane Hamilton has hit the ground running which means that we have a good social programme for the year including a skittles evening, a beach picnic and a visit to a cider farm in addition to this year’s Christmas meal at the golf club.
Chris Boon and Jill Carter are stepping down from their roles and I express my thanks for their
contributions. I worked out that Jill had been a committee member for over a decade. Brian Arnold has advised that he would like to step back from the very important Walks Programme role so if you think you are able to take over or assist in doing that role, please let me or a committee member know.
I’ve done very little walking on this trip, (if you don’t count wandering around the hard cobbled streets of hot Spanish towns), so I’m looking forward to some good walking in Dorset when I return. I hope that the footpaths will have dried out by July.
A big thank you to those members that have put forward walks; without that there is no programme. I do hope you enjoy our new programme. I remind you that there are some evening walks in addition to those with a morning start.
Looking to the future, Chris Bungay is organising an HF holiday in September 2025 to the Isle of Wight. It should be a great success.
Keep walking and keep well.
Rob Lobley – Chairman, Swanage Walking Group