News

Annuual Subscription

The annual subscription for 2025 is now due and remains at £15 per person (not household). But if you are leading a walk in 2025 the fee is waived.

2024 winter party

WINTER PARTY Friday 29th November
Date Friday 29th November
Time 7.30 p.m.
Venue Andy and Janet Duguid Binen roadsee directory for full address tel 07976 359701
Charge £35.00 per person to cover food and wine.

Travel Nearest tube is Stamford Brook on the District Line. On exiting station turn left up Goldhawk Road. When you reach Duchess pub, continue straight across pedestrian crossing. Turn right then immediately left up Rylett Road. Binden Road is second left. Takes 8 minutes.
If you come via Shepherd’s Bush on Central Line, you can cross the road in front of you and take a 237 bus down Goldhawk Road to Askew Road stop. Cross Goldhawk Road and walk up Ashchurch Park Villas to the end, turn left into Ashchurch Terrace, which shortly becomes Binden Road.
Alternatively, from Shepherd’s Bush tube, you can cross the Goldhawk Road and take a 94 bus to the same stop. They are more frequent.
Parking in Binden Road is easy and free after 5 pm
R.S.V.P. to Andy by telephone 07976 359701 or e-mail aduguid@btopenworld.com,and please let Frances knowfrancesburbeck@icloud.com

May weekend 2025 friday 16th /saturday17th

Sophie Baker is kindly organising the 2025 May weekend. Friday 16 - Saturday 17 May in Rye and Winchelsea.
Accommodation: The main Hotel will be The Flackley Ash Hotel in Peasmarsh near Rye, East Sussex. plenty of accommodation plus swimming pool and health centre. Rooms are reserved for us until 2nd January so please book now if you think you will join us. And please let Sophie and me (Margaret M) know.
here is plenty of alternative accommodation.
Walks: Friday afternoon a walk along the river Rother by Romney Marsh, Evening meal at The Tillingham Vineyards. Saturday walk Udimore lunch at Icklesham. Shorter and longer walks. Dinner at Flackley Ash. Sunday morning a cliff walk towards Hastings, culminating in fish and chip lunch in Hastings.
There are plenty of golf courses so golfers will be provided for.
Looking forward, Sophie B and Margaret M
_._,_._,_

Flackley Ash tel:+441797230651

Informal general LWG Saturday 20 May. Informal general meeting held at Saturday dinner at Haddon House on the May weekend.

hanks. Margaret M thanked Jane Cook; right hand person, Bronwen; website, Frances B; membership secretary and treasurer, Andy Duguid; google group master and of course Deborah Dawe; weekend organiser. We presented Deborah with a framed photo (by Andy) of last years weekenders as a small thank you for her tireless work.
There did not seem to be any enthusiasm for new people taking over these posts.

Changes. The above group had met in the spring and decided we needed to make a few changes. As you have all seen prices everywhere are going up so we have decided we need to
- increase the annual sub from £12 to £15, payable for each individual not by household. We feel this would be fairer to the many singletons in the group.
- the costs of doing a recce for the May weekend have also gone up. Hotel and travel. So we propose to charge a £10 booking fee for the May weekend to help with recce expenses.
These changes were supported by the LWG members present at the weekend.

May weekend. Deborah Dawe and I (Margaret M) have enjoyed organising the May weekends for the last few years but we feel it is time for us to move upstairs to a consultant position. Deborah now lives in Exeter and I am mainly in France so coordinating recces is not easy. And we are not the youngest members of the group.
So we propose finding volunteers for organising the weekend. Deborah and I would be available to advise, consult and even help with recces.
Moving the weekend from weekend to mid week was discussed, there did not seem to be any strong opinion either way.

The Friday walks started out as no leader, democratic orienteering. Kind Bronwen has been organising them recently, and is happy to do so if she is available, and I am happy to suggest walks from France. But if anyone has a good walk that they could suggest we would be delighted! Contact me, Margaret M, or Bronwen with details and we can circulate the group.
We have been considering the ICE (In Case of Emergency) situation. Although we have everyone’s contact details we do not have the details of anyone who should be contacted in case of illness or an accident on a walk. We are still considering supplying fobs. Meanwhile we do strongly advise you all to have either a card or a fob in your bag or have your ICE contact and any medical details accessible to the emergency services (or the walk leader) on your phone. If you do not know how to put these on your phone please contact one of us and we can advise you.

Communications. We still have a problem with people putting messages on Google group email that are not relevant to the whole group. The people not involved find it irritating and are beginning to miss relavant messages.
- lift shares. Once accepted please use personal emails for details of meeting point, timing etc.
- menu choices. Please send direct to walk leader..
- thanks for walks could be sent direct to leader. I (MargaretM) will try to set an example!
But photos remain welcome.
And could I remind people if they have lost the email or do not know walk details they are all on the website.

Future plans - apart from walks! We hope to have an AGM, separately from the annual dinner, in the autumn, when I am in London. We also plan our winter party, date and time to be arranged, but probably early December.

AGM 2023 minutes

First heartfelt thanks to Judy and Martin Parsley for kindly hosting the delicious dinner.

And to
- Jane cook, right hand person,
- Andy Duguid , group email manager,
- Bronwen McCarthy, web master,
- Frances Burbeck, membership secretary and treasurer,
- Deborah Dawe, away weekend organiser,
- and all our walk leaders,
Nobody seemed interested in taking on these roles so we will continue as before!

This list threw up a few comments:
The group is asked to remember to use the Google group email for items that are of interest to the whole group. Please remember to use « reply to sender » or the person’s personal email address for travel arrangements etc. Please send menu choices to the walk leader rather than the whole group. Please use the website: Bronwen works hard to keep it up to date and there is a lot of interesting information on it; walk reports, dates of upcoming walks and events. In future if asked for walk details I shall refer people immediately to the website!

I am attaching the walking group « Directory » with the contact details of all the LWG members. Please check your entry is correct and put it somewhere you can find it as in future if asked for phone numbers etc I shall refer you to the directory.

Agenda:

Saturday vs Sunday for weekend walks. A show of hands favoured continuing the present arrangement, January to June Saturdays (avoiding Mother’s Day etc) and July to December Sundays. We will keep this under review as travel is slightly better on Saturdays, no end-of-weekend traffic jams on return to London. Also it is easier for the leaders to book the pubs on a Saturday, as it is becoming increasingly popular to have a pub family Sunday lunch making it hard to get a booking for a walking group.

Walks template - there is on the website under « Useful Info » a walks check list which details the information I need to circulate the walk. I will forward it to the leader a few weeks before the walk as a gentle reminder and it will help me to have all the details.

ICE details. I am a little concerned that although we have in the directory your personal details we do not have your ICE (in case of emergency) details which would be necessary should someone keel over on a walk. I noticed an article in The Ramblers Magazine suggesting we should have fobs attached to our backpacks. We will look into obtaining these for the group.

Date of next meeting was not fixed, presumably at the next winter party.

Fancy Free Walks

THis is a very good web site if you want to find a new walk and it is FREE

useful web sites for walkers/ holiday planning etc

Recommended as a useful web site for walkers
www.onfootholidays.co.uk

May weekends 2009 - 2013

Bronwen has encouraged us to produce essays for the website. Each year I have planned to write something about the weekend and not got round to it so this year here are some memories of past weekends.

The first weekend Deborah and I organised was in Southwold (2009). We planned to do one walk south and one north of the town: the south walk to Walberswick was delightful the walk north was a disaster. We started on a board walk through a marsh but it was inadequate and we both filled our boots with muddy water. We soldiered on across featureless industrial agricultural fields to the grimmest pub we have seen. So back to the drawing board. We decided to drive a little further south and we found a great walk including Minsmere bird reserve and Dunwich Forest. In the event poor Deborah had an operation and having done the recce missed the weekend. The weather was variable, I have a vivid memory of us all scurrying from Minsmere to the pub under the shelter of a high hedge in a sharp shower. Apart from that and a rather small base hotel so we were all scattered the weekend went well.

2010 found us in Llangollen. We originally planned to be based in Chirk, on the railway line but the hotel we selected was closed when Deborah arrived for the recce. We had to relocate to a fine hotel in Llangollen which accommodated most of the group. Walks were on Offa’s Dyke and the Llangollen canal - including going through a tunnel and the famous Pontcysyllte aqueduct, beautiful but high and scary, which we all managed to cross. This was the first time we introduced a Friday evening walk, along the canal past the Eisteddfod venue to the source of the canal.

We try to alternate inland and sea locations so 2011 we went to Hastings - genteel East Hastings - in a very good large B & B, where we able to have our annual dinner.
The weather and accommodation were good, the walks successful – from Winchelsea into Hastings and on the Sunday around Battle . This was the first time we managed to finish at a site of historical interest, leaving the group to explore the Abbey and the battle ground on Sunday afternoon. As far as I can remember this was the smoothest to organise, with no disasters.

2012 we went to Bruton, again in a large B & B which accommodated most of the group. The weather was good – we walked to Castle Cary on day one and went over to Stourhead and Castle Hill iron age fort on Sunday. Apart from poor Norma falling into a large bed of nettles all went smoothly .

So 2013, just back from Sheringham on the North Norfolk coast. A great weekend despite probably the worst, coldest weather we have had (Since Deborah and I took over – who remembers Dorset? and the Malvern Hills?) although it was dry apart from the Friday evening. A record turnout – 26 for the Saturday walk, 22 on Sunday and 34 for the dinner.

Deborah and I had more panics and headaches than usual. We first arrived for the recce having carefully selected a B&B as suitable for our base to see a “Sold” sign on the property. The only consolation was that it wouldn’t have been suitable anyway. All the locals directed us to the Burlington Hotel , and once we had braved its rather forbidding façade it was clearly the place for us. Just after we had circulated details and asked people to book the hotel closed for its annual holiday, which led to some confusion. We then could get no response from The Lobster where we had booked for the Saturday dinner, we rang the Burlington who said” Oh, that Graham . . . “ and offered to send someone round to sort it out. This was a good indication of the kindness and friendliness we found throughout the weekend.
On arrival Deborah found that 1 ½ miles of the coast path on our planned Saturday walk was closed for sea defence repairs, so again back to the drawing board. Deborah very cleverly found a delightful walk through the Bayford wood nature reserve, and we finished in the birdwatchers paradise of Blakeney Marshes.
It rained steadily through the Friday evening walk through Sheringham Park. Happily the wind was behind us as we walked back into Sheringham along the cliffs. Saturday was grey, Sunday was really quite good weather! We walked to Felbrigg Hall, NT property and back, only occasionally getting lost. All the walks were of variable length, on Saturday there was an optional coffee stop that cut 3 miles off the morning!

So Deborah and I will now start organising next year’s weekend – put the 3rd weekend of May in your diaries and lets hope to see even more of you next year. Margaret and Deborah