Party night 2017

Our party on Saturday night was a great success bringing people of all ages together to celebrate the work our group had achieved over the past years culminating in the restoration of the views with the help of the Trustees and the Tescos funding.
Phil and Mark worked hard all evening with their disco and the staff at the tennis club looked after us well.
Apart from our members and guests, a number of local councillors, the fire cadets and our newly re elected MP Amanda Milling attended the evening. We had around 60 people present. We thank everyone for coming and for all the help and support we have received as a group.

links to useful information

Here are some useful links to walks from the Mount
Chase Fit have produced these lovely photgraphed walking path leaflets

http://www.chasefit.co.uk/walks/details/self-led-walks/etchinghill.html


http://www.chasefit.co.uk/walks/details/self-led-walks/etchinghill-wolseley.html

Enjoy them!

Also check out this video on YouTube with the mount seen from a drone

https://youtu.be/yxhCwnkOVDc

Following our A.G.M. We would like to welcome Mike Sutherland to our committee. All other members remain the same. Chris and Geoff have said they would like to stand down at the next A.G.M. in 2018 as they will have completed 7 years then. They will continue to support the group and the committee. We would ask anyone reading this to consider whether they would like to join our committee or carry out these roles next year.

Our our A.G.M. Will take place on Thursday 18th May at 7.30 at the church hall. We hope everyone will come along and let us know what you think about the work we have done and what you would like us to do over the next year.
We also welcome anyone who would like to stand for a post on the committee. We have had a vacancy over the past year. Being on the committee means you can help to shape our work further so please consider it as we welcome new opinions.

2017 our first litter pick of the year

The litter pick was a huge success.  We had 58 people turn up! Thank you to Sian for publicising the event and to Phil for taking away the rubbish. We would like to thank everyone who came to support us. Particular thanks go to the new people who came along. Hopefully they found that we are a friendly group and will join us again for future meetings and litter picks. Thanks to all those who helped in the kitchen to get the refreshments out quickly for all the hungry volunteers.

Thanks to all the young people who came with their families and to the fire cadets who worked very hard. Young people are the future and too often they get bad press whereas we have found many keen young volunteers who have been polite and interested in maintaining the hill.

 We would also like to thank the people who spent time helping to clear the brash and put the chippings onto the paths. This is has been necessary following the trees being thinned. 
         We may have further work parties depending on the needs of the project.

Finally, thanks to all those who donated their lovely photos to our groups archives. We were given some very special pictures including some taken from a drone, showing how wonderful the hill looks from above.
The hill is tidy again and looks amazing following the recent work. We urge people to support our group in trying to keep it that way. If anyone is concerned that there may be anti social behaviour on the hill please ring 101 as the police will respond in tackling the issues.
As a result of the work done we have had lots of favourable comments and people have said they like the fact that they can now see the Derbyshire hills again. The Trustees are also very pleased that they have been able to work with us to achieve these results as a joint venture. They have thanked our group. With the community working together we can achieve so much and 2017 has had a good start so far!
As this is starting to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech- let's look at a couple of donated photos

         Thanks to Gillian for this photo

See below one of the photos taken by drone - thanks to Eddie for this.

Litter pick

We have a litter pick next Saturday -4th March. Meet at 11.00 at the Etching Hill Church Hall. This time there may be extra hands needed to remove the extra litter exposed by the clearance work so come along and bring friends! Also if anyone feels up to shifting brash onto the muddy paths they could help with this on the day. 

Any members who would like to have the logs, they can be taken away after the litterpick. As the contractors are likely to be working on the hill during the coming week we ask that people do not collect them until  after the litterpick on Saturday as it may interfere with the work programme. We also ask that no one takes a chainsaw onto the hill as we are not covered for this.

Refreshments will be provided for the work group on Saturday. 

If anyone wants to bring a wheelbarrow to shift brash this may help, otherwise all equipment is provided

We have been very busy recently sorting the work out for The Openview Project. We are pleased to announce that Tescos have given us money to start the work and in order to progress this before the birds start nesting, we have a contractor starting on Friday of this week. Once the selected trees are down we can then start restoring the heathland.

We are pleased that this long awaited and much needed work can now take place thanks to the Tescos Bags of Help scheme and the cooperation of the Trustees who have been very supportive of our ideas and keen to help us in every way possible.

We have a couple of dates for diaries although we are still finalising our plans for the  year.

March 4th is our first litterpick meet at Etching Hill Church Hall at 11.00 am refreshments and all equipment provided. We may need as many people as possible on this day as there will be additional work in clearing wood or brash.

March 23rd is our first speaker who will talk about Dragonflies. Meet at Etching Hill Church Hall at 7.30 pm  refreshments provided.