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The combined Events Programme and Membership Card (Events Card) is distributed to members at about the time of the AGM at the end of March each year. The card for 2008-2009 is in circulation - to see it click Events Card.
The Annual General Meeting was held in Lerryn Village Hall on 28th March 2008, with about one-third of the sixty-four members attending.
The Chairman reported that we had had quite a good year despite picking some truly awful weather for our events. The weather for the walk to Golitha falls was just about OK but not encouraging, whilst the rain on the walk to Helman Tor and Breney Common was enough to put anybody off for life. However it did not seem to discourage a dozen hardy souls but forced the birds and butterflies to stay well out of sight. We only had to cancel two events - the trip to Looe Island was cancelled by the boatman and John Pegg's walk was cancelled when only the noble guide and Terry Eisler turned up on an especially ghastly day. The visit to Fowey Sea Farms was very well planned by David Hancock but we were embarrassed by the number of visitors who rather swamped us and caused the Docks security people to throw a bit of a "wobbly" when a number of visitors escaped unsupervised onto the Docks area. After this experience the Committee decided to welcome visitors at most of our events but to reserve some as strictly for "members only".
Our indoor events were all well attended and enjoyable and were, of course, to be rounded off by a visit from Sally Porter who will be remembered as one of our co-founders and has a fascinating story to tell but who unfortunately was poorly and unable to attend - hence the last minute invitation to Nancy Joliffe.
As to the accounts we managed quite well. We would have made a very small loss but this was offset by a donation to the Society. We had built up substantial cash reserves (relative to our modest running costs) in earlier years so there is no need to change subscription charges.
The Chairman concluded by thanking the committee members who have all pulled together in an exemplary way - sharing out duties and taking over from me when I was not up to scratch for a while.
The members re-elected the existing committee en bloc.
After the business of the meeting had been concluded, Nancy Jolliff of Pelynt gave us a fascinating slide presentation showing historical features in and around Fowey of the kind that we all overlook for decades until they are pointed out to us. We were especially indebted to Nancy because she stood in with only a few hours notice when Sally Porter, who was to have talked to us about the environmental management of Poole Harbour, rang to say she was too unwell to come.
Though not great compositions, these photographs convey the feeling of the occasion. When it was all over people we all seemed reluctant to leave - often an indicator of an enjoyable evening.
As guests of Bluesail Fish, who are the wholesalers running the market, thirteen of us turned up at the market at 6.35am on a dark, dry morning with the temperature only just above freezing.
Looe Fish Market has a reputation for handling fish all of which has been caught within the last twenty-four hours. It thus has the freshest and priciest fish in the UK. Because we Brits don't reckon to pay for good food and turn our noses up at cuttlefish and squid, and because it costs more to get fish to Bristol than to France, nearly all the fish landed at Looe ends up in France, Spain and Italy.
Looe Fish Market changed over to the "Moby Clock" electronic fish auction system in 2003, a system widely used in small ports around the western region of Brittany.
The focal point of the auction is an electronic scoreboard akin to that used in an athletics stadium. Beneath the scoreboard there is a ticket printer. All the participants were friendly, cheerful and relaxed in the near freezing temperature.
The auctioneer occasionally gives a few words of encouragement, otherwise the whole process is carried out in near silence with everyone knowing what they are doing. Stewards take tickets from the ticket machine and drop them in the appropriate fish boxes.
On Thursday 14th February the catch was small and the auction was all over in less than two hours. As a result the Auctioneer had time to give us a wide ranging twenty minute talk about the workings of the Fish Market, the fishing industry in the UK and Europe, quotas and plans for developing fishing at Looe.
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On Thursday 18 October 2007 at the Royal Fowey Yacht Club, Professor Colin Bristow gave us an enthralling slide presentation entitled "The Building Stones of Cornwall". He started with a swift summary of Planet Earth's geology in tectonic terms, and how this had formed Cornwall. The resultant remarkable diversity of rocks was eventually to give us our mining and quarrying industry, though now working at much reduced tonnages and levels of employment compared with a century ago. In those days, such were the dimensioning skills of Cornish quarrymen and masons that it paid to quarry granite and cut every block to size and ship it out as far afield as Hong Kong in the form of a kit of parts for a harbour or whatever, rather than to rely on local labour and materials.
Many iconic buildings in the UK and beyond were constructed using stone from Cornwall - for example Tower Bridge in London. At the local level, whether it was the houses and hotels of Boscastle, Place, home of the Treffrys at Fowey, or the construction of the Treffry and Milltown viaducts, local stone extracted from several hundred small quarries has given the buildings at each location their distinctive colour and texture. He spent some time discussing a broad classification of various types of rock. showing us samples and photographs of buildings constructed with them.
Colin ended his lecture saying that many of the small quarries could be re-opened on a small scale as required from time to time to provide authentic stone for repairs and extensions. Putting up a slide he quoted William Morris, who in 1876 said:
"These old buildings do not belong to us alone....they have belonged to our forefathers and will belong to our descendants unless we play them false. They are in no sense our property to do with as we like. We are only trustees for those who come after!"
Malcolm Campbell led the applause (above) and then invited questions from the floor. One questioner asked Colin how he had got interested in geology and his answer was that he had found a strange stone and didn't know what it was. His father suggested he should ask his schoolteacher and the schoolteacher suggested he take it to the local museum were the curator explained that it was a fossil - and he has been looking at stones ever since.
Our Chairman, George Cussens, thanked Colin and drew members attention to the remaining three items, Supper and Folk, Looe Fish Auction (5.45 am start) and AGM with talk on Environmental Management - see Friends 2007/2008 programme.
Old news tends to end up in Photos
Banner picture 114 of 138: Lostwithiel Town Quay 21 Mar 2007, 7.16 am.