We held our annual general meeting at the Old Hall Hotel in Hope on Thursday 26 October. The evening kicked off at 8pm with standing room only at the venue. The formal aspects of the meeting were addressed promptly and the election of officers to the committee commenced.
Chair Andrew Burdett stood down and Dan Noble was elected to the post, this left his position of secretary free and Andy Wood was duly elected as secretary. Billy Clegg has had to stand down from the committee due to the pressures of running his very successful cafe, we all wish Billy every success. The vacant positions on the committee were filled by Steve and Rosie Edwards, Chris Heseltine-James and Mini Mansell, and we look forward to your contributions to the group.
Next followed an update on the various projects in which Peak District MTB is engaged from the official membership which is nearing 900 with a Facebook following of around 3,640 through developments on The Roaches, an update on Rushup (Chapel Gate) after it’s third year of closure, work with Ride Sheffield on the Cut Gate project, an update on Dig Days and the success of the Advocacy files.
Our guest speaker, Graham Clark, Cycle Trails Transition Officer for the National Trust provideed an update on mountain biking at Lyme Park, the consultation for which was supported and attended by some of the Peak District MTB team.
The evening concluded with a significant amount of time being spent on “The collaborative stuff”, an exercise where members submitted possible areas in the Peak District that needed better rights of way for cyclists, locations of hanging bridleways that go nowhere, or a footpaths that are crying out to be upgraded? All related to, and anticipating the possible loss of these rights of way by the 2026 deadline? This exercise provided plenty of material for the team to work on over the next 12 months and more information will be posted here in the coming months.
We were very fortunate to have some great prizes offered for the raffle at the end of the evening and big thanks must go to our hosts, The Old Hall Hotel in Hope, cake bakers Billy and Rachel from Cafe Adventure in Hope and joint treasurer Esther Hobson. A big thanks to all of those who donated prizes for the evening – Polaris, Mini Mansell, Bike Garage, Flare Clothing, Dark and White, Cafe Adventure and Alliance MTB.
We’ve also had some Peak District MTB T-shirts printed, these are available from Bike Garage at Bamford.
Please keep an eye on the website and the Facebook group for more updates and information, and if you haven’t signed up as a member on the website it would be really helpful to have you add your voice to the cause (please click here to join us).
