AGM actions 2020
/We completed a well attended AGM on Monday night and thanks to everyone who was able to make it.
In summary we recorded a very healthy membership for last year with a total of 30 members and a closing bank balance bolstered by the pollution settlement of just under £10K.
We voted a 5% increase to our landlord farmers and agreed to keep subs unchanged at £45 plus the normal new member joining fee of £12.
Catch returns for 2019 revealed that the river is still very lightly fished so it's hard for us to assess how well the recovery is going. Can I make a request that we all make at least 1 fishing visit this year (me included!) and that all visits are recorded with a catch return even if you are unfortunate enough to blank on “one of those days”!
We had a debate about the merits of restocking and whilst we have reserved a decision pending discussions with the Severn Rivers Trust and other experts, I think it's fair to say that members were largely in favour of some level of restocking. This is likely to take place in May if we go ahead by which time the water levels will hopefully have settled.
Our kick testing effort will continue in 2020 and new member John Cheyne who works for the Angling Trust has agreed to join the rota as a trained sampler plus Mike Oakey and new member Mike McGowan agreed to attend an upcoming training course. Please let me know if you are interested in joining this rota as well.
Other discussions centred around further project work for the autumn and winter months and we are due to meet SRT officers to tie in with their plans. We still have some style building, tree clearances and nettle bashing on our long list.
We also discussed Taskers and how best to continue its development. To assess the angling quality and see how the fish have grown on/survived we are planning to hold a “match” on the lake in MaY June once the water warms up. We can probably cope with up to 8 anglers so let me know if you are interested. I've attached a link to some guidance around BIO Security to bear in mind for both Taskers and the River Leadon. http://www.nonnativespecies.org/checkcleandry/biosecurity-for-anglers.cfm
Trevor has kindly agreed to provide us with a planting plan/schedule and source some aquatic plants as we need to get some cover established to provide spawning sites and protection from predation. Once we have assessed the angling potential we will be in a better position to enter into an agreement with Tim the farmer.
Finally we paid tribute to John Hill and Ray Johnson who sadly passed away last year.
