The Rossendale Rambler

Publicity Officer & Rossendale Rambler Editor's Reports

A.G.M. Round-up

PUBLICITY OFFICER REPORT

As you may well be aware, my weekly reports continue to be published by the Free Press or Express and whilst most of the stories published bear little resemblance to my original writings, I am nonetheless grateful for the support and publicity we receive. I am also contacted from time to time for comments on footpaths issues and seem to get a fair coverage when this happens. The last time I was quoted however, I was honoured by being credited as being one of the organisers of the 'Round the Hills Walk'.

During the summer, Headquarters put several other reporters my way, including one from Carlton Television who was trying to 'put a spin' on the Windy Harbour story by including it in the 'Neighbours from Hell' series. The reporter was told quite succinctly what he could do with his 'spin' but if he ever wanted to do a serious piece about the problems of aggressive and obstructive farmers, he should contact me again and I would try to be of assistance. It may be of interest to members that I am also a 'Media Watcher' for the RA and whilst I have only been called upon once to write to a paper, I was pleased to have the letter published in March this year - it concerned the Freedom to Roam and was in response to an interview with a local farmer who seemed to think that his back yard was going to be overrun with megalomaniac ramblers.

‘ROSSENDALE RAMBLER’ EDITOR’S REPORT

This has been a splendid year for the 'Rambler' with four, six-page editions in a row. Hopefully the edition due out at the beginning of December will be of similar size but I do need contributions from the membership ! It is very difficult to fill out the pages if there is a lack of contributions from the readers because what tends to happen is that it becomes an egotrip for yours truly and as mentioned in the last edition, all you'll get is my own inane ramblings.

The December edition will carry the reports presented at this AGM so, hopefully, with the material I have already got, we will make 6 pages again but we will be struggling for March. If you have an anecdote, a funny story, a poem or a favourite walk, put it into writing and let me have it; you don't need to be a Shakespeare to have it put into print and if you feel you need some help, let me know and together we'll try and work it out. On a personal level, I get a great deal of pleasure from producing and editing the 'Rambler' and copies are sent far and wide but without it representing the views of the readership I'm just tilting at windmills.

John Kay, our last chairman, has suggested a competition on the lines of publishing a picture of a land mark, together with a grid reference, and asking members to identify it for a small prize. It sounds like a good idea to me but I've had no entries for the mugs supplied by our sponsor, Fell & Mountain, so how about some feedback; do you want competitions ? Perhaps a crossword ? Are there any opinions out there ?

Has anybody visited our Web-site ? Is it worth continuing, because, to my mind, it is nothing short of a minor miracle that our little group's activities can be viewed, literally, by anyone in the world with access to a computer. The thought that somebody in the jungles of the Amazonian Basin can switch on their computer and 'surf the net' to see what walk the Rossendale Ramblers have lined up for next week really blows my mind! I am extremely grateful for Kevin Rattan's expertise in this most technological of fields and can only hope that he will continue to smile upon us as time goes by - Thank you Kevin.

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Walter Waide
Our e-mail address is: waidew@globalnet.co.uk