What we do
Royston
About Us
We are a friendly group who enjoy walking, making new friends, and seeing beautiful countryside and wildlife throughout Hertfordshire & Cambridgeshire.
Our year-round Tuesday and Thursday morning walks are 5 - 7miles, while Sunday’s range from 9 -12 miles. During the summer we also organise shorter walks of 3 - 4 miles on Wednesday evenings. We normally have a coffee stop at 11am and go for a drink in a pub at lunch time or after an evening walk. Please do not go into a pub in muddy boots
Royston Group is led by a band of experienced leaders, so all you need to do as a member, is turn up at a set time and location, generally within 20 miles of Royston, and enjoy the walk.
If you are interested, come along and see how you get on, with no obligation to join. You can view our walks programme and contact the walk leader, at www.ramblers.org.uk/royston and they will be pleased to welcome you or tel: 07734 111225 for further details.
Join Us
Although members joining the Ramblers' Association are only automatically allocated to this Group if they live in Royston or villages in Hertfordshire with an SG8 postcode, many members are from Buntingford or South Cambridgeshire. New walkers are welcome. If you need advice on what to wear or what to bring, please call the walk leader or any committee member.
Group Officers
Ian Thomas – Chair
Lesley Abbiss – Secretary
Alan Cooper – Treasurer
Ruth Katz – Programme Coordinator
Steven Thain – Ordinary Member
Nick Everington – Long Distance Walks Organiser
Vacant – Footpath Secretary
Vacant – Area Representative
Peter Grice – Independent Examiner
Contact:- royston.ramblers@yahoo.com
How to be a leader:
to become a walk leader in the Ramblers you have to be registered as a volunteer. This involves the group secretary informing head office so that you will be covered by the Ramblers' insurance policy. When this has been completed you will be able to 'Sign in' (top right on Ramblers home page) to your 'Account' and see the 'Walks Manager' under the 'Your volunteering' header.
Please update your 'Contact preferences' (drop down menu item under the 
icon) and give permission to use them.
When in Walks Manager there are three options on the menu bar. 'List view', 'Calendar view' and 'Table view'. Selecting one of these will display the walks of our group.
Walk out your walk, take photos and measure the distance.
Look at the calendar (which contains both published and draft walks) and find a gap. You can either email royston.ramblers with your walk details or you can create a draft entry yourself.
Publishing your walk on the web site
Use the 'Create' button to 'Add a walk' and enter the details of your walk starting with the chosen date. Remember to select the 'Walking group' button. This will display a list of our walk leaders so you can choose your own name. 'Save and continue' to enter descriptions, photos, start location, distance, etc..
You can display a 'Preview' of your walk and continue to edit it. It will appear in the Calendar view as a draft. This reserves the date for you. When you are happy with the details you can select 'Submit for checking' and you should then email royston.ramblers@yahoo.com but please no later than two weeks before the walk. Note: we can make changes to your walk after it is published.
We currently do morning walks on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Sundays we do longer walks with a stop for lunch. Walks start at 10am.
When specifying the start location, in the first text box enter a village name or post code. This will provoke a drop down list for you to select an item. The map will then display a 'pin' at that location for you to move to your intended start. The software will provide a grid reference and a post code in the next text box, which you can edit. Finally, a brief description is enough.
The walk difficulty is normally 'Moderate', but if you want something else then check the web site for the definition of “Leisurely” and “Strenuous”.
ROYSTON AND DISTRICT GROUP OF THE RAMBLERS
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
7.30pm, Tuesday 22nd October 2024
Room 11 Royston Town Hall, SG8 7DA
Present: (19) Lesley Abbiss, Nick Everington, Ruth Katz, Steven Thain, Ian Thomas
Belinda Brown, Viv Brown, Nina Clements, Alan Cooper, Gill Duckworth, Alan Ellis, Mike Flexmore, Jackie & Ken Garland, Peter Grice, Peter Joyner, David Marsh, Helen & George Schlesinger.
Apologies: Paul & Lindsey Wheeler, Chrissie Prove, Jane Horsford, Sue Toule, Jackie Rogger, Annette Little, Marion Smith.
1 Welcome
Ian welcomed everyone to the meeting.
2 Minutes of last meeting
These were agreed. Proposed by Alan Ellis and seconded by Ruth Katz.
3 Matters arising
None.
4 Chairman's report – Ian Thomas (read by Nick Everington).
I have now been your chairman for a year. It has been a bit tougher than I had expected. Before I started in the role I had a discussion with an old friend who said the main thing before you take on a position like this is to work out what you want to achieve. Simple. I think that I wanted to keep the walk programme front and centre of our activity, with as few gaps as possible, and looking back most of what we have all done on your committee has had that in mind.
We have led 133 walks this year, since the last AGM:
48 on Tuesdays
50 on Thursdays plus 7 on the Icknield Way
3 on Saturdays and 13 on Sundays
7 evening walks
4 walks on the coach trip and 1 on New Years Day
Thank you to Lesley for getting me these numbers which are a slight improvement on last year apart from the Sunday walks. And thank you to Alan Cooper for all his work in checking and uploading all those walks onto the walks manager. I think he must sigh every time he sees my latest walks and he wonders where the mistake is this time.
As of 15th October we had 130 members, compared with 135 at the time of the last AGM.
We have in my experience always been the smallest of the regional groups in our area, and I hope we are the friendliest. We have had a recruitment drive for new members using adverts placed at no charge in local parish magazines (and we have used a scarecrow at Wimpole too). We need to recruit to replace the walkers who we lose for whatever reason and especially to bring in even younger legs and even more energy. Your new committee will need to take this forward.
There were a lot of highlights this year. I hope that I can do them justice in a few words in a rough chronological order.
Steven led the 2023 Christmas walk at Reed and we are going back to Reed this year. However, I suspect your new committee may want a change next time.
We started a monthly Newsletter in December. Thank you to Steven and Penny for starting this off and putting the first few together and to Lesley who now does a lot of the work. I see that there are several benefits from the newsletter: everyone can see what we are doing, the next month’s programme is captured on two sides of A4, and we are all galvanised towards the end of the month to fill in any gaps in the programme before the newsletter goes out.
We had a popular New Year's Day walk at Therfield, followed by a good lunch at the Fox and Duck, and we are planning to do another New Year's Day walk in 2025 with details in the next newsletter.
We ordered sweatshirts for our members early in the year. I always smile when I see them being worn. And if nothing else at least I now know the story of the Royston Crow!
The coach trip to Henley on Thames was sold out, the weather gods smiled on us and the walks were fantastic. Let the committee know your thoughts about next year. Could I thank Viv, Alan Cooper and Lesley for doing the recce with me and a thank you to Steven for organising the coach.
We remembered David Allard by walking the 110 miles of the Icknield Way walkers trail. It actually came in at 115 miles. I had thought that up to 6 walkers would want to do this trek, so it was a shock to start with 17 walkers. Thank you to Nick who put a huge amount of time and effort into making this walk happen. Anyone who has read his risk assessments alone would realise the work involved. Thank you too to Nick and Lesley for the questionnaire for planning a follow up next year.
Lesley worked tirelessly this year to get the memorial bench for David done. This is now finished (and if you look on Facebook you will see that the plaque is on) and the bench sits on Mill Green in Therfield where it commands a great view down towards Royston. Thank you Lesley: I would have given up long ago. Thank you too for Steven and the CROW team for putting it in place (CROW is Countryside and Rights of Way). A walk is being planned for November 9th to see the bench with some of David’s family. The ashes may be scattered there and lunch taken at the Fox and Duck.
We have lost three members this year. Mo Marriott died mid-February, Andrew Emerson at the end of May and Barry Girling at the end of September. Few of us were aware that Mo had a long and noteworthy history of quite serious walking and I wish now that I had known and been able to benefit from all that experience. Andrew was good company on our walks and a man of great enthusiasms: I recall long conversations about the health risks of bread flour and the benefits of magnesium. Little did I suspect that last year my practice nurse would tell me to cut out as much bread and cake as possible and that this year my osteopath would insist I bathe in Epsom Salts (magnesium sulphate) to ease a torn muscle. Andrew knew a thing or two. And Barry was a little larger than life; Steven recalled one of their post-walk discussions with fondness and just reminded us that companionship is one of the great attributes of our walks. Barry told me last year that Royston Ramblers could function perfectly well without a Chairman: you will have to be the judge of that.
We have also had three accidents this year. Jackie fell on a walk and broke her left arm quite badly. Salli fell and broke several bones in her hand: this was after the end of a walk on the way to her car. And David Winpenny fractured his left fibula while walking with the Cambridge group. I will continue to urge all walk leaders to do the online training provided by the Ramblers. It is not compulsory for existing leaders but I found it very useful.
So, I want to thank on your behalf all of our walk leaders who have made these walks happen. As Viv said last year without our walk leaders there would be no rambling.
And again on your behalf I want to thank the committee, for giving up their time to make everything happen, for giving me so much good advice during the year, and for being such good company. That includes Alan Cooper who is not currently on the committee but who looks after the IT side so well. My personal thanks go out to Lesley for keeping us all in order and running the show.
We all need to thank Alan Ellis who was our treasurer from 2013 to 2021 and then served on the committee before stepping down this month. He has provided a lot of advice behind the scenes and will be missed at our committee meetings. May we have a vote of thanks for Alan?
Similarly Steven Thain who has been our treasurer for the past 3 years is stepping down as treasurer but will remain on the committee.
Finally, a plea. We need more walk leaders. I love leading a walk: there is the adventure of exploring somewhere new and the achievement of getting to really know an area. If you are tempted just talk to any of our leaders, or the committee, or me.
Thank you.
5 Treasurer's report – Steven Thain
End of year: Total in Bank – £915.40 General Fund - £339.65 Social Fund - £575.75
This year started with the accounts in good order. All of the transactions have gone through the bank account. This has ensured a clear relationship between income and expenditure. The practice of holding both the Main Reserve and the Social fund in the same account has not presented any difficulties this year.
In May 2024 Central Office undertook a review of the Main Reserves held at group level. At the time Royston was identified as Red, i.e. in need of action, based on having £907.20 in reserves to meet an anticipated £136 of expenditure. Royston group felt that the anticipated expenditure was understated. None the less the group was clearly in the upper quartile and needed to find some use for the funds that would demonstrate Charitable Aims.
The Royston Group acquired some walking Sweatshirts part funded through a donation from the Main Reserve which serve to promote the group. The Group have also created a memorial to one of the founder members, David Allard, using Main Reserves to fund the purchase of a Bench and Plaque which has been erected in Therfield on the route of the Icknield Way.
During the year we also planned and delivered a day trip by Coach to Henley on Thames. The coach was filled and those participating gave very positive feedback on the whole endeavour. The Committee's decision to use a smaller coach and charge at a rate to give a positive return was vindicated by the full coach and a modest contribution to the Social Fund.
This will be my last report having advised the group that I will be standing down from the roll of Hon. Treasurer at the AGM in October.
Ian asked whether we can use funds to buy first aid kits. This is something the new Committee would need to consider.
The Accounts were agreed. Proposed by Ruth Katz and seconded by Peter Joyner.
6 Footpath report – Lesley Abbiss
Maintaining and improving the Footpath network is a key aspect of Ramblers work. There are 128 parishes in Hertfordshire and a shortage of volunteer Footpath Secretaries. Vacancies are listed in Stile Magazine. In particular, we need someone for Royston. There are 1,660 rights of way in East Herts District alone. Anyone can report problems on public rights of way using the County Council website. It's helpful to include a photograph to help the Council assess the situation and prioritise work. Some of us regularly carry secateurs on walks and trim back brambles on an ad hoc basis.
As a District Footpath Secretary for East Herts, HCC emails me about Definitive Map Modification Orders and Planning Applications which may affect a PRoW. I was recently contacted by a gentleman in Kelshall regarding a planning application to build a second house along The Street in Kelshall which would involve diverting a footpath around the edge of the plot. Ian, as Kelshall parish footpath secretary, and I have agreed a response on behalf of Ramblers objecting to the application as presented and have suggested certain conditions are met concerning the diversion before consent is given.
The BBC reported on 24th August on the number of outstanding DMMO's. Hertfordshire with 402 was second after Lincolnshire (458) and the backlog is growing. The cut off date for applications is 1st January 2031. The Don't Lose Your Way project led by Libby Martin in our Area is working to identify lost or unclaimed paths in an effort to get them officially recorded on the Definitive Map by the Council.
David Allard made an application in 2009 to add a footpath to the Definitive Map in the parish of Anstey from the B1368 at Biggin Hill (about half way between Barkway and Hare Street) to Lincoln Hill (the Barkway to Anstey Road). I have just received the investigation report (step 2 in the process)! I have forwarded this to Libby Martin on the DLYW team for information and to Mark Westley, Area Footpath Secretary.
7 Icknield Way Report and Results of Long distance walk survey – Nick Everington
Nick presented a report on the Icknield Way walk which was completed by the group in seven stages. In total, 90 walks were walked by 17 people starting from Ivinghoe Beacon and finishing at Knettishall Heath at the junction of the Icknield Way, the Angles Way and the Peddars Way. It proved to be a great success and was followed by a celebratory gettogether hosted by Nick.
He outlined the key points learnt as a guide to help inform future expeditions.
He went on to present the results of the Long distance walk survey which was sent to all members. There had been a good response. 68% had said they would be interested in doing a long distance walk in 2025 with 89% willing to walk up to 15 miles a day. The best days for walking were Thursday (75%) followed by Tuesday (54%) with a preference to walking once a month and travelling up to 50 miles to reach the walk. 82% of respondents said they would be prepared to spend a couple of nights away at a time and 43% said they would be happy to spend a week away. 59% showed interest in going abroad. 61% felt a group size of 16 was optimal, which fits the number for a minibus to assist transport.
Nick finished by outlining possible future long distance walk options which would need further discussion about what we want to do as a group. Ruth suggested London circular walks such as the London Greenway. Nina mentioned she had organised a long distance walk where participants stayed in static caravans. We could also consider conducting a survey of other walks to ensure we are as inclusive as possible.
The full presentation is attached to these minutes.
8 Election of committee members and independent examiner
Ian Thomas – Chairman
Alan Cooper – Treasurer
Lesley Abbiss – Secretary
Ruth Katz – Walks Programme Coordinator
Nick Everington – Long Distance Walks Organiser
Vacant – Area Representative
Vacant – Footpath Secretary
Vacant – Social Secretary
Steven Thain – Ordinary Member
Peter Grice – Independent Examiner
Proposed by Viv Brown and seconded by Belinda Brown
9 Notification of the Christmas party
Saturday 7th December at Reed Village Hall
4 mile walk starting at 11am leader Ian followed by a bring and share lunch from 12.30 onwards. Lesley has agreed to coordinate food offerings. There will be mulled wine and a quiz. Details will be on the website and invitations will appear in the November Newsletter and emailed to all members.
10 AOB
None.
The meeting closed at 20.30 and was followed by refreshments and a social.
Date of next meeting: TBA
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Programme Retrospective