CHP committee, 2017-09-21
Minutes

Minutes of a Caradon Heritage Partnership committee meeting held at Liskeard on 2017-09-21T18:30Z thru 19:57Z. Readership is CHP members.

Present:

Peter Jackson           Secretary
Iain Rowe               Caradon Archaeology
Sue Pike                Liskeard Town Council
Brian Oldham            Liskeard Museum
Derris Watson           Treasurer
Rachel Bennet           Stuart House
Brigitte Mann
Alan Groves             Caradon Heritage
Lorna Shrubsole         Walkers are Welcome

Apologies:

Steve Hopkin, Anne Hughes, Hilary Taylor, Jen Bousfield,
Michelle-from-the-bookshop.

The meeting was chaired by BO.

Previous minutes

Corrections noted to various member afiliations and the naming of the siding mentioned under AOB.

Finance updates

DW said that we have £1648.04 in the bank account.

In addition to this, BO handed in £18 from book sales.

Equipment update

BO has collected a projector from Angus Holland.

Web site

PNJ reported that the vagueness about the funding for the website was resolved after he investigated its recent disappearance.

The domain is registered by Fasthosts to someone called Carol Harwood in Cornwall Council who no-longer works there. Someone else in Cornwall Council is now investigating how authorise transfer of the domain to the CHP. Lack of access to the domain meant that it was not possible to redirect web access to a different host. The domain expired in June 2017 and was automatically renewed for a year, probably by automatic fund transfer from Cornwall Council.

The domain is currently configured to use name servers at Heart Internet who had been operating the host on which the web site was running.

In 2016, the account that paid for this host expired and somewhen after that Heart Internet shut down the associated server. PNJ has arranged with them to take control of the account and paid for another year of hosting service. Backups of the site had not yet been erased, so Heart Internet were able to restore the site to a new server to which the name servers now point. This gives us continued access to the site and associated subdomains.

We might wish to consider the future of the site. One of the reasons for maintaining it is that the HLF use it as an indication of our continued activity. Other requirements have changed since it was originally designed.

It is currently based on a heavily customised Joomla CMS whose software revision is 2.5, which is no-longer supported. It should ideally be upgraded to the latest revision. But Joomla may be a little too unwieldy for our current needs and we should review how we wish to implement the site in the longer term. Upgrading Joomla or replacing it with a different CMS are the main options.

It was agreed that a subgroup would meet to decide on a strategy.

The meeting thanked PNJ for his efforts.

Caradon Heritage update

DW reported that CH had communicated to Cornwall Council that it could not sustain maintenance of the assets they want us to take over. Here is the gist of that communication taken from the Minutes of the relevant CH trustees meeting:

We cannot commit to sustainable running but we are confident that we could continue to pursue a project that would refurbish Housman's Engine House with the outcome of substantially reducing its maintenance and running costs by making the building stable and significantly less vulnerable to moisture.
But to obtain funding for such a project we would need Cornwall Council to commit to continue funding the maintenance of the assets, with the expectation that the cost of such maintenance is likely to be reduced to some degree.
It was agreed that we should communicate this conclusion to Cornwall Council. Their response will determine whether or not we can proceed with a feasibility study to improve Houseman's Engine House.

A meeting is planned with Cornwall Council for further discussion.

There may be some scope for help from something called a "Heritage Action Zone" with participation from local government. There may be a larger range of heritage-related assets that require this kind of support.

Phoenix Festival 2018

IR reported that the Liskeard Unlocked event had been successful.

As mentioned at the last meeting, we may choose to link this event with the Festival of Archaeology in July.

Further discussion deferred to a later meeting.

Other events

There was some discussion about a Christmas event with funding from Cornwall Council and collaboration with Goldentree.

Liskeard School is planning to run 40 projects to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the creation of Comprehensive schools in Cornwall. These would run from 2017-09 thru 2018-09.

IR and/or DW agreed to contact them regarding archaeological activities and activities relating to the Dissenters Cemetary.

There was discussion about a centrepiece for Morrison's Roundabout.

Next meeting

Will be the AGM on 2017-11-30T19:30Z with a talk by BO. The meeting is to be chaired by DW.

AOB

BO talked about work happening to invest in the Emily Hobhouse site at St Ive. There is a planning application.

Updates

This document is maintained by the Caradon Heritage Partnership. Comments should be addressed to CHP_secretary at caradon dot org dot uk.

PNJ, 2017-11-23. Transcribed from notes made at the meeting.