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It may be belated, but Happy New Year for 2007 to all of you nevertheless . Our first 9 months as an organisation have been particularly hectic- forming an Executive Committee, creating project groups under willing (!) volunteers as group leaders, ensuring that we kept an eye on our Business Plan - and monitoring that we were delivering against it - and recruiting members. It would be fair to say that all of us involved in Yore Vision have attained a great deal of knowledge particularly about our community, project management, marketing a new organisation and promoting what we are all about to all our stakeholders in this area and beyond. We have all learned a lot, which was one of the key objectives that Yorkshire Forward set us and all market town partnerships as we started our journey. Our MBED facilitator, Lee Corner, will be leading the Executive Committee and our support officers from the regeneration team from Harrogate Borough council through a more formal evaluation process later in the spring so that we capture all this learning. I am particularly pleased that we start 2007 with almost 40 members, which is fantastic news, and I would like to welcome all of these new recruits to the organisation. What is particularly rewarding is that we have members now from communities the length and breadth of the Lower Ure Valley and not just from the main communities around Boroughbridge. One of the principles we wanted to embed in our mission is that people joined as individuals, rather than formally representing other organisations and teams and we are achieving this; it is also clear from our new recruits that they bring a wealth of talents that will assist Yore Vision in some of the project work that we are currently undertaking. I mentioned in my last column, that one of the groups quietly getting on with things has been our Walks Group, which has been extremely well supported by people from various communities and led by our Deputy Chair, Keith Scott from Great Ouseburn. They are putting together a series of walks across the Yore Vision area – one set is focused around some of our local history and is entitled “Yore Walks In Time” which is quite an eye-catching theme around walks focused on the literary history of the Lower Ure Valley. Another set is aimed at the creation of a circular walk from Westwick Lock to Aldwark Bridge; working with colleagues from parishes on the east bank of the River Ure in Aldwark and Mytton, in particular, the group are actively meeting with landowners and other stakeholders, including NYCC, to discuss ways of making this idea into a reality. There’s even talk of a new bridge across the Ure but more on that another time! Between now and June, each of our current projects are formalising their business plans and funding applications for Yorkshire forward and other funding bodies. We are working with colleagues in Renaissance Knaresborough to jointly attend the “Meet the Funder” day at King James’s School in K’boro on Tuesday 13th February – this will allow some of our project leaders and their groups the opportunity to meet with potential funders and discuss possible applications. It is a great idea and my thanks to Peter Crossley from HBC and others for all their hard work in pulling the concept together. One final note – I put my e-mail address at the end of this column so that people can touch base on anything to do with Yore Vision. Please feel free to let me know what you think of our plans and aspirations. Equally, if you are not in a position to e-mail, write to me c/o our registered office, which is Boroughbridge Community Office, I Hall Square BOROUGHBRIDGE YO51 9 AN
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