The Next Annual General Meeting 2007
Friday 16th March
At the Brian Whitehead Centre, Downton, Wiltshire.
AGM March 17th 2006
Orri Vigfusson, Trust Vice President, giving the assembled members and guests at the 14th Trust AGM an update on the goings-on on the international front with the NASF.
The Chairman's Statement to the meeting
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. I will try to be brief. Not easy with so much going on. A very warm welcome to you all at this, our 14th A G M. To our members, of course. We are nothing without you. To our friends and supporters, our partners and colleagues.
I am well aware that some of you have travelled a very long way to be with us, and after a hard weeks work. I think our Vice President, Orri still holds the record.. He has travelled from Iceland especially to be with us and is off to Copenhagen early tomorrow.
Readers of our newsletter, and there are some 450 out there somewhere, will know that we have invited a new Vice President onto our team and I too welcome founder member Hugh Miles to his first AGM in office. He too has travelled to be here - all the way from Verwood. I am sure you will endorse this valuable addition to our team.
I resolutely refuse to name names at this point. I have far too many senior moments to risk that, but I do spot colleagues from SWRA, Rivers Fowey, Camel, and Exe. The River Axe, Test & Itchen, and, of course the Avon - The Mudeford Fishermen’s Association, who have enabled such valuable research again last season, Bisterne and Winkton, Longford and the W F A from the head waters.
(A letter of support and continued close cooperation from the Mudeford Fishermen’s Association was read out)
Our RFERAC Chairman, The Environment Agency, C E H, English Nature. I am sure there are more? An attendance sheet is going the rounds. Please sign in, Then we will know.
Unable to be with us this evening are those sterling colleagues and supporters from Ireland Noel Carr of FISSTA and Niall Greene of ‘Stop Now’. I am sure they have other things on their minds at present, and I don’t just mean St Patricks’s Day! This is a critical time. Both send warm greetings, thanks and support for our continuing mischief in that quarter.
(A letter of support from Noel Carr of FISSTA was read out)
On a sad note we mourn the passing of Founder Member Dennis Herring who died in January, after a short illness, at the age of 90 years. As John Levell so aptly put it on the web site “Dennis and Barbara were the quintessential husband and wife salmon fishing partnership”. He fished at Somerley for over 30 years. Was ever a gentleman, generous with a fly or advice offered with his very dry sense of humour.
I used the word ‘supporters’. I do not use it lightly. Support comes in many forms. Of course our major sponsor, Tesco, whose core funding and ‘Swap a Salmon’ initiative, now entering it’s 12th year enables us to do so much of what we do. Trout in Schools, thrives with their funding and the invaluable help of Trafalgar Fisheries with their unstinting supply of brown trout ova, helping our valuable outreach to students in a growing number of schools. We hope this year to develop the project further.
Support in the form of information and guidance, a friendly word or an idea is also invaluable. You, our members, and above all, for me personally, my friends and colleagues on this committee. I say it every year, and I mean it every year. I thank them heartily on your behalf and my own for their support, their friendship, their very hard work, and their wisdom. They are the engine room.
What of the past twelve months. I wish I could stand here and tell you that we have made great strides in the restoration of our salmon or even little strides. I cannot. But it is not for the want of trying. The review process of the 1997 S A P which, early last year generated a vigorous process of consultation saw the formation of the Avon S A G. with all stakeholders participating. Then the reasons for not doing things began to emerge. I have to tell you that after twelve months the process has stalled. The February meeting of the group was cancelled. Apparently not enough had been achieved to be worth talking about. Oh; and there is to be a second generation national Salmon Management Plan. We do not want or need more plans. We need the objectives in the old plans to be achieved.
I wish I could tell you that there will be no Irish drift netting of our fish this year. I cannot. What a great day it would have been to do so. It is not all bad news.
Last July the EU Commission upheld the complaint we made in 2002 and warned the Irish of infringement proceedings. In November the Irish Government told the EU Commission that they would observe the Habitats Directive in every respect. Then they sacked the minister that said that. No loss on that score. In February the Irish Fisheries Boards managers told the National Salmon Commission that achievement of EU compliance was not possible whilst mixed stock fishing continued. It must cease. But not yet!The Standing Scientific Committee told the N S C exactly the same thing, but then went on to propose a mixed stock catch of 91,000 fish this year. That is just the legal catch. We must add the illegal catch and up to 30% seal predation. The Angling and tourism group on the NSC proposed a zero drift net catch for 2006 onwards. The Chairman, Joey Murrin, arbitrarily refused to allow the proposition. A much diluted compromise has gone forward for 91,000 fish, and an end to drift netting at the close of the 06 season. Good news? Not a bit of it. 2007 is Ireland’s general election year. Can you imagine the election posters in the west? Vote for me and I will put all the netsmen and support services out of business. The game is called spoof. I have been in touch with both Ireland and Brussels today. There is no news on the ministers decision. He has but a few days left. We will not give up.
I cannot over emphasise the value and importance of the whole team that are on this case. Some of them are here, and they are also in Ireland and Northern Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, America and Canada, and yes, ex parti, I believe, in Brussels. NASF, FISSTA, Stop Now. We are just one player in a very big game.
What else.
Your committee have determined to take a much more holistic view of the rivers and their problems. We consider that all the species in the river are vital, and some perhaps more quickly sensitive to the effects of pollution, gender benders, herbicides, pesticides, enzymes, pheromones. Need I go on? We have recruited additional expert, committee members to strengthen the committee and enable this development and will seek their confirmation later. None of this dilutes by one iota our focus upon the dire state of our salmon.
All the usual meetings. I am on my last term on RFERAC.
We nominated Pete Reading to fill a coarse fishing vacancy on that committee but learn that he was not accepted by the Agency. Their loss.
I attend as many S W R A council meetings as I can where we are, as associate members, given a good hearing and where we can learn a great deal Would that we had such shared and comprehensive enthusiasm on this river. Our friends in the south west, like us, are not without their problems both technically and administratively.
The EU Water Framework Directive process is underway.
Unbelievably under the Directive, we are artificially placed into the same River Basin management as the western upland rivers such as the Fowey and Camel, Dart, Taw and Exe. A stupid decision to suit some bureaucratic preference I guess obviously made by someone who does not understand that we sit on the same aquifer as the Test, Itchen and rivers eastwards. I think you guys are in for a crash course on chalk streams.
John Levell has developed his superb WSRT web site and I commend it to you. We want your input to that site. Look at the Avon Diary in the news section. Look at the projects. Contribute. Fantastic John.
Research, CAMS, Avon CFMP, Low flow group, weed cutting, we try to take part and influence all these and more. John Levell will speak more on this.
And just to show off a bit; we have won two awards. The first, The SWRA Stewart Gardiner award for conservation and more recently the A R T award for our "Outstanding Contribution to the Rivers Trust Movement".
So what is coming? Canoe access? Gyrodactylus salaris from Norwegian and other imports? An environment minister who said "When we have got rid of all the other blood sports there is still the House of Commons". The appalling decision to close the Winfrith C E H facilities and others, in the face of 1,300 informed objections. We shall continue to fight all of these on your behalf.
Are you a member. If not application forms are on the table. Just £10 p.a. Are we not worth it?
I will, at last, yield the floor to John. Please save any questions to the informal session.
Thank you.
AGM March 18th 2005
On the left, Trust Vice President Orri Vigfusson addressing the meeting. Centre, Christine Twitchen displaying the star attraction of the auction the wonderful cased production of the "Avon Eagle" tied by husband Mike with the art work by Christine. On the right the presentation of a silver salmon to Keith Elson who is retiring from the committee after more than a decade of championing the Wessex rivers.
AGM 2001
The Top Table
From the left Orri Vigfusson (NASF chairman) John Slader (WSRT treasurer) Brian Marshall (WSRT chairman) The Earl of Normanton (WSRT president) and John Levell (WSRT vice-chairman)