Autumn Newsletter 2010

Dear Members of the Carn Marth Trust

With a pang of guilt I realise that we haven't written a Carn Marth Newsletter for many months. In fact a whole year has flown by since the last Annual General Meeting of the Trust. We meet again this Thursday, the 21st of October, and I'd like to invite all our members to attend, and to help us shape the future of Carn Marth and the Carn Marth Trust. And there will be cake!

Meeting to be held on Thursday October 21st 2010 at
The School Room Carharrack Methodist Church at 7.30 p.m.

Another year on Carn Marth has provided us with the wonderful cycle of the seasons. Flocks of winter resident birds, including redwings and fieldfares, made up for the lack of flowers during the winter. In early spring the ravens were nesting and skronking across the sky. Our ponds were full of January frogspawn. Early spring flowers pushed through the frost, and snowbells, primroses, bluebells and daffodils brightened up the acid grassland of Trevarth Common.

Our resident cuckoo arrived again, and helped us enjoy some glorious late spring and early summer weather. The barbecue summer, that we were promised, never quite materialised, but the wildlife didn't seem to mind: foxgloves and ferns flourished in the hedgerows, our heathland rewarded us with vivid blooms of heather and gorse, meadows were full of tormentil and milkwort, and the star flower of the year was just that...a single star of bethlehem, seen one day and gone the next. The lake was full of bogbean, and the walls of Cathedral Quarry wore a cloak of royal ferns. Jackdaws nested on the quarry walls, while kestrels and sparrowhawk patrolled for prey on the skyline. In late summer we performed our final control of bracken on Trevarth Common, and enjoyed the view of a regenerating grassland. More work is required to prevent other weeds from taking the place of the bracken, but our vision is that an open grassland will be used by human visitors, and that this activity will be enough to maintain a wonderful space for picnics and play.

Our outdoor theatre enjoyed another year of success. Poor Juliet looked freezing cold while the warring families of Verona battled it out for our enjoyment...another fantastic play from Miracle Theatre. We also witnessed an impressive local production of Medusa the Celt, a story about the bravery and powerful mythology of the Celtic race, featuring a wonderful 'play within a play'. We also held our second Carn Marth Day, which drew a small but enthusiastic crowd to hear music from Overdrawn and Warblefly and to dance to local ceilidh music. We really bashed that bracken!

Currently our committee consists of the Chairman Dave Hodgson, Secretary Noreen Brosnan, Treasurer Keith Garner, Theatre Officer Miranda Parry, Ecologists Penny Hodgson, Cath Hill and Jim Curnow, and our Festival and Communications Officer Marion Curnow. Dave's term as Chairman is drawing to a close (can it really be three years already?), so we will vote for a new Chair at the AGM. Our committee is small but stable, but we always welcome new blood so please, if you feel like you can help us to look after our wonderful hill, please let us know.

Looking forward to 2011, we have big plans for Carn Marth! We are applying to several grant-giving organisations to help us to upgrade our theatre facilities, continue to manage the bracken, improve signage and access on the Carn, and to work on water drainage and biodiversity conservation. We will continue to invite university and school groups, and we will invite all members to help us tidy up the Carn after its more selfish visitors leave their rubbish behind them. Please, if you are one of those rubbish tippers, stop it! We'd much rather just enjoy the natural wonders of Carn Marth.

So, to finish this long overdue newsletter, I just want to say two things. First, Trust Carn Marth and join the Carn Marth Trust. Second, please come along to our AGM and help us shape the future!

See you at the AGM, and enjoy another wonderful year on Carn Marth!

Your Newsletter Editor