Board meeting 17th March 2025

Board Meeting held on the

17th March 2025 at 7:30pm

Kentallen and Duror Community Centre

Present:   Alan Young (AY); Alison Salmon (AMS); Alisdair Salmon (AGS); Paul Davies (PD); Campbell Thomson (CT); Jonathan Baxter (JB); Jonathan Dent (JD)

Via Teams: Liz Paul (LP); Richard Wilkie (RW); Karen Tant (KT); Robin Stopford (RS)

Apologies: Paul Williams (PW); Jennifer Bodde (JB)

Minute

Actions

Previous minutes

Proposed AGS, Seconded JB

Treasurer’s report

AMS shared the treasurers report by email. Report attached.

 Current balance £2227.29.

£272 is ringfenced for 100 club.

JB to try and identify somebody who will complete the external financial report check for free 

ACTION JB

Project updates:

An update was requested on the project plan summaries. CT to chase Jane Isacsson.

We agreed to record all individual hours we spend on MaCCOLL. AMS offered to create an on-line spreadsheet for recording hours for all MaCCOLL activities.

 ACTION AMS

Full reports below.

Marine survey

No report this month

Robotics: Adrian Ezard attended. See report below.

Salmon

KT advised that the river surveys will re-start in May.

Otters

JHB was not present.

Seagrass

Snorkel Guide Training

Four potential guides completed water based first aid training at iPowerboat, Kinlochleven. Richard Wilkie, Adrian Ezard, Lea Thomson, Campbell Thomson

‍Community Marine Conservation Meeting

Alisdair attended a Community Led Marine Protection meeting. The consensus was that there is little appetite for change at the current time. Another meeting will be organised.

AGS to send out report 

AOCB

Kickstarter

A decision was made to postpone any work on the interpretative panel. This means we can go ahead with the majority of the other items on the list. WE agreed to reduce the number of leaflets from 5000 to a more suitable number.

Leaflets and Banner: Going ahead Jennifer to organise with Becky Coope

Just giving selected for fundraising - Alison to arrange a QR code

Loch Abar Mor

LP, CT, JB and AGS met with Loch Abar Mòr (https://www.lochabarmor.scot) on Monday 17th March. They are a new organisation with access to funding and expertise who are looking for a couple of restoration projects to get involved with in Lochaber.  They were involved in creating the film "Riverwoods."

 It was agreed to pursue further. They will send us their Memorandum of understanding to look at and we will then arrange another meeting.

 They will send us a link to the film so that we show free of charge.

 Funding

Paul attended the National Lottery heritage fund meeting. PD to be the contact person and postpone our application.

Our application to the Fore was turned down. Ask for feedback

HIEF - PD, LP and CT to meet on Wednesday 26th March and complete application

A number of fundraising ideas were put forward.  Proposers to put forward more detailed proposals.

Loch Abar Mor

Salmon Day

Whist Drive

Race night

Bingo night

Knotweed 

RS and LP held a meeting with Peg Shaw of F&F.

The recommendation is that we should build a long-term strategy to manage the invasive species in an environmentally sympathetic way. Livestock can help contain if used at the early stages of the growing season.

It was suggested we have a bonfire on the beach

A knotweed location was provided by PS. Map to be sent out to steering board. 

PD, JB and AY highlighted this was a bigger issue than MaCCOLL.

Liz to identify individual in Highland Council to talk to regarding knot weed.

Dalnatrat Notice Board

Rob Coope has fixed the Dalnatrat notice board and provided us with the key.

The key is being kept held in the 100-club drum

Website

Minutes and project summaries to be added to website. Alison to speak to Mark

Letter to members

LP will write a letter for members

100 Club Draw

The winner was number 27 - Adrian Ezard.

Next Meeting

Board meeting

Monday 21st April 1930, Kentallen and Duror Community Centre

Meeting closed at 2100

‍

Salmon Project - KT

I was at SAMS and mentioned MaCCOLL’s salmon project. There is great interest in the project and they would very much like to hear of any “field” work where they might be able to participate.

Edward Mountain, MSP, Nature Champion for salmon called me back after I had popped into his constituency office in Inverness. He is also very interested in what MaCCOLL is doing and would like to be kept in the loop as to how the project is progressing.

He mentioned Bob Kindness to me. Bob is further north along the coast (need to look him up again) and has been growing wild salmon successfully to repopulate the local river. He won some awards earlier this year. I will perhaps see whether we can arrange to visit Bob to find out more about what he has been doing.

When I have the updated salmon project doc I will approach Jon Gibb of Lochaber Fisheries to inform them of what we want to do. And make contact with the Atlantic Salmon Trust.

We intend to resume the River Duror survey in May.