Paul Hadaway of the White Cliffs Countryside Project and Lisa Barrett-Smith from the Dover Museum gave an interesting talk on the above. The Coalfields Heritage Initiative led by Dover Museum aims to assist local communities to record and celebrate their mining heritage through two avenues. The first is the preparation of a community archive, comprised of photographs, documents, text stories, oral reminiscences and video clips. The second is to develop a ‘Miners Way’ trail focusing on the old Coalfield sites and the surrounding countryside, which will be accessible to walkers, cyclists and horse riders. If anyone has any records, artefacts, or memories of the Kent Coalfields which they would be willing to share Lisa would be delighted to hear from you. Telephone 01304 216883.

Last year at this meeting Councillor Holt announced that he would not stand for the position of Chairman again and I was elected to the post at the Parish Council AGM. Cllr Holt did however agree to accept the nomination for vice-chairman and agreed also to look after finance and planning and I thank him for his help over the year.

During the year we managed to co-opt Mrs Rebecca Hammond and Mr Andy Tee thus making a full council which has continued to increase its activities by attending more meetings in the district to make certain that the parish obtains it’s fair share of any benefits or information that may be available. In addition we have been active within the village with the following:-

Pond and Playground – we managed to obtain a further SRB grant which allowed us to replace the fence along Holt Street next to the Playground and add two picnic tables donated by the Beechgrove Community plus a new waste bin and notices (kindly make by Steve Finnis). Safety regulations have forced us into planning to replace the swings and slide over the next 4 years and we have had to increase the precept to achieve this.

Footpaths – our footpaths continue to be walked regularly by the same committed group and sign

Green Day – a successful Parish clean-up day was organised by Cllr Craggy on the 12 March and was supported by approximately 40 volunteers..

Trafalgar Day – The Parish Council has agreed to co-operate with the Jubilee Committee and other organisations in the village to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar. The Parish Council will run a firework display on the Saturday night on Fredville Park. The money to

ificant improvements have been achieved particularly with those, which cross Beechgrove. These have been made possibly by the efforts of Melvyn Twycross (KCC) and the good co-operation of the Beechgrove Community.

Affordable Housing – The initial efforts of Ron Player led the Council to invite the Rural Housing Trust to give us an outline of their work. This resulted in the Parish Council deciding to co-operate with the RHT in an attempt to provide lower cost housing within the village for those in need. Some sites for building have now been identified and are currently being investigated with the landowners and the DDC.  cover the costs will be raised at the auction being run at the school on the 30^th April, and a raffle over the summer months.

Tuesday Group, Dolphins

Nonington Website, Badminton Club

St Mary’s Church, Nonington Playgroup

Baptist Chapel, Village Hall Committee