Very sorry for:

a) sending last month’s missive from my Parish church e-mail account
b) relocating Merlin’s Cave to Chalfont St Peter
c) failing so far to update the website with August 1st’s data

A good month:

a) Played Gerrards Cross golf course for the first time last week and was pleased to note water still in the river crossing the 1st and 18th fairways, and to avoid putting my ball into either stretch. Even without today’s rain, flow has just kept going through The Chalfonts despite past data suggesting it would not. It’s an interesting – exciting? – situation.

b) It was great to have “volunteers” from Freemantle Media UK working with us for their “Back to the Community” day on 19th and to tackle with them our first sizeable project in Amersham. We cleared and disposed of an enormous amount of overgrowth and overhanging trees from the path and river immediately downstream of Town Mill in Mill Lane to the delight of many regular walkers and, I hope, river flora and fauna which now have some more light.

c) Another good day yesterday continuing clearance around the end of Silsden Meadow, CStG, and on to the sheep field. This continued our efforts in July and there is now a relatively short section to join up this Saturday and complete that reach for this season.

e) a pleasant visit to Merlin’s Cave for “not-a-meeting” last night and an opportunity for those who’d not been before to see not only the interior refurbishment but also how the garden now slopes right down to the river.

Future notes:

a) Some of the chat last night revolved around the fact that, after 6 happy years, our insurers have now decided we must have a constitution! Hopefully this will not result in any changes to our work and culture. There should be a draft for your comment next month – be assured we don’t intend to commence extracting a membership fee.

b) This note also acts as “2nd Bell” for this Saturday 29th work party from 9.30 to 12.30. Currently quite low on numbers and hoping to hear from a few more of you before sending out the orders of the day on Friday afternoon.

c) Chalfont St Giles Show is on Saturday 5th September. Please could we have a few more volunteers to watch the stall for a while, chat to visitors and encourage new members. Cheryll and I cannot be there during the middle of the day. RSVP. The invertebrate monitoring team will be providing a display of their work to show off, complete with real, live creepy crawlies.

d) Midweek gang will be out again next month on Wednesday 23rd September – please let me know if you can join them

e) Next standard work party (after this Saturday of course) will be Sunday 4th October – please let me know if you can join us.

f) Next “not-a-meeting” at The Greyhound on Thursday October 1st at 7.45 p.m.

g) Finally and importantly, our Annual Dinner. Thursday 10th December is suggested but I haven’t booked yet to see how many of you come back by, say end next week, with “would love to come but clashes with Golf Club/Yoga Group/etc. Christmas do”. If several, I will float another date. If the date does work for you, it would be good to have an indication from now.