Minutes of the meeting held on:

(See minutes of business meeting held on 22/11/2010 here).

C.COUNCIL MEETING: 1. Present: Fife Councillors M Scott-Hayward (MS-H) and E Riches (ER); Community Council members Keith Birkenshaw(KB), Janice Furness (JF), John Kilgour (JK), Napier Russell (NR), Peter de Wolff (PdW); also L Haines, A Jarrett, C Kilgour, P Kushner (PK), B McQueen, L Matthews (LM), L Ogilvie, W Roger, R Simpson, R Spencer.

Apologies : P Duncan, L Roger

1. Cllr M S-H opened the meeting by thanking the old committee for its efforts, congratulating the new committee on their appointment, emphasising the importance of their role and overseeing the appointment of office bearers: PdW was elected as Chairman, JF as Secretary and JK as Treasurer. Vice Chairman to be decided later. There are still three vacancies. He hoped the committee would meet on a Tuesday early in the month so that all three Fife councillors were likely to be free to attend.
PdW took the chair and said that though he felt he would be learning as he went along, he was convinced that small circles achieved most. JK reiterated our thanks to the outgoing committee for all their work.

2. Minutes of the previous meeting Tues 4 October: JF read these out; R Simpson proposed and L Matthews seconded that they be accepted as an accurate record.

3. Matters arising:
3.1. Foot Bridge at Dunino: P Kushner reported that A Roger will order the steel and anticipates two days’ work, total price £1900. This will not cover removing the old bridge, for which extra cost would be involved. He had looked at the trees with D McQueen and realised it was more work than anticipated, probably several days, so should also be paid. The quote from S Johnston for the bankings had been extortionate and in his opinion would be a waste of money. The bridge is on a solid rock foundation but some of the walls need attention and B Lowe might be able to help. M S-H said if we needed more money we should be quick in applying to the Community Fund. PK will get a price and send it to JK by the end of the week so that he can do this. PdW knows someone who might cut down trees for less – he will approach him. It was agreed the work should proceed.

3.2 New Notice Board: JF congratulated PK on the superb new notice board, now complete, but expressed reservations that the university should have funded this, as it could be seen as compromising debate on the wind farm proposals. M S-H agreed the reservations were justified and recommended recording in these minutes our grateful acceptance of their contribution but that it was without any commitment on the part of the Community Council.

3.3 Kenly Wind Farm: The university is thought to be close to submitting a planning application. Much discussion followed: whatever personal views members may hold, the Community Council must represent the views of the whole community; to do so they must know what these views are, and how best to ascertain this; anyone with any possible personal interest must declare this before discussion starts; agendas must be circulated in good time, so that people have time to think about the issues and get to the meeting; any CC member observing university wind farm meetings should take notes and these should be circulated to the community with CC minutes.

To reach as many people as possible we should establish who needed hard copy of the minutes and who had email (JF to ask L Roger for her contacts list). LM pointed out that photocopying was a major expense so email should be used as much as possible in preference to hard copy; since a prime role of the CC was to communicate we could possibly put aside extra funds for ‘communication’ while the wind farm application was being dealt with; the Citizen will print minutes, and this might be a very good way of reaching everyone; minutes will as before be displayed in the notice board.

ER thought we should wait till an application was actually lodged before canvassing opinion. Any survey would have to be very carefully worded in order to be completely impartial. A CC member should be put on Fife Council’s list to have all planning applications sent to him/her each week in order to be able to respond immediately and say the CC wished to be consulted – if any application were lodged that might be controversial the CC must make sure it is consulted.

M S-H said the university were probably not obliged to give the results of their wind speed survey. Applications can only be objected to on planning grounds. It is not a simple for or against question, there were imponderables such as possible compensation to home owners whose houses dropped in value as a result, and possible financial benefits to the community.

The university seem never to respond to questions on costings, but if they don’t then we don’t get a full picture.
The discussion was concluded by PdW: our aim is to promote intelligent debate; the wind farm is an important issue and any member of the community with strong views either way should let the CC know, and come to meetings; for now we can only collect information then discuss it, once the application is lodged and we know just what is planned we could have another open meeting. The university should at least be aware that the issue is a contentious one, that the community is discussing it and that its views must be taken into account.

The committee will arrange a small business meeting in the next ten days or so to look at these various suggestions and decide how best to proceed. The CC want to know community opinions on windfarms, in general and specifically the Kenly proposal, so please will community members take part in the discussions!

3.4. Skiff Project: This East Neuk project is becoming a Scotland-wide one. The skiff is a four-person rowing boat, the St Ayles Skiff, built by Alec Jourdan of Kirkcaldy, and the aim is for all six East Neuk villages to have one and to take part in a regatta and races at Anstruther each May. It has been publicised in the Courier. Each would cost about £3000 so much fund-raising would be required. Crail have already raised £1000 towards theirs. PK is considering possibilities.

3.5. Beach Clean-Up: PdW said we should get Dunino primary school involved in the Spring clean-up. The time needs to be looked at again to see when we could get the most helpers. Fairmont did not take part in the last one.

4. AOCB:
4.1. Mrs Wilson’s bench has been scraped down and oiled, cost £50.

4.2. St Andrews and District Neighbourhood Watch Group had sent papers relating to their next AGM on 16 November, and Fife Neighbourhood Watch had asked to volunteers for trustees. It is hoped one of the committee will represent us.

4.3. JF asked whether there had been any progress on the idea of switching off street lighting in the small hours. EF said Fife were gradually replacing all street lights and the new ones would automatically dim between midnight and 5am.

5. Date of next meeting: Tuesday 11 January 2011. (7 December was proposed at the meeting, but found to be impossible as the hall is already booked then for the church coffee evening. 11 January is the second Tuesday of the month, but normally meetings will be on the first Tuesday of alternate months: 1 March, 3 May, 5 July, 6 September and 1 November 2011.

Boarhills and Dunino Community Council Members Meeting to allocate jobs and organise procedure 7.30pm Monday 22 November 2010 at Kenly Green

Present: J Furness (JF), J Kilgour (JK), N Russell (NR), P de Wolff (PdW).

Apologies: K Birkenshaw

1. Meeting frequency, date for next meeting: It was agreed to hold meetings bi-monthly. The next will be, as an exception, the second Tuesday of January, but thereafter always the first Tuesday. Dates for 2011 are therefore: 11 January, 1 March, 3 May, 5 July, 6 September and 1 November. JF to book hall and open up.

2. Agenda for 11 January:

. Apologies

. Footbridge at Dunino

. Old notice board

. Kenly wind farm

. Skiff project

. Beach clean up - date for

. Reports from meetings attended

. Committee job allocation

. Vacancies to fill

. AOCB

3. Committee job allocation:

a) Notification of planning applications from Fife Council - JK

b) St Andrews and District Neighbourhood Watch Group - NR

c) Website update - PdW to contact F Raeside

d) East Neuk Landward Community Council Forum - V Kilgour will continue representing us there and reporting back. These minutes will be displayed on notice board too.

e) St Andrews Green Belt Forum - JK will attend meetings where agenda relevant to Boarhills.

f) Possible renewable energy sub-committee: It was agreed JK approach Kingsbarns with a view to joining their investigations into renewable energy. We might invite David Stutchfield to talk on this.

g) Community database for communication. JF will forward to JK the list of email addresses sent by L Roger and he will send round the minutes.

4. Communication within the community: Minutes of meetings and the agenda of the next meeting will be displayed on the new notice board, those whose email addresses are known will be sent a copy by email, and JF will send minutes to The Citizen for puiblication. The minutes will be published unapproved in order to avoid lengthy delays. The committee will look at ways of gauging opinion in connection with the wind farm application being prepared by the university.

5. New members of the community council: There are three vacancies and applications are being sought. Anyone interested should contact the committee.

6. AOCB: Speeding: The 20 mile limit in Dunino is regularly exceeded. Police have used speed cameras once a week and locals have been asked to take registration numbers of offenders and notify police. There is a similar problem with excessive speed through Boarhills when Crail races are on.