Fairlight History Group
6th Annual General Meeting held, Wednesday 26th February 2025 at 2.30pm at Fairlight Village Hall
Present: The retiring committee:
Haydon Luke – Chairman,
Paul Draper – Secretary and Treasurer
Liz Green – Membership Secretary,
Karen Draper, Julie Marshall, Debbie Jones and Pauline Collins
Plus 29 other members.
Welcome:- Haydon acted as Chairman and welcomed all to the meeting.
Apologies for absence:- Paul announced apologies for absence on behalf of Bill O’Reilly
Approval of Minutes of 5th AGM. Draft Minutes were available for inspection at the meeting. Haydon asked if the meeting approved the Minutes. The Minutes were approved.
Chairman’s report:- Haydon presented the Chairman’s report:
Welcome to the sixth FHG AGM. I am delighted to report that the 2024 year for our group was again highly successful.
As has become my custom, but no less heartfelt for that, I want to begin my review of 2024 with two sets of thanks:
• First to the committee: During the past year, the committee comprised of Paul, Karen, Pauline, Julie, Liz, Debbie and myself. Members of the committee have worked so hard throughout the year not only in committee meetings but constantly in the background doing lots of mundane but important jobs ensuring that our meetings and events ran smoothly. Formally, the committee met monthly to manage the year and prepare for the future.
• Secondly, thanks to you, the members, who have continued to attend meetings, support our activities and share your interest in and enthusiasm for, all aspects of local history. The FHG is only as strong as you enable us to be. Membership has remained strong and we continue to see new faces joining our group.
It is customary at an AGM to look forward as well as back and at this point I want to make a plea. We need new blood. The existing committee has been pretty much unchanged since the FHG began and now Pauline is standing down. We really need to recruit two new committee members to help share the load – and if one of those was someone willing and able to take over as treasurer, that would be even better. We are a congenial group and the monthly committee meetings are always enlivened with plenty of discussion and ideas and well supplied with refreshments. So when the moment comes for nominations, please don’t hold back.
As you will have seen, the new year’s programme is now out and we hope we have devised a programme of talks and events for the year which you will find interesting, rewarding and satisfying. The list has been circulated to you all and is on the website. But please note that we have already had to make two rearrangements from the draft originally circulated, so please make sure you put the most recent version in your diary or planner.
As to future meetings, we are always open to suggestions for talks, visits or activities. If there is something you’d be keen for us to see, do or have a talk on, please tell us what you would like.
Our website continues to be popular. The number of hits it receives is steadily increasing and we continue to respond to all queries received via the website. Particular thanks are due to Karen and to Bill O’Reilly for overseeing this first-class resource. Remember the address – https://fairlighthistory.co.uk/ . We want to keep adding to it with more pictures, stories, reminiscences etc. If you have any contributions you would like to put on the site, please contact Karen.
One function of the group is to promote active research and investigation into all aspects of our local history. That is what led Paul’s and my paths to cross many years ago but although we continue to research all aspects of Fairlight with new material emerging all the time it is not our private preserve. We would like to see other members actively undertaking local research and sharing their findings with the group. And of course we are very willing to offer help and guidance to any other members who would like to do that.
Looking back at 2024 I hope you will agree that we had an interesting and varied programme which included a mixture of talks by our own members and by visiting speakers one of whom brought a fascinating collection of ancient guns and muskets for us to examine. Visitor numbers frequently exceeded 50, peaking at 60 for one talk. We also managed, at last, to go on our visit to the Dymchurch Martello Tower and had a fascinating private lecture/tour. Stimulated by the energies of Steve Green and Bill Pocock two historic folk music sessions were sponsored at the Cove pub resurrecting events from Fairlight’s earlier past and evoking memories of a time when The Hayloft was a vital part of the local music scene. In another joint venture, with the FRA, we also mounted an extensive exhibition in October celebrating Fairlight before Fairlight Cove.
As I have said before one of the aims in wanting to set up a local history group was to respond to the knowledge that bits of the past are slipping away from us and we need to make a determined effort to catch onto those before they are gone forever. We were thinking not only of family memories, personally remembered accounts of things from the past, but also tangible remains – photos, letters, deeds, scrapbooks, farm papers – all sorts of ephemera which provide so much detail about the past. That remains very much part of our mission.
The determination to do something about memories and reminiscences led us 3 years ago to set up our oral history project for which we gained welcome financial support from the Parish Council. So popular have been the publications associated with this venture that they have sold out even including one reprint. I am glad to say that Karen, Paul, Liz and Debbie are continuing the venture and would be glad to initiate additional recruits into the process with the aim of further publication. But I have to confess that our other publication project to publish some booklets covering particular local history topics such as a history of St Andrew’s Church, the wartime years including RAF Fairlight, the Lucas-Shadwell family, Fairlight Place and an account of the development of Fairlight Cove itself has again ‘slipped’.
This was largely due to the pressure of time created by the successful completion of the village War Memorial project of which the FHG is proud to have been a prime mover.
Your committee is also keen to continue to work with other local groups with an interest in exploring and/or preserving local history, for example the Hastings Area Archaeological Research Group (HAARG) and the Archive and Resource Centre (ARC).
After the formal part of the meeting we will be showing by popular demand some early movie film of Fairlight in the immediate post-war period. This is material lodged in the Southeast Screen Archive by the Gowlland family who, between 1947 and 1950 holidayed in Fairlight at Windover. The father’s enthusiasm for amateur cine enables us to look through a very poignant window into the past. Additionally, we met two of the children and were able to copy their photograph albums.
For the FHG and the future our continuing aspiration is that we will promote an interest in all aspects of local history in Fairlight and the surrounding area and in so doing meet the needs and interests you have expressed and that consequently you will want to renew your membership which remains a bargain at £10 p.a. This is unchanged since day one of the FHG. How many organisations can claim that these days!
Finally, as always, if you have ideas or suggestions for future talks or sessions, please let us know. The FHG will strive to fulfil your expectations.
And now it is time to move on through the agenda and so we proceed to the Treasurer’s report. Paul is now acting as Hon. Treasurer in addition to his role as Hon. Secretary, so, as mentioned before, we would welcome a volunteer to take over as Hon. Treasurer.
Treasurer’s report :- Paul presented the report.
We started the year with £2,613.30 and were pleased to finish with £3,691.80. Income was generated by £1,055.00 memberships, £87.00 temporary memberships and a further £172.00 booklet sales. The figures contain a total of £600.00 Parish Council grants, being £200.00 from 2023 and £400.00 from 2024. Haydon has already explained our reasons for not yet utilising these funds. We will press on with the projects during the year. Expenses included £190.00 for speakers, £125.00 in associated donations, £269.00 Village Hall hire, £82.50 for equipment and booklet printing. Total website fees remained at £49.00. The accounts have been audited as at the end of 2024 by Diana Hill who has signed them off as a correct and accurate record. The accounts may be reviewed by any member and are available here at the front of the hall. Diana was thanked. Haydon asked the members if they agreed to accept the accounts as presented. Proposed |Ken Hatch and seconded David Penfold.
Election of Committee members:- Haydon advised the members present that, in accordance with the FHG Constitution, all Committee members must resign and offer themselves for re-election, if they wish to continue. Six Committee members, Haydon, Paul, Karen, Julie, Debbie and Liz offered themselves for re-election, but Pauline did not stand again. Haydon thanked Pauline for her service since 2019. Haydon proposed that the six be put up for re-election together. The members agreed and the six were re-elected. In addition, Cas Barlow had put her name forward for the Committee. This was proposed and agreed by the members. Haydon then asked if any other member present wished to stand for any position on the
Committee at which point Ken Hatch volunteered. Again the members agreed the proposal. The eight names to form the committee for the next twelve months were put to the members. Proposed Mick Jones and seconded Maureen Sinden. Haydon declared the new Committee as duly elected.
Nomination of Auditor:- Diana Hill has agreed to act again as our Auditor. This was agreed by the members.
Any Other Business:- Members were asked for questions under Any Other Business.
Keith Miller asked if an email he had recently received from the FHG website had been generated normally. Karen explained that she had conducted an update of the members and emails on the website and this automatically generated a message
Close of meeting:- There being no further business, Haydon declared the formalities of the 6th AGM closed at 2.50pm.
Following the formalities, Haydon put on a display of material from the Gowlland family. The family visited Fairlight from their home in Croydon, from 1947 to 1950 and beyond. The father was a keen photographer and took cine footage and photographs. Haydon had obtained a copy of the cine footage with permission from Screen Archive Southeast and Paul had copied the family photograph albums. The members were shown a combined presentation of both. Many questions were asked.
There then followed extended conversations with all our members present, over tea and biscuits.
Prepared by Paul Draper, Secretary
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Signed as a true record of the meeting, Haydon Luke, Chairman
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