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SNIPPETS

GATHERING STONES FOR IRELAND

As part of the Dry Stone Walling Association of Ireland's "Gathering of Stones" (see http://dswaireland.ning.com/page/the-gathering-of-stones) the North Wales Branch in conjunction with Ffestiniog Railway and Anglesey Borough Council has donated two stones to be included in an installation to be built in County Offaly. As part of the Irish celebrations Sean Adcock (who is transpoting the stones to Ireland) will be giving a presentation as part of the associated "Stones and Stories" event in Cloughjordan,County Tipperary on Saturday 15th June.

Gathering a stone for the Irish festival at Holyhead Breakwater Quarry.

Details of the event and more photos here.

BBC RADIO WALES

In may Sean was interviewed for a whole three and half minutes about the Stonework Booklet for "Country Focus". Much to Sean's relief its not possible to 'catch-up' on line, or to be able to stream it here.

TRAILERS

Both branches have recently splashed out on box trailers to store and transport show materials etc. The South Wales Branch have a brand new shiny Ifor Williams thanks to a generous grant from The Brecon Beacons Trust. Up north its all second hand, from funds. The South Wales trailer made a fine backdrop to the display at the RWAS Spring festival (Photos left). Below you can see both trailers during the set up.

BILINGUAL DSWA CLAWDD SPECIFICATION

Following the publication of Codi Cloddiau/Clawdd Construction last year the North and Mid Wales Trunk Road Agency agreed to provide generous funding towards a revised and expanded version of the out of print DSWA bilingual clawdd specification. This will is now available as a 12pp A5 leaflet. Send a sae to Sean Adcock, 2 Bryn Eithin, waen, Penisarwaun, caernarfon. LL55 3PW. The leaflet is available as a .pdf in English or Welsh with a separate bilingual specification drawing.

WELSH LANGUAGE CRAFTSMAN CERTIFICATION SCHEME LEAFLET

The Welsh Branches have just produced a Welsh language version of the CCS leaflet in memory of Master craftsman Gareth Pritchard. This can be obtained from the branch secretaries or downloaded as a .pdf from here the pdf doesn't include the application form which can be downloaded (as can the leaflet) from the publications page

FESTIVE GREETINGS TO ALL

Seasonal greetings on behalf of the committees of the North and South Wales Branches. We hope you have a prosperous 2013, and come and join us at least one of the many events we'll be running. To mark the occasion a new Ar y Wal can be found hot off the keyboard, on the left...

NEW COMMITTEES

OUT WITH THE OLD IN WITH THE... OLD

Both branches have had AGMs on 7th November and the respective committees have been re-elected for another year, with one minor change. The Committees are as shown:

SOUTH

Chairman: Ceri Jenkins

Secretary: Brian Lock

Treasurer: Nigel Spiers.

COMMITTEE: Martin Rathbone, Martyn Jones, Toby Small, Hywell Griffiths, Andy Smith.

NORTH

Chairman: Geraint Evans

Secretary: Sean Adcock

Treasurer: Colin Brown

Training Officer: Paul Smyth. North East representative: Craig Evans

AGM MINUTES

Minutes of AGMs are now available in the Newsletter/Stonechat section of this page

Completed Events 2013

February 9/10/12 Clawdd wall construction, Eugene, Oregon

February 18 Presentation, "Dry Stone Walling in North Wales". Cozmic Pizza, Eugene, Oregon.

March 13 NWales Branch meeting preceded by Presentation "Inscriptions on the Landscape" A look at

the best of dry stone walls and structures around Britain and Ireland. Pensychnant

Conservation Centre, Conwy.

March 23/24 Welsh Branch Get Together/ Forum Aberystwyth

March 23 Taster day, Glandyfi, Machynlleth.

March 27 Presentation "Inscriptions on the Landscape", St.Davids Church, Rhiw Rd.,Colwyn Bay.

April 3rd S Wales Branch meeting Brecon RFC

April 13-14th Training & members weekend Libanus Brecon

April 27 Taster day, Moel Famau, Mold

April 29-May 3 Training Course for Coleg Llandrillo Menai, Rhoscolyn

May 18/19 Stand at Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, Spring Festival, Builth Wells.

May 25 Taster day, Pensychnant, Conwy

June 1/2 Training course for Snowdonia Society, Pensychnant Conservation Centre.

June 7 Social meal with Otley and Yorkshire Dales Branch, Carrog.

June 7/8/9 OYD @ Corwen. Continuation of repair of orchard wall, Plas Derwen, Corwen.

June 8 Barbecue, Plas Derwen, Corwen.

June 15 Presentation "An idiosyncratic look at emigrant walling" part of Stones and Stories weekend,

Cloughjordan, County Tipperary, Eire.

June 20-23 Display, The Gathering of Stones, Lough Boora, County Offaly, Eire. Further details of

event http://dswaireland.ning.com/

June 22-23th S Wales Training & members weekend

June 29 Taster day, Moel Famau, Mold

July 3rd S Wales Branch Meeting Brecon RFC

July 5 Social meal with Cheshire Branch, Bryn Tyrch, Capel Curig.

July 6&7 Cheshire Branch on Tour. Repairing single skin milking pen, with Cheshire Branch. Blaen y

Nant, Nant Ffrancon.

July 6 Barbecue, Blaen y Nant. 7pm.

July 22-5 Royal Welsh Show demonstration

July 27 Taster day, Blaen y Nant, Bethesda

July 28 Stand at Eryrys Vintage gathering (Tractor Show)

August 10th Vaynor show walling competition

August 13-15th Pembrokeshire show

August 15 Stand at Denbigh and Flint Show.

September 4 N Wales Branch meeting preceded by Presentation "An American Oddysey" What happens

when someone from North Wales is let loose on the stone of Canada and USA.

Pensychnant Conservation Centre, Conwy.

September 7&8 Training Course, Moel Famau, Mold

September 14-15th Training & members weekend venue TBC

September 28&29 Training Course Pensychnant, Conwy

Sept 30th-4thOct Certification course venue TBC

October 23 Presentation "Stonechat and Standards" - a look at Stonechat magazine and Stonework

booklet. Stone Foundation Symposium. Sante Fe, New Mexico.

November 6 NWales AGM Foelas Arms Pentrefoelas

SWales AGM Whitehouse, Sennybridge

A Review of North Wales Branch Activities in 2013

This is an amended and updated version of the secretary's report given to the 2013 AGM

2013 saw a drop off in membership with only 16 members by the year end, although 4 new mto barely sustainable levels. The new format of holding meetings alongside talks at Pensychnant could not be said to be a resounding success, with limited attendance. There are no plans to formally extend this experiment in 2014.

Press coverage was as usual primarily through the Daily Post, although the Cambrian News had picked up on the Glandyfi event. Taking the stones from Holyhead and Ffestiniog Railway to the Irish gathering of Stones had created some interest. The committee has decided to pay for a license to include some of the Daily Post articles on the website, however sorting this license has proved problematic.

2013 saw training levels back where they belong! We held 5 tasters and 2 weekend courses (26 trainees, 42 trainee days), this was 2 tasters more than 2012. Whilst total days increased by less than 30% (from 7 to 9) from 2012, attendance was almost exactly 50% higher overall. We also ran another weekend course for the Snowdonia Society (8 trainees, 16 trainee days) and a new venture a week long course for students from the stonemasonry/carving course at Coleg Llandrillo Menai, Llangefni (7 trainees, 35 trainee days). This met with mixed success as not all the students were committed. The site was privately funded and the course is unlikely to be repeated unless another self financing site can be found. A total of 93 trainee days spread between 41 individuals. For the third consecutive year no members had attended the tasters/courses as practice days.

We once again hosted OYD@ Corwen, and Cheshire -this time on a new single skin project repairing a milk pen at Blaen y Nant, numbers, with evening socials and BBQs at both events. Numbers were again down slightly. The all wales get-together was poorly attended , although the associated taster day was well attended. A total of 14 people completing 24 practice days, slightly down on 2012.

A trailer was purchased at the beginning of the (financial) year, and has been sign-written and kitted out and has hauled display equipment and a couple of stones) around North wales (and much of Ireland). Attendance at events/shows this year was maintained whilst we were unable to commit to the Greenfield Valley Open day, the display was present at the DSWA of Ireland's Gathering of Stones (4 days). We were present alongside the South Wales Branch for both days of the RWAS Spring festival at Builth, and once more had a presence at the Eryrys tractor event, and the Flint Show. As usual we made a small contribution to the stand at the Royal Welsh Show.

The standards promotion continued, again helped with funding from progressed dramatically North (and now Mid) Wales Trunk Road Agency, with the revamping of the out of print DSWA Clawdd Specification leaflet The new version is a bilingual 12pp a5 leaflet based on the old spec and new drawings and information in "Clawdd Construction". The Welsh Branches also joined together (plus the last of the Gareth Pritchard Memorial funds) to produce a Welsh only version of the Craftsman Certification scheme leaflet. All leaflets are available online in the publications section of this site. Hard copies are available from the secretary.

Support for Stonechat continues to slip and sadly it has been decided that there seems little point in trying to extent publication beyond the current cycle (29, 30, 31).

There were more talks/presentations with 8 in total including the 2 at Pensychnant. Others were at Porthmadog, Preston, and Bae Colwyn, Eugene (Oregon) Cloughjordan (Co.Tipperary) and Santa Fe (New Mexico).