Chairman's Working Group Meeting

The Chairman's Working Group met on 9 February, with thanks to BASC for hosting the meeting at Trochry, for providing lunch and a very nice cake!

These meetings are held in advance of each Forum meeting and allow an opportunity to plan for the following meeting and to discuss other issues of interest to Forum members in a smaller group.

I have summarised the agenda for the meeting below:

Programme for Delivery

Uplands Vision

Taking the Uplands to Government

Agenda for Forum meeting 2 March

Summer Meeting

Recent Activity      WfW, PoMM, Muirburn      Succession Task Group

There was support for the programme proposals that had come out of the Programme for Delivery discussion, most notably the view that the Forum should consider developing some form of 'uplands vision' perhaps with a focus on challenges & opportunities.  This will be discussed further on 2 March.

There was support for the suggestion that the summer visit, which had previously been proposed to take place in Galloway, should include a discussion about the Galloway & Southern Ayrshire Biosphere.  Proposals will be developed for discussion at the Forum meeting.

The PoMM Guidance covering Mountain Hare, Heather Cutting and Worm Control will be circulated to forum meetings with a view to being in a position to agree to publish this after the meeting.

Programme for Delivery 2018

The Forum's Programme for Delivery (PfD) is updated annually to make sure that it reflects the issues that Forum members want to address.

This year Julia Stoddart (SACS), Richard Luxmoore (NTS) and Alex Hogg (SGA) volunteered to provide some input to the review.  The SGA had submitted some proposals for issues to consider; Ronnie Kippen and Kenneth Stephen joined the discussion to address these.

In addition to a calendar of events, the PfD seeks to identify Priority Issues for the Forum to address during the year. It also provides a reminder of the standing commitments that the Forum has, for example, to support the Scottish Wildfire Forum.

It is not possible for the Forum to address all the issues that are raised for consideration.  The PfD provides a record of these issues and each year the review considers these alongside any new issues that are raised.

Finally, the PfD provides a record of the issues that have been completed or that will not be considered further.

The latest version of the Programme for Deliver is on the Forum's website.

Scotland's Moorland Forum: Searching for a New Chairman

Lord Lindsay has been chairman of the Moorland Forum since November 2007, but he has indicated that it is time to find someone to replace him in this role.

There is no deadline for the appointment of a successor, although there is a general view that succession should take place before the end of 2018.

A Succession Task Group has agreed a Role Profile for a new chairman, and with this agreed, it will be possible to move quickly to appoint a successor, before being snapped up for another role.  The process to be followed for the appointment will be agreed with the Succession Task Group and will depend on the number of candidates that are thought to be suitable.

The Task Group will meet again on 2nd March, after the next Forum meeting, to consider any candidates that have been put forward.  If the Task Group believes that a suitable candidate has been nominated, a decision may be made at that meeting to consider the candidate as a possible successor. 

Prior to 2nd March, suggestions for suitable candidates will be welcome from members of the Succession Task Group, members of the Moorland Forum, or from anyone who would like to nominate somebody as a suitable candidate for the role.

Please could initial contact been made with Anne Stoddart using the contact form on the Forum's website or the comment facility below.

Website Offline, 8pm 12 February

Due to 'essential maintenance' by the hosts, the Forum's website, will not be available for about 3 hours from 8pm tonight.

All being well, it will be fully restored thereafter.

The Moorland Forum Website

A New Year and a a new website.  This is evolution not revolution but I hope that members will appreciate the improvements to the presentation of information.

Anne has been working hard behind the scenes to manage the transition, but work on a website never reflects the amount of effort that is required to achieve even simple changes.  Many of the improvements are behind the scenes and will improve our ability to keep the website up to date and add information.

We will add the Understanding Predation report to the website, when it is published on 1st February.

I would like to invite members to take this opportunity to review the website in its new form and let us know whether or not it is providing the right amount of information for your needs.

Update from the National Access Forum

The National Access Forum publishes reports and updates on its activity on the Forum's website.  The latest update is dated 22 May 2013 and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in access issues, and perhaps we should all have such an interest.

We share several members with the National Access Forum, but even so I believe that all the multiple Forums in Scotland tend to operate in silos.  When there is an opportunity, I intend to address this for the Moorland Forum by following up on Bob McIntosh's invitation to develop a 'compendium' of all the groups that feed into his Environment & Forestry directorate.  Perhaps we would all benefit from better communication between groups - at present, I wonder who, if anyone, has an overview of all activity.