FOREST COMMUNITY PRESSURE GROUP

MINUTES OF MEETING 11TH MARCH 2010

1. Constitution
Discussion regarding the draft constitution and queries were discussed.
a) The comment regarding having a layperson rather than a parish councillor / councillor
was agreed.
b) The comment regarding the conduct of individuals in the group and process to withdraw
membership was discussed and it was agreed that this should not be over complicated and
that it should be policed from within.
c) Communication with the public was commented upon in prior discussion. The group
noted this and it was discussed regarding raising awareness at local forthcoming events and
look at utilising the www.forcomm.posterous.com and other newsletters such as 3 Views
News and Moira newsletter

It was agreed that the constitution as distributed prior to the meeting, with the above
amendments was to be approved and that as it is very new would evolve with the group's
functions.

2. Approval of Minutes of 27th January 2010

Approved

3. Scrutiny Meeting - Next Steps meeting 7th April

We need to make sure a member of group attends the meeting to make sure correct minutes
are approved as per our correction that was agreed by the solicitor and Monitoring Officer at
the last CFA meeting on the 10th Feb 2010. Also find out if someone can actually speak at
meeting.

4. Feedback on CFA Meeting

a) Lay Person Contact

2 Lay people have been appointed to the committee to oversee meetings from a public
perspective. One of them was at the last meeting on 10th February. We have his details.
John to contact the councillors he knows on the committee to make contact with lay person
on our behalf.

b) Outcome
Meeting went as expected. They took the scrutiny committees guidance on board and voted
not to close Moira Station until new station is up and running, then the site cannot be sold
until a year after the fire engines are removed.

Alison & Chris stayed on for rest of meeting. During finance section they stated they expect
to be £400,000 short next year and £1million short the following year. They have £4 million
in the bank but may not decide to spend capital money on new offices etc and ring fencing
may be removed.

We understand that the Fire Authority had been looking around Castle Donnington to see if
they could rent an industrial unit to use as a fire station instead of building a new site. John
said that opening a new fire station is not a standard planning procedure and must have
county and central government permission, which all takes quite a lot of time.

Alison and Beverly have been looking into the history of the fire station site. Records have
been transferred from the library to the museum so they are going to visit there. We think
the land was gifted in 1968 from the coal board. If necessary we can do a historical search
on the land through the coal board at the cost of £88.11. We can also check the archives of
Ashby Wolds Town Council when we have the approximate dates.

c) Actions Required
We need to ask more questions on Freedom of Information Act using What Do They Know
Website. This includes the fact that the scrutiny committee didn't have the amended version
of the report so couldn't scrutinise properly.

5. Feedback on Complaint Letter

Chris, John, Geraint, Colin and John to have separate meeting with Emma to take this
forward further.

Following Colin's letter he and Alison had a meeting with the Community Risk Management
Officer. He claimed he hadn't been briefed but we felt he had been told what to say. He
was on a fact finding mission to find out more about the group. We said we would follow up
regarding the meeting with a written statement of more specific regarding the question.

6. ConkerTU Event 27th February

Attendance was only about 150 people despite about 500 having booked tickets. All political
candidates attended but less public bodies attended than was expected. There has been
positive feedback from it.

7. Posterous Users

We need more contributors to use it. Use tag links with Andrews, Pauls and Ross's names
on it will mean more hits on web site. Also photographs get better Google ratings

When submitting any information to the press could we make sure that we don't have
published that Moira Fire Station is better than Ashby, as it is important that they work
closely together and they are all equally important. The last scoop indicated this, although it
was a comment from the paper rather than information the group had commented upon. It
was decided that a full press release of which was circulated prior to release would the
adopted method moving forward

8. Freedom of Information Requests

What do you know website - this is a move to open up government data and make it known
to the public. We need to make sure we use this site to ask our freedom on information
queries and use different people for different queries so one person doesn't appear to be
always asking questions of the same organisation.

9. Marketing - Posters, car stickers etc

It was agreed we would have new posters, car stickers etc printed this time in bright green.
This time it would say "Keep Moira Fire Station - The Fight Goes On". We will talk to the
printers in Measham with a budget of about £40. Now is a good time to put posters etc up
due to election coming up. Also try to make sure we have them up at all polling stations to
publicise the continued fight. We are working on getting www.savemoirafirestation.co.uk
back up and running.

10. Policy Committee Meeting - 17th March

a) Our Plan 2010- 2013 Draft available on CFA's web site going for approval at meeting on
17th March. There has been no external consultation only minor changes from last year. If
not accepted by all there is a risk it may not go ahead

b) Likely Attendees and questions to raise

John can attend if meeting in morning and Alison can go if meeting in afternoon. It will be
checked if questions can be submitted.

11. Quiz Update

Quiz not so successful this time but some retailers have asked for more copies. Less busy
in shops this time of year and some people think they don't need to support the fire station
any more after the last meeting. Winfield's outdoors shop staff have been told by
management to stop selling the quiz without an explanation. So far 9 quizzes have been
returned completed.

12. Accounting Update

We currently have £140.51 cash in hand and £1211.42 in the bank. This was boosted by a
cheque for £710 from Diane at the Railway Pub. More money will come in from the current
quiz. £80 was spent on the hire of bus to go to the CFA meeting on 10th February

It is hoped to sell quizzes at the forthcoming Husting event, which should help to raise some
more money.

13. Husting Event

This will be a question time session for all the local 5 parliamentary candidates in the
forthcoming election. It will be the chance for local people to quiz the candidates on any
subject. The evening will be chaired by Chris Keeley and will take place at Sir John Moore
Foundation on Tuesday 30th March. The FCPG will host the evening and ask for voluntary
donations to cover the costs, any profits will go into our fighting fund. There is a seating
capacity of 90 with standing room up to150. Tea and coffee will be available.

We will contact Jason Summerfield for a pa system . Volunteers will be needed to help on
the evening.

Rules will be drawn up so everyone is clear how the event will take place. Questions can be
submitted in advance by email or on the evening before the event takes place. The event
will need to be publicised in the local press, making it clear that our group is organising it,
and getting more publicity for the fire station.

14. Links to Other Forums

Ashby, Measham & Moira Forum have said we can go to their meetings.

It is important that information we post to our site gets passed on as much as possible to
other websites.
15. Any Other Business

It was reported that Swadlincote Fire Station is going to go full time , and no longer have
retained firemen covering at night.

Tony Brealey challenged the CFA's claim that they have no upper tier COMAH sites. He
said that Fire Authority have not been very co-operative and are not wanting to
communicate. He wonders how many more sites are not known to the fire brigade. He is
paying a registration fee to COMAH and expects the fire brigade to back it up.

Emma suggested we should all try to recruit one other person to come along to meetings
and assist us with the heavy workload we have fighting our cause.

Dates of next meetings

8th April
13th May
10th June

All at 7pm and probably at Replan (TBC)