PRESENT:

Sandy Brunton, Michael Ackerley, Tom Bettley, Derek Crook, Georgia O’Neill

APOLOGIES:

Barry Morley, John Cable, Alan Parker, Jo Currie

MINUTES:

July minutes ratified – proposed by Tom, seconded by Michael.  August minutes proposed by Michael, seconded by Tom.  Thanks to Derek for taking the August minutes

MATTERS ARISING:

Marine Park.  Still no consultation evident.  The Chamber will advocate that all members become as involved as possible in the consultation process when it happens.

Following on from last month’s discussion about campervans and their waste, Sandy raised his concerns about a site that has been occupied by travellers for some time.  At least 12 caravans have been in the same spot for some weeks with no sanitary disposal facilities.  Sandy will raise this with Councillor MacDougall.

Letter to Council.  Georgia brought along a draft of the letter she has written to the council prompted by Chamber member Ian Slade.  The letter discusses the lack of maintenance of Council property and the need for road signs to give visitors more information about using single track roads.  She also brought along an animation for the Chamber’s website about driving on single track.

CALMAC:

Discussion about CalMac raising fares for some 5m vehicles.

SECRETARY

Georgia asked whether anyone else could be persuaded to take over secretarial duties for the Chamber as she is struggling to keep up to date with everything.  Sandy pointed out an advert in R&A by someone looking for voluntary work <Georgia> will investigate . . . . . . .

TREASURER

Tom reported a balance of £4264.83p

TRANSPORT

The rest of the meeting was used as a brainstorming session to discover what are our priorities regarding the future of transport on the island.