Chairman's Report 2018

Annual General Meeting January 2018

The Little Eaton Local History Society was formed in the summer of 2016. John Easter's extensive collection of Little Eaton memorabilia was both the inspiration and the motivation to form the Society. Initially a public meeting was held, and it was apparent that there was a significant interest in the history of the village and the need to preserve the historical information was recognised.

A committee was formed comprising John Easter (president) Bill Hutchison (chairman)

Allan Carter (secretary), Gwent Paylor (treasurer), Alex Galloway (website manager), Sue Carter, Peter Tulloch and Glenda Harrison. Rosemary Gregory who was to undertake the considerable task of cataloguing the documentation joined the committee later. Very early in the story we had our own logo designed by Henry Fletcher and this is now used on all of our documentation and on the website (lelhs.org.uk).

Recognising that funding was an important requirement for us to move forward a charge of £5 was agreed as the annual cost of membership and members are charged £1 to attend meetings with non-members paying £2. We also received generous donations from the Little Eaton Community Association, the Carnival Committee and the Bates Trust and we are grateful to these organisations for helping us to move forward. It is also worth pointing out that during our first six months we were allowed to use the OAP Hall free of charge and we are grateful to the OAP Committee for their generosity.

During the ensuing 18 months we have held monthly meetings with speakers talking on a whole range of Little Eaton topics as follows;

The History of Local Quarries, Alice in The Bacon Box, The Little Eaton Concert Party, The Life of Thomas Bates, The Little Eaton Canal, The Little Eaton Gangway, The History of Park Farm, The Currey Family, The History of The Carlier Family and The History of the Strutt Family. In the summer of 2017 we organised 2 historical walks looking at the listed buildings in village and tracing the route of the gangway. We had displays during 2017 at the Village Carnival and the Village Produce Show. We have also had a couple of “Picture Show” evenings and a Christmas Social in 2016.

Much of the material given at the talks is now on the website and we have had enquiries from near and far as a result. The website is being built up on a regular basis. Current membership is about 100 and the talks regularly attract audiences of around 50 in the OAP Hall. We have purchased a small recorder with the intention of making audio recordings of the talks and also using it to interview older residents about their memories of the village

Future talks in 2018 are planned and we are in the process of preparing a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund with a view to purchasing equipment to scan and digitally store the vast amount of information about the village in John Easter's collection and other sources we have yet to explore.

Lastly can I place on record my thanks to all members of the committee for their hard work over the past 18 months or so. There is little doubt that we have made a solid start and I very much hope that we can build on this in the future.

Bill Hutchison