October 2007 – Annual Report for Ryde Social Heritage Group’s AGM

It has been an eventful 11 months since our first AGM in November 2006.

• In November we had a small exhibition downstairs at the GSC on the evening when Roy Brinton (RSHG Hon President) and Tony Gale (RSHG member) gave their talks on the Brewers and Pubs of Ryde to raise funds for the Vernon Square Preservation Society. We are grateful to the The Society for kindly allowing us to use the downstairs area for an exhibition that evening.

• In January 2007 we had a Members’ meeting attended by 35 people and our Guest Speaker Paul Donellan gave a very interesting talk about the Sea Plane station at Bembridge and also mentioned Capt. Goodwin Barnes who is buried in Ryde Cemetery.

• In February along with other local history groups we put up a one day exhibition in Ryde Library, this was manned by volunteers throughout the day and gave us an opportunity to meet and talk to other groups and also to show members of the public some of the results of our research.

• As a result of this exhibition we were invited to participate in the Local History Forum and so far this year we have been represented at two of the forum’s meetings.

• At our meeting in April Roy Brinton gave a fascinating talk about early Ryde to a packed audience.

• Very sadly in May Les Barrett who had been ill for some time passed away. Les was a very special person and even though he was very ill he gave much of his time to helping this group and has left a huge legacy of research much of which can be seen on the website. We will always be grateful to Les and Ann for that.

• Then at the end of June we had the unexpected news from Sally-Ann Garrett our Chairperson that she was resigning from the Group. Sally-Ann was a founding member of the Group and over the past 5 years has put in a tremendous amount of work and effort to get the group up and running and make the Group what it is today. We were, and still are, very saddened by her decision and we are extremely grateful to her for all her efforts and commitment in the past.

• Sally-Ann’s decision left the rest of the small committee in some turmoil. We held an emergency Committee meeting and agreed that although it would be difficult we all wanted to carry on with the work of the Group.

• In July at our members’ meeting we announced Sally-Ann’s resignation to the members present and expressed our desire to carry on with the Group with the hope that the position of Chairperson would be filled at the AGM. Also at our July meeting we had two guest speakers; Iain Donald from Bereavement Services gave us an update on the IW Council’s funding and project for Ryde Cemetery and then Richard Smout County Archivist gave a talk on resources for Family History Research. Both talks were well received by the audience.

• During the summer we have been working hard on a number of projects – A Guide for Transcribing in Ryde Cemetery, A Brief Guide to Ryde Cemetery, also a project about points of historical interest along the esplanade from Ryde to Puckpool, and we have been gathering information and writing up chapters for the book which we will publish early next year called Ryde’s Heritage – Our Town, Your Histories. Some of these projects are ongoing and some have been completed.

• The Brief Guide to Ryde Cemetery was completed and available for sale for the first time at the two Heritage Open Days we held in Ryde Cemetery on 8th and 9th September. We were extremely fortunate with the weather and we had a constant stream of visitors throughout the two days. We received a lot of very encouraging feedback from the visitors and we feel it was a great success. A lot of people were involved in the preparation and the running of the two days. Thanks and well done to everyone involved. This was probably the most successful event we have put on so far.

• Since the Open Days most our efforts have been put to preparing for this AGM and in getting the wording to the Constitution right. We have tried to take in everyone’s thoughts and ideas about this and it has been a very difficult and time consuming effort particularly for David who has pulled it all together for us.

• That just about brings us up to date for the year but we should also mention that throughout the year work has been ongoing with the mapping, transcribing, research, publications and keeping the website up to date and although we have just 4 members meetings per year the work groups do meet more frequently, so if members would like more involvement with the Group then please speak to one of the Work Group Leaders.

• Now to look towards the future – all our efforts over the next few months will be put towards bringing our funded project to a successful conclusion. The things that are required to complete the project are:

o Finishing the interpretation board for the Cemetery.
o The Book “Ryde’s Heritage – Our Town, Your Histories”
o Preparing Learning Resource Packs
o An evening event with exhibition to end the project and launch the book
o And then after all that we need to start thinking about how we can carry on and where we can get more funding.

• Even after the funding from the Local Heritage Initiative fund has been spent we will still have work to do in the cemetery surveying and drawing the maps, transcribing the memorials and researching the lives of the people buried there and we will need funds to be able to carry on with this work.

• We are also working on a living memories project – capturing people’s memories of Ryde, the people, shops and events, before those memories are lost forever.

• We are also looking forward to seeing the start of the IW Council’s project in the cemetery and working closely with them and other groups in any ways that we can.

• In addition to all the above we try to keep the website looking fresh with new records, pictures and stories being added all the time. One of the things that is difficult to keep up with is the Guest book/Comments page. While we do try to deal with all enquiries received on the website we also receive a lot of compliments from people from all over the world. Here are just a small selection:

“It’s the best cemetery record I have come across”
“Just visited your website – brilliant”
“I think that your ongoing project is proving to be very successful and helpful to people such as myself.”
“Your web-site is incredibly helpful for which many thanks…”
“Your Ryde cemetery website is lovely!”
“I think your website is wonderful and I am very impressed by the considerable amount of research which has obviously been done…”
“Thank you for recording this memorial to my relation and namesake”
“Thank you and others for the painstaking, assiduous and dedicated work that is going on behind the scenes in mapping and defining the graves in the Cemetery… ”
“Thank you so much for this work. You have completed our search for family members. We look forward to visiting this site.”
“I want to thank you for the wonderful work you are doing…..”
“just a short note to thank you so much for your very fine web site…”
“Thanks for your wonderful site…”
“let me thank you for taking on the task of documenting the burial sites within the Ryde Cemetery…”
“Congratulations on a magnificent website. It is going to help so many people now and in the future…”
“HI Your website is very informative. Your site has confirmed family history info I was unsure about and given me some more to research. Keep up the great work.”

So as was said at the beginning it’s been an eventful year for Ryde Social Heritage Group, one of ups and downs, but nevertheless for a very small group of amateurs what we have achieved is fantastic and worth all the effort, so thank you and well done to everyone involved.

Janette Gregson
Secretary
Ryde Social Heritage Group
13 October 2007