2010 New Futures Nepal Trekking Reunion Walking Weekend
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2009 YHA WALKING WEEKEND AND AGM.
Over the last 4 years we have organised a Youth Hostel (or B&B) Walking Weekend, all of which have been a chance for supporters to meet the trustees and attend our AGM. It has seen New Futures Nepal descend on Grassmere, Castleton, Gradbach, and 2009 was at the brand new National Forest YHA.
Apart from the weekends raising funds, it is also a social weekend with a choice of walks or just being a free spirit. 2009 weekend was held at the new YHA at the National Forest near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Derbyshire and was a particularly successful with just under 60 people joining us. It was also a chance for the New Futures Nepal 2008 Charity Trek Party to reunite with their trekking group.
The main walk, (shorter ones for those less energetic) started at the hostel and followed a circular route passing through a mix of very new plantations which needed the imagination to be seen as the forest of the future to other centuries old countryside and villages. We strolled through villages such as Overseal and down to Botany Bay (did not see any boats!). Cottons in the Elms was our first refreshment stop, of course only the pub was open. Few of the elms which gave the village its name remain as result of Dutch Elm Disease in the 1970s.
Leaving Cotton in the Elms we walked along ‘the coffin route’, Before the graveyard at Coton was begun, the dead were carried to Lullington for burial along this route through the “Devil’s Arches”. Lullington was our next refreshments and pub lunch stop. Lullington has the distinction of being the most southerly village in Derbyshire. The Colville Arms is named after Charles Robert Colville, former Lord of the Manor and MP for Lullington in the mid 1800s.
The homeward bound route took us through Birchington House to Netherseal. Netherseal was recorded in the Domesday In the late 1800s, a large colliery produced 500 tons of coal per day with around 500 men employed. Sir Nigel Gresley, designer of The Mallard steam locomotive, which held the world speed record of 126 mph in 1938, is buried in the churchyard. After the village of Donisthorpe we joined the Heritage Trail back to the Hostel.
Like other years it is important to all of the trustees, (for which New Futures Nepal is very personal in that we all have known and grown up with the children and their carers over the last 7 years), to make every effort to meet our supporters and for them to have the chance to feel more than just a donator or sponsor.
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