Protecting Otters in York Steering Group Meeting Minutes of the meeting 13th March, at BTCV Office, 3 Leake Street Present: Liam O’Reilly Kevin Rich Jake Tomlinson Jane Tavener Alison Mills Lottie Kerry Rachel Midgley A brief overview of the project was given. Funding was originally going to be from the SITA Trust, but as the money from them would not cover overheads Greenprints were looked at instead. The steering group was formed to help push the project forward. A problem with the finances has arisen since the previous meeting. The fencing would cost £12800, which is £2800 over the budget of the money we would receive from Greenprints. It is hopefully going to be sorted out by getting funding from other sources. It might be possible for the Greenprints money to fund part of the fence, and apply for a SITA Trust grant to pay for the rest of the fence and the three otter holts, which could then leave some money for training. Yorkshire Water and Bob Missin from the Council could hopefully give money towards the labour costs and other remaining expenses. ACTION – Alison and Kevin said they would take responsibility for the SITA Trust grant application. A draft is available to look at. Other fundraising options Lottie had put together some ideas, including asking Yorkshire Nature Trust, supermarkets and Nestle. Apparently the York branch of Nestle are environmentally conscious, and we can push towards environmental education causes to help make funding from them more likely. Lottie has also spoken to some tutors at the university and has found a man that is otter mad who could possibly do a walk or similar for us, and there would probably be no money involved in this. Other fundraising opportunities have been looked at within the university. There might be an opportunity to get additional funding from the local fishermen, as putting up the otter proof fence will prevent otters from reaching the fishing site on the other side of the road. It will be in the interests of the fishermen to keep the otters out of their site. ACTION – Lottie is happy to keep on with this, and to find out some more information about the otter man, including what he does and if there would be opportunities to learn skills from him, such as doing surveys. Also to look into possible funding from the fishermen as it is in their interests to keep otters out of their fishing area. Legal issue An application form needs filling in as we will be building close to the river. ACTION – Jane said that she would be responsible for this form. 4. It would be useful to put on the application forms how much time we have all put into work on this project. ACTION – Everyone will make a note of how many hours work they do towards the project. A spreadsheet will be updated each time there is a meeting of how much has been done in the meantime. Nature walk. It was decided that a nature walk should be scheduled for the end of the summer term before the students leave for the summer. Jon Trail is another possible person to conduct a nature walk, but he would have to be paid and is also very busy. ACTION – Kevin to ask the man that he has found, and Liam to continue with the option of working with Jon Trail. The next meeting is scheduled for 10.30 on Thursday 27th March at the BTCV office.