Agenda item

To receive and consider the following reports:

a)       War Memorial - correspondence enclosed from J Dolby regarding the missing casualties of WW1;

b)      Windrush Cemetery – Wild Flower Meadow - Operations & Estates Officer report enclosed.

a) War Memorial

The Committee received and considered correspondence from Mrs J Dolby regarding casualties of WW1 who she believed were not recorded on the war memorial.  She had decided to contact the Town Council after hearing that the name of Lucy Harris was to be added to the War Memorial.

Members noted that some of the names listed may be on memorials in surrounding villages and Cllr Jones offered to ask Mr Clements (who had made the request to add Lucy Harris to the War Memorial) to carry out some research on the names and see if they were recorded somewhere else.

b) Windrush Cemetery – Wildflower Meadow

The Committee received and considered the report of the Operations and Estates Officer about wildflowers on the meadow burial area at Windrush Cemetery.  The area that had been trialled as a cultivated wildflower area had been extremely successful but it would be very expensive to maintain this annually. 

Working with the Land Army and Toby Swift from the Wychwood Project, the Operations and Estates Officer suggested that it may be better to sow with yellow rattle which was self-seeding and would cost far less.  Members discussed this and it was agreed that this was a good option, especially as the ground would then be prepared for any other seeding that may be done.  The Operations and Estates Officer proposed that families with members buried in this area could be offered the chance to purchase seed bombs to sow on the graves. This should then create both an attractive display and wildflower area which would hopefully self-seed.  This was agreed to be a good idea and Cllr Jones said that she would raise this at the next Friends of the Cemeteries meeting and ask if anyone would like to donate money to purchase a seed bomb.  The Town Clerk advised contacting Earthwatch as it was running a Naturehood project which was handing out seeds.

RESOLVED:

a) that the correspondence from J Dolby be noted and that Cllr Jones ask Mr Clements to carry out further research into the names suggested to ensure that they were not recorded on any other war memorials in neighbouring villages;

b) that the report be noted and that the meadow burial area of the Windrush Cemetery be cultivated with yellow rattle and that the possibility of using seed bombs on individual graves is explored.  Officers should make contact with Earthwatch to see if they could help in this respect.