Following the sad loss of our former Chairman, Nick Rule, the Group’s committee was reduced to three members, all getting older and none in perfect health. With numerous appeals for successors having come to naught the idea of involving people in specific projects was floated. A number of people have offered to take on a project; some with existing projects have been invited in and a small number included because of deep village knowledge or specialist skills. Thus a larger supporting group has been formed, now christened the ‘Council’.
Two meetings of this body have been held, with a dozen or so present, and it is a great feeling to know that a significant body of work is, once again, taking place to capture Westbourne area history. Many more potential projects exist !
Projects include (in no particular order):-
Cataloguing Parish Magazines (from 1864)
Updating the “Around Westbourne” walking tour booklet
Completing an “Images of Funtington past” book
Researching the find of Roman bricks at the Church Tower
Creating a booklet “ Lost Shops and Businesses”
Researching James Covington and family
Transposing text information regarding 1640, Tithe and “Mee’s” maps onto modern maps.
Resurrecting and augmenting “The Westbourne Story”.
As the name implies, it is hoped that the body will provide a sounding board for Committee -as well as a physical & mental resource to support events and activities. In this vein it was agreed at the second meeting in July 2024 that a winter programme of public meetings should be attempted, provisional subjects being:
Westbourne’s Water (pre mains supply)
More WWI people stories
James Covington and family
Westbourne’s Old Maps – a new approach.
Please monitor these pages and lookout for publicity for further news.
Roger Wilding has taken over as Chairman and Nigel Peake now has an Assistant, Glynis Lockley, to share the Secretarial burden. Roger Norfolk, who has considerable Researching skills, joins the Committee, as does Glynis.