Council Meeting - Sports, the Town Plan and Nigel Birch

There was a meeting with the different sports clubs that use the Pavilion recently - but it didn't quite go to plan.
What the Council wanted was for the sports clubs to get together and organise a management committee to run the Pavilion and the sports pitches now that Powys County Council are no longer doing that. The initial thought was that they could set up their committee under the umbrella of HADSCAL (Hay and District Sports Clubs Association - I'm not sure what the L stands for), as that organisation already exists and has charitable status. However, the representatives of the sports associations that turned up to the meeting decided that they wanted to set up their own organisation. This, of course, will take time, and the councillors who were there said that they didn't seem to recognise the urgency of the situation. They also don't seem to be able to work out how to divide the costs between the different clubs at the moment. The utility bills will be going direct to the sports clubs from now on, which may concentrate their minds on the problem.
The bottom line is that the sports clubs and HADSCAL don't want to work together.
The situation is complicated by the fact that Fiona Howard (this year's Mayor) and Rob Golesworthy are also trustees of HADSCAL, and thus have a conflict of interests between the Council and HADSCAL.
At the moment, the senior football team uses the HADSCAL football pitch, but they get changed in the Pavilion - and having two organisations would mean that the team would have to negotiate with both of them to play and to use the changing rooms. The Council is deliberately taking a back seat in all this - they want the sports clubs to take the responsibility themselves.
In Talgarth, they have set up TADSCAL with a management committee - it seems unlikely, but maybe this would be a suitable umbrella organisation for the Hay Pavilion.
The Warren Club is also going for full charitable status now they own the fishing rights, and it was suggested that they might be able to act as the umbrella organisation for the Pavilion, though it seemed unlikely that they would want to.
More meetings with HADSCAL and the sports clubs are planned to sort something out.

Trudy, the new councillor, reported back on the questionnaires for the Town Plan. She said that 254 were returned, but she is concerned that most of these, 152, were returned by people over the age of 60, and only 35 were returned by people in the 16 - 44 age bracket. She thinks that Hay needs the opinions of the younger inhabitants, but the Council was uncertain about how to achieve this. Trudy also said that about half the forms were filled in by locals, and half by people who had moved into the area in the last ten to fifteen years. Analysis of the data is still going on, and the National Park is also being consulted. The Council is applying for a grant from the National Park, of around £1,000, but it will have to be match funded, and it all got a bit complicated to work out whether it was worth doing.
When the Town Plan is put together, it would help the Council to have someone from Planning Aid Wales to facilitate it, but this would cost in the region of £200 - £300.

Ideas were then put forward for ways to commemorate Councillor Nigel Birch, who died recently, such as naming a road Birches Way or Birch Grove. Other possibilities included planting birch trees, or sponsoring a cup for the Young Farmers' Club.
Or the picnic area could be named after him, as it doesn't actually have a name at the moment.