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Chamber members give to an Excellent Development

June 2nd 2010

The Chamber’s special guest speaker at its May Supper Meeting was Simon Maddrell, Director of the award-winning charity Excellent Development. At the meeting he described how his organisation is helping thousands of people in arid African communities to transform their environment sustainably and improve water supplies, food production, health and incomes.

Since the charity's foundation in 2002 Excellent has enabled over 200,000 people to gain access to clean water. Community groups supported by Excellent have built over 250 sand dams, planted over 700,000 trees and dug over 1,100km of terracing on their farms and in the valleys around the dams.

One such person who has received help is Watson Kivungi Kasyumi, a farmer in the Matiku Tia Ngui Musyi region of Kenya. He said: "Through the hard work of the group we have water from the sand dams and pipeline. I no longer wake up early to go fetch water as I used to. The water has enabled me to plant trees - medicinal trees and fruit trees. When the fruits are ripe I can sell a ripe piece for ten Kenyan Shillings."

After the talk a collection was held which raised just over £165 towards Excellent Development's work in Africa.

Gazette report on the Chamber's advice to those seeking compensation

April 22nd 2010

See the pdf below for the Gazette's report on how the Chamber is offering assistance to any of the town's traders who are seeking compensation following the road closure.

More Information : Click to view PDF

Road closure compensation

April 18th 2010

Your Committee has discussed the issue of seeking financial compensation from Gloucestershire Highways and decided that it should not spend members' money seeking legal advice (see the Minutes of the Committee Meeting held on 31st March 2010 on the link -www.wotton.biz/pages/meetings.php).

As an alternative and something which is available to EVERY trader in the town (CoT member or not), the Chamber of Trade is offering the attached template for individual claims - see the pdf below.  In this way the Chamber is helping the town's entire business community.

It is recommended that anyone making use of the template personalises it in some way (possibly by the use of headed paper) and adapts it to their own requirements.  

The Committee's thanks go to Gareth Kitchen of Cookability who has already gone through this process and who has kindly offered his letter as a template for all to use.

More Information : Click to view PDF

Local businesses working in partnership.