The wonderful Friends of the Bus are planning a special series of events for the autumn months allowing you both to support the Downderry & District Community Bus and to have some fun, as the nights draw in.
First off the blocks is the Smugglers Inn, a great supporter of the Bus, with Bingo for the Bus at 8pm on Saturday October 5. The bus will operate a shuttle from Downderry to Seaton at 6pm, for those wanting dinner beforehand, and at 7.30pm for the bingo itself. Both shuttles will start from Broads Yard and will also pick up at St Nicolas Church. Smugglers Inn will be staging its Big Charity Quiz on November 30, which will include the raffle draw for the BIG Christmas hamper.
On Thursday October 17 at the Village Hall the Friends of the Bus will be organising afternoon tea and prosecco for chat with bubbles. Then on Saturday November 9 the curtain will rise at the Village Hall for a once-only variety show performance of A Night with the Downderry Stars, with proceeds going to support both the Community Bus and the Village Hall. Last year’s The Good Old Days - Downderry-style was a sell-out, so get in early. Tickets will be on sale from Tuesday October 15.
Details of the community bus timetable are available in Nut Tree, on the village noticeboards and on the DaSRA (Downderry and Seaton Residents Association) website www.dasra.co.uk, and please remember, the community bus is for everyone, for all age groups.
The October bus excursion will be heading to Dartmouth on Friday October 25, when the town will be organising its food festival alongside all its wonderful restaurants, cafés, pubs, shops and riverside walks. A quick heads up for November, when the Bus will be visiting the Wadebridge Christmas Fair on Sunday November 24.
Trips this month include Exeter on Wednesday October 2, Looe on Friday October 4 (departure time for Looe from Broads Yard is 11.30), Totnes on Friday October 11, and Truro on Wednesday October 16. The normal departure time from Broads Yard, Downderry is 09.30. Every week we visit Plymouth on a Tuesday and Liskeard on a Thursday, and on these two services you can use your bus freedom passes. No issues with parking, let the bus take the strain.
For all passenger bookings please call Bev Brighton on 01503 250944. For 300 Club and details of the monthly draw call Jo Woodley on 01503 250489. For any other questions, including on driver recruitment, please contact Kevin Done, chairman on 01752 466313 (I have NOT moved to Plymouth, it’s a BT glitch!) or by email at kevindone@hotmail.com..
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The Downderry & District Community Bus Association is a voluntary organisation - Charity Number 1000967 - formed to serve the welfare and needs of the Downderry, Hessenford, Narkus and Seaton communities. The community bus provides a regular weekly link with both Plymouth and Liskeard and an early morning service between Seaton and Downderry during school terms. Other popular, regular destinations include Truro, Tavistock, Totnes, Exeter and Looe. The timetable and details of monthly excursions, usually on a Friday, are available in the Nut Tree monthly newsletter, on local websites (including this one, see below) and on the village noticeboards.
Concessionary fare cards can be used on the Plymouth and Liskeard routes. Under 15s travel at half price and there is no charge for under 5s. A gentle reminder to all passengers who use discretionary passes on our registered routes, namely the Plymouth and Liskeard services. Can you please try to remember always to have your pass with you, as it is possible that an inspector could choose to come on board during a journey to check up that our claims for reimbursement are being made properly. Many thanks.
To book a seat please ring Bev Brighton on weekdays between 9am and 5pm on 01503 250944. You can also support your bus by joining the 300 Club and buying a monthly draw ticket. It only costs £12 for the year. To join please contact Jo Woodley on 01503 250489, or email here: or come to one of our sociable Tea and Cake afternoons usually held at Downderry & Seaton Village Hall. Check the events diary for dates.There is always a raffle and the ever popular puzzle and book stall. Phone Jane Mather for bus hire bookings by affiliated groups on 01503 250840, For any other matters please contact Kevin Done, Chairman, on 01752 466313 or Jem Hall, Vice Chairman, on 01503 261497. We are always looking to recruit new drivers and helpers.
Chairman’s Report- Kevin Done - Community Bus AGM on financial year 2022/23 on 30 October 2023 held in Downderry and Seaton Village Hall.
Ladies and Gentlemen, as supporters of, and volunteers working for, the Downderry & District Community Bus, you will know, that your bus association is living through momentous times. Every so often, every so many years, we face the enormous challenge of replacing our bus. We are a registered charity. We have one big asset, namely a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 15-passenger minibus, which has just entered its tenth year and now needs to be replaced. We have previously tried to have a replacement cycle of about every five years, but this time frame was interrupted by the pandemic.Our aim is to offer our passengers and our drivers (we are all volunteers) the newest, most safe and reliable vehicle possible.The community bus was founded about 35 years ago.
The original constitution says it was set up“to serve the educational, recreational and welfare needs of the residents of Downderry,Hessenford, Narkurs and Seaton (both sides of the river).” And that is exactly what we seek to do. When we can cross the river, that is. During the last couple of years we have been studying our various options. We formed a subcommittee made up of Jem Hall, our deputy chairman and operations officer, Jane Hall, who runs our excursions programme, Richard Broad, our tester of new driver recruits, Raj Chotai, our newbus negotiator and myself as chairman. A big thank you to all of you for all this work.
Earlier this year we visited GM Coachworks, our chosen supplier, which is based near Newton Abbot, to study possible new buses. We brought our lessons back to the full committee for further discussions, and now the die is cast.We have recently placed an order for a new minibus at a cost of £93,265. We have been very happy in general with our current bus, and we have decided to opt for another 15 passenger Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. We are expecting to take delivery early next year, and in the meantime we are carefully nursing our existing bus and learning to deal with all its little foibles.
Meeting the cost of the new bus is clearly an enormous task for a very small charity with an annual turnover of around £16,500.We have saved the funds to allow us make this latest purchase, however. Also in the last couple of months we have received some extra grant funding, which will help us to get over the line. Deviock Parish Council has given us a grant of £2,000 in recognition of the role the bus plays as a key community infrastructure asset. And in recent days DaSRA, the Downderry and Seaton Residents Association, has also voted to give us a grant of £2,000 to help to safeguard this special community asset.
Earlier this year we were also able to secure a grant of £1,250 from Cornwall Community Foundation to fund the purchase of new IT hardware and software to run the association’s finances. Our wonderful treasurer Lynne Rees has been hard at work ever since putting all this new kit to work. We are very grateful to all these new funders of our operations.
We have ourselves over the years raised more than £89,000, from our regular operations and helped especially by our wonderful Friends of the Bus and 300 Club fundraisers. Thank you Jo Woodley for all the work on the 300 Club. Thank you for all the efforts in the past of our Friends of the Bus led by Jan Johnston and Sue Booth, and a huge thank you now to Sandra Pearce, who has taken on the role of leading the Friends of the Bus.
With our wonderful bus association committee, with our duty officers (DO) and our drivers, we have a fantastically hard-working and dedicated bunch of people, of whom I am very proud and to whom I am very grateful for all that they do.We have shown we can react quickly to help our community at times of challenge. In response to the recent closure of Downderry Stores, the community bus at once started a service to Tredinnick Farm Shop. We also reinstated our Carkeel service to give access to Lidl, Waitrose and Tamar Nurseries, as our contribution to try to fill the void.The threats to local bus services are very real. Earlier this year we re-routed our weekly service to Liskeard, so it could run through surrounding areas, which had themselves lost their public bus service.
The Community Bus exists to help ALL ages. Every school day we bring a group of 5 to 11-year olds from Seaton to Downderry School, removing a dangerous walk along a road with no pavements, and removing at least a few cars from the inevitable morning drop-off chaos at St Nicolas School. For the more elderly in our community we offer vital connectivity, access to many places around Cornwall and Devon, a social hub, entertainment, including a very well-supported programme of excursions led wonderfully by Jane Hall. For many, when they can no longer drive, or are reluctant to drive, we are THE alternative. We help with funerals, we help with weddings, with Christmas outings and trips to the theatre.
For the sake of our Deviock community we want our bus to thrive. We hope you do too.I have name-checked some of our wonderful committee, but not yet all. A huge thank you is due also to Jane Mather for managing the bus diary, for rostering our drivers and DOs. A huge thank you to Heather Thomas, our wonderful secretary, for keeping us all on the straight and narrow. A huge thank you to Bev Brighton, for so many the beautiful face of the bus, who takes all our passenger bookings. And a huge thank you to Rob Gascoigne, who has stepped into the breachas a new duty officer. And a huge thank you to Mal Moss, as a DO and driver of more years than he probably wants to remember.
Buying our new bus will wipe out much of our current savings, but that’s OK, that’s what our accumulated funds are there for. We will soon face an existential challenge, as ever, over the next 5-6 years to fill this hole in our finances. But that’s a topic for next year’s AGM and beyond.Thank you for listening.
