Now we are well into Autumn with dark nights and mornings, the rain seems to be making up for what we lost in September!

Things at the Mill make steady progress the framework for the rack on the big sawbench is now complete at the west end. This will allow us to extend the east end and then the bench can be refit on top.

The pumping mill has returned from MKW Engineering. Some of the damaged sails are being repaired and a survey and photographs of it's workings from another Mill has been obtained by Trevor (more about that later). We hope to obtain planning permission to erect the pumping mill down by the stream bridge and pump water to a header pond along the derelict allotments. This pond would give us a higher head and therefore more energy to turn a propeller turbine to generate a small time stand alone electricity. This would be an ideal schools programme and we already have some interest by Kells Lane Primary School who would like to take part in these projInside the mill we are starting to work on our winter schedule and this year will bring forward out line shaft and woodworking machinery projects. Some of our remade wooden cogs are a bit loose in their housing and these will have to be reworked before we run the machines.

Would anybody like to volunteer for a bit of winter evening woodwork - we can supply the materials if you could make a cog or two??

Going back to the information about the assembly of the pumping mill, Trevor has recently returned from The Centre for Alternative Energy at Machynlleth in Wales and was lucky enough, even doing a Water Turbine Course to find a pumping mill like ours on site and managed to obtain several close up photographs to help us with identifying parts and assembly.

The course itself was a wonderful insight into how wind and water can be used as an energy source in a small scale programme but what enormous works and capital are required on a larger scale i.e. feeding into the grid.

We hope to start our pond excavations in the near future, depending on our 10% grant to free the Sita monies, this we hope will be forthcoming in a week or two, then we get on with the works off season and have everything nice and green for the spring.

I think that is about all we have for the time being. It just remains for the Trustees, Ben and myself to wish you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.