By Paul Shorrock, Area 10 Secretary.

I decided to take on the role of Area 10 Secretary in May 2024. The post had been empty for over a year at least, which meant that Society activities had ceased, no Grayling Days, no slide lectures, nothing. This degraded the value of membership so it felt like a simple charitable donation. I still received the Journal but that was more or less the only benefit.

I saw the occasional emails appealing for someone to take on the role but initially I didn’t think I was the right man for the job. I’m not a natural-born administrator and I’m not a particularly “clubby” sort of person. I tend to fish solo most of the time and have only attended one or two fishing club AGMs in all the years I’ve been fly-fishing.

I really missed the Grayling Fishing Days. I had enjoyed some memorable times on the exclusive bits of the Hodder belonging to clubs where I couldn’t afford the joining fees that left me bucket-list dreaming of what I might afford after retirement. I waited and waited hoping someone would take on the role and normal service would be resumed but nobody did. I finally overcame my reluctance after another email nudging all the area members dropped into my inbox in January last year. I ruminated until April, hoping some other volunteer would come out of the woodwork but none did, so I fired off an email to John Walker, the General Secretary, and he got back to me the same day with the role description and some encouraging words about how the job “isn’t really onerous”. A phone call a few days later confirmed my participation, and almost instantly my name and contact details were on the Society website. A flurry of emails from other committee members followed, including one from the late Kris Kent, handing me the admin rights to the long-dormant Area 10 Facebook page (which has been a useful tool for attracting new members).

My first task was to attend a committee meeting near Birmingham but that was converted into an online Teams meeting at fairly short notice, which wasn’t too taxing. I could put some faces to familiar names and raised my hand at the appropriate times.

The next month I was asked by Chairman Rob Hartley to man the Grayling Society desk at the big Prince Albert open day in Ribchester. I called out to the wider members to come and do a voluntary stint behind the desk to share the load, not realising that Rob intended to stick around the whole day. As anyone who attended will recall the weather was atrocious, cold, wet and windy, flaming June! Special mentions go out to Ged Fish, Chris Hosker and John Vautier who hung around and helped keep the marquee flap pinned down. I met quite a few existing members, saw some old familiar faces and between us we signed up a few new members. Apparently, the measure of success of an Area Secretary is membership headcount so we were up and running.

My first GS meeting in-person was at a moderately priced hotel outside Wrexham in September. Much good stuff was achieved including approval of the £10k donation in support of Pickering Fishery’s appeal costs in their David and Goliath battle with Defra, the memorial activities for Kris Kent and the upcoming conference in Peebles. A moderately priced curry was enjoyed in Wrexham. The planned fishing on the Dee on Sunday was skipped by me as the weather was horizontal and wet, a few committee members braved the weather, not all blanked.

October saw the first of The Grayling Days I have been responsible for. A couple of late drop outs left ten of us to enjoy the long drive north and the excellent hospitality at Warwick Hall on The Eden, near Carlisle. We were very lucky with the weather, the previous weekend had seen a spate and heavy rain arrived just as we left. Most members caught, only one topped his waders!

November had two more Grayling Days in quick succession, the first hosted by a combined Clitheroe and Ribblesdale Angling Associations on the Ribble, with the obligatory bacon butties supplied by The Lower Buck in Waddington. A fortnight later, again a week after a spate, we were hosted by Bowland Game Fishing Association on The Hodder and Ribble with the Aspinall Arms supplying the bacon butties this time. Chris Hosker deserves the plaudits for that one as he did most of the work.

As a result of this burst of activity after the vacant period membership has continued to expand in Area 10. It would be nice to get it to over a hundred. I continue to button-hole any Grayling fisherman I meet on the riverbank and have converted a few to the cause already.

Currently there is no Area 5 secretary and Areas 2 & 3 are both covered by Alex Adams. If you are in two minds about joining, I would say, give it a go. It’s not a huge amount of work and is your chance to do more for the Society than pay your subs. It will certainly increase your opportunities to fish new waters and meet fellow Grayling enthusiasts.

To paraphrase a former US President “ask not what The Grayling Society can do for you but what you can do for The Grayling Society!”.

Paul Shorrock, Area 10 Secretary