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AFTER THE DEMISE OF ICARUS After abandoning the RAG meetings in autumn 2005 SWT were slow to reinstate them following the Icarus meetings in 2006. When they did, it became clear that the Icarus sessions had changed nothing. It was as if the Icarus process had not happened despite the commitment of those who attended. A suitable end for Icarus. 
Icarus copied his father's design of wings to escape from prison. He flew too close to the sun, the wax holding the wings together melted and he met a watery end. (See the bottom right corner.) Those who enquired why the discussions started in Icarus were not continuing SWT said they had talked enough and were now going back to their original plan. They had commisioned a grazing impact assessment, a fairly narrowly ecological document, which unsurprisingly listed potential benefits of cattle grazing. They were not however prepared to enter into any more discussion about the rights and wrongs of their contentious plan nor to accept any arguments about the effectiveness of it or problems that could arise. It was this closing down of a debate that had just begun to make some limited but important headway that led to the establishment of this website. Those of us who had committed a great deal of our own unpaid time to working out a way forward that could enjoy some a measure of agreement felt aggrieved. A further source of annoyance was the use made of these consultations and other meetings by SWT when they applied for grants, often minutes of meetings of highly dubious accuracy being sent along to potential funders to illustrate their responsiveness. Letters from SWT went out in February, although how many people received them is not known. The RAG has a constitution which states that it is best practice to advertise meetings in advance at entrances to Blacka Moor, whenever possible. There was no excuse this time for not advertising the new meetings because it had been so long since the previous one, and of course vital if SWT were to have any credibility in responding to the wishes of people who use Blacka moor. One member attended for ten minutes, raised important points of procedure which amounted to questioning the point of the RAG meetings. A number of points were made including the charge that procedures were at variance with the constitution. The points were detailed in this paper and were not at all adequately reflected in the minutes.
Read the Blacka Moor Blog
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