Preparing for Winter

Winter is fast approaching the the members of Fox are rapidly getting to grips with all the work that needs doing to ensure that this year there is water that doesn't freeze, walls that don't drip and a big house is more than 50% usable (last year indoor temperatures as low as -2oC were recorded). The house is now pointed, thanks to some very hard working volunteers. The massive cracks in the yards concrete have been patched. The chicken house is up. The courgettes are all eaten. Job Done!

We're struggling to weigh up which work is most important to achieve. After investigating, we've discovered that the water system means our water isn't really fit for human consumption, so we're still running on mains, even though we'd wanted to be back on spring by now. This week we've costed up the price of re-plumbing the upstream water pipe network, to give us clean spring water at an increased pressure. We're also debating replumbing the main house, last year we discovered that the heating system wasn't up to the task, not because the wood burner and back boiler aren't big enough, but because the current plumbing isn't quite right. Besides that, again in the main house, we'd like to get the insulation in the northern end sorted before the weather cools down too much... so much to do, so little time.

Happily the number of heads to think about it and hands to achieve the job are increasing all the time.

Luckily we're self sufficient in sound systems and so we had a party on the 1st of the month to celebrate the ending of the dispute with the former members, who call themselves the "directors", of Fox. Earlier in the same day we had a special general meeting of Fox, a boring but necessary legality, at which we reviewed the evidence available to us and discerned, finally and officially, that none of the former members are members (suprise, suprise). Our determination was based on the legal opinion of our expert barrister, who happens to have already worked a case very similar to ours (and won).

Unfortunately it seems that the former members haven't quite got the message yet. So they've asked their solicitors (who're rather pushy and don't like to follow the guidance laid down by the ministry of justice for handling disputes because.... it's only guidance (professional, yeh)) to file a claim for possession based on their assertion that we're squatters. Good luck with that one guys.

Watch this space...