Report Of The Gorsedd Delegate To The Cornish Sub-Committee
Of The European Bureau For Lesser-Used Languages
To The Closed Gorsedd, June 5, 2004.

The Sub-committee has met twice during the year, in September 2003 and in February 2004, at the language lab in Cornwall College. The second of these was our biennial general meeting. The UK Committee met twice, in Edinburgh in October 2003 (where I was the Cornish representative) and in Cardiff in April 2004, attended by our bard Profoes an Mordid).

Cornwall College

The main elements of the business of the Sub-committee have been as follows:

1. The Charter for Minority Languages: I will deal with this separately.

2. At the request of the Bureau via the UK Committee, all member organisations that are voluntary associations have been asked to supply a copy of their constitution and list of officers. This is to ensure all are bona fide cultural bodies and are not fronts for political movements or just ‘paper’ organisations. Most have replied and I would like to take this opportunity to ask this meeting to approve that the Gorsedd supply the necessary information. Officers were also asked to re-examine our constitution and compare it with that of the Scottish Sub-committee as a model. This has been done and no alterations have been deemed necessary. It was noted that the BBC and ITV are members of the Scottish Sub-committee: so, in the light of the new situation that exists with the specification of Cornish under the Council of Europe Charter (in particular the statement that the government will encourage the mass media to pursue an objective of respect, understanding and tolerance towards Cornish) the Sub-committee has invited the BBC, ITV and Pirate Radio to send representatives to our meetings.

3. Attendance of District Council representatives has been patchy, to be polite. Letters have been sent pointing out that appointment by a council does involve a commitment to attend.

4. The Sub-committee website has been set up and the grant money from Cornwall Council has been paid to Matthew Clarke and his colleague who did the work. Our thanks to them for giving the Bureau a higher profile. It could be that further funds will be required for updating the service.

5. The report of the Committee of Experts on the European Charter has been published. It concerns mainly the other UK languages and is severely critical of the government: it points out many areas in education, television, public life and monitoring where things should be improved. Cornish had only just been specified when the report was being prepared: bards will remember that a delegation went to Cardiff in January last year to meet the COMEX. The next report will be in 2006, when the progress of Cornish will be under close scrutiny.

6. The February meeting was the BGM (biennial general meeting) of the Subcommittee, when officers were elected and reports received. The Treasurer, our bard Keltya, Audrey Randle Pool, has done an excellent job in gathering subscriptions: you would never believe how difficult it is to get £10 from a District Council! So, the Sub-committee has sufficient funds to continue its work in the future. The Secretary, Roscarrek, Tim Hambly, also deserves our thanks for the extremely efficient way he has conducted the affairs of the Subcommittee over the past few years. These two officers were re-elected, along with Godfrey Matthews, as Assistant Secretary and Profoes an Mordid (Dr Ken George) as our delegate to the UK Committee. I stood down as Chairman after nine years — demands on my time have increased with the work on the Strategy — and Denise Chubb was elected in my place. I’m sure she will receive the same wholehearted support from the Subcommittee that I enjoyed over the years.

The next meeting of the Subcommittee is planned for 16 September 2004 at Cornwall College.

CARADOK, Kannas Gorsedh Kernow, 05.06.04