Changes to the Butte's custodianship.

21 November 2023

Good evening, For your info, please find below a copy of an email that custodian Bob Paterson sent this evening to the Butte de Warlencourt associates. 'Good evening to you all, It is with more than a small amount of sadness that I am contacting the associates tonight to make them aware of changes concerning the Butte. The Butte has been my life for a number of years now, however, for many reasons including health and in particular mobility reasons, I’ve recently found it hard to give it the maintenance, care, and attention it requires. This is of course added to the fact that very sadly I am now much nearer 70 years old than 60 in age. As they say old age does not come cheaply! To that extent after a lot of consideration between my wife Julia and myself, we approached two men which a lot of you will know, to ask if they were willing to take over custodianship of the Butte and they agreed to do so. The two chaps are Terry Berry and Rick Smith both of whom are well known faces on the Somme and both of whom are integral parts of the Hawthorn Ridge Crater Association. They have been well known to me for a number of years and I have been most impressed with their skills, attributes and of course support of the Butte project and what we have been doing. Both are very hands on. This change in custodianship is now and place. Rick and Terry will continue what we have been doing so the change should be invisible. I knew that this day would eventually come, however, I genuinely thought it might be a year or two away. For various reasons, the time is right to step aside for the youngsters. On their behalf, I am writing the next newsletter at the moment which will go out in say two to three weeks. This newsletter will contain much fuller information on the above plus will include comments from both Rick and Terry. Although it hurts, I very much have to face up to facts and both Julia and I are delighted the two fine fellows are the new custodians. As touched on above, they have promised that there will be no changes to current routines for the web, socials, associates, etc and hopefully any handover hiccups will be kept to a minimum. The main thing and most important thing is the Butte will continue to be cared for and looked after for another number of years. It’s the star of the show and deserves every bit of attention it gets. I genuinely cannot imagine leaving the Butte in safer hands. As above, fuller details will be in the next newsletter. Thanks for your support over the years. I know that you will do similar for Terry and Rick. Regards Bob P.' Details of the fuller statement to be included will be published on this website in a few weeks. Thank you.