At the Trustee meeting on 17 October 2012, the following were among the items discussed.

The Greater Manchester Archaeology Federation had requested lists of equipment that could be borrowed by member groups.  This led to a discussion on updating the list of MAT equipment and its location.

Following news of demand for an ACE tour of industrial archaeology in Staffordshire, it was agreed that, subject to a good financial prediction, MAT should organise a three-day tour in Greater Manchester and nearby areas in association with the Centre for Applied Archaeology at Salford University.

Orders for "Mellor through the Ages" had been received from a book distributor and was dealt with by Anthea Nicholls, who is now handling book sales (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

The HLF application for "Revealing Oldknow's Legacy: Mellor Mill and the Peak Forest Canal in Marple" was successful at stage 1. Development of the application will run to May next year. John Hearle and Bob Humphrey-Taylor from MAT and Nick Smith and Fiona Turpin from Canal and River Trust had a very useful meeting to discuss the way forward with Nick Herepath, the HLF grants officer for the project,. Afterwards, Bob and I took Nick H to the Mellor Mill site; his reaction on approaching the viewing platform was "Blimey! Wow!".  At the Trust meeting Bob reported on the interesting discoveries at the front to the mill and the tunnel for the drive shaft from the Waterloo Wheel.

A programme of school visits to the Old Vicarage site will be offered starting next spring.

A Christmas lunch at the Roman Lakes is planned for early December. For next year, three speakers have agreed to give talks.

The Mellor Heritage Project 2007-9 finally ended with a formal handover of the viewing area to the Mayor as the representative of the people of Stockport. A simple agreement has been signed for MAT volunteers to carry out routine horticultural maintenance of the Roman garden and viewing area with Greenspace Stockport being responsible for the infrastructure.  For the whole 1998-2009 excavations, the archives have been taken from the Old Vicarage cellar to Stockport Museums, where they will be catalogued. Meanwhile Peter Arrowsmith and John Roberts, with Steve Bellshaw providing drawings, are completing a full British Archaeology Report.

Chris Walter, webmaster, reported that the new website was now open for viewing and had attracted good comments – and one spotting of a homophone error in the old website!