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This article by Mike Temple is from the December 1990 issue of Kent Area News.
Know Your EC: Fred Goad
No. Not the European Community; your Executive Committee!
Fred Goad, our Chairman, said in our first issue that he was very concerned about how little many RA members apparently knew of those actually running Kent Area.
Your editor promptly decided that he should be the first to be spotlighted and went off, note book at the ready.
Fred, whose photograph graced the pages of the Summer edition of South Eastern Rambler, is not only our Area Chairman and Publicity Officer, but also Secretary of the Canterbury Group.
Now retired from the Kent County Council where he held a number of posts including that of Principal Building Surveyor, he is now devoting a considerable amount of time to the RA.
Some may have heard Fred being interviewed by Radio Kent on 13th August, the day that the new Rights of Way Act became effective, and more recently on the subject of bridges on public rights of way.
Speaking to me, Fred said "I well remember the day I was discharged from the Army in 1945 after being wounded, still only 19 years old with my living to earn, already a pensioner and a registered disabled person, and with my professional education
hardly started. To cap it all, the doctor's parting words were to the effect that I would never lead a normal life.
Well, most sports were certainly out of the question, so I turned to walking and found that this opened up a new world."
When in 1985, Kent Area decided to form a Group in Canterbury to celebrate the jubilee of the RA, Fred became Chairman of the Steering Committee (with all of two members), and then the Group's first Secretary.
Largely through his efforts, the Group has grown very quickly and now enjoys an active and varied programme.
Prominent in this are its forays into the further reaches of the UK and the Continent.
He joined the EC in 1986, and has been a member ever since.
Fred is concerned about communications amongst members, and has taken a keen interest in the launching of the Area Newsletter.
He is very concerned that members may not be well informed about the considerable efforts that are made by the EC for rambling in Kent and intends to make a special effort to visit as many Groups as he can to learn more about local problems - and successes too.
He said to me "I think the best way of meeting people is to walk with them.
So if Groups would send me their programmes, I can arrange to join them in the recreation we all enjoy so much - walking in good company."
Note: What used to be called the Executive Committee is
now known as Area Council. Sadly, Fred Goad died in Spring
2011.
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