BEAR ESSENTIALS The Newsletter of : -
IWA Warwickshire Branch Issue No. 49 – August 2017.
A Snatch In Time Saves Nine:
Our past and present chair-holders leading members and local residents in this worthwhile exercise. Photo by Greta Russell
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On Sunday July 9 , we undertook our third ‘balsam bash’ – when members, and local residents, returned to Myton Fields in Warwick to tackle the problem of Himalayan Balsam on the banks of the river Avon. Unchecked, this invasive species can crowd out native plants, and lead to bank-erosion. As other branches elsewhere in the country have found, these repeat ‘attacks’ are having an effect, and the ‘infected’ areas are usually found to be stabilising, and then reducing, and that is certainly the case here in Warwick – where this time we filled a mere 43 rubbish bags with our ‘harvest’. By next year it is hoped that an area of the riverbank that to date has been unavailable to us will become so – and, with your help, our work to eradicate this pernicious plant can continue. This will not only benefit the Warwick riverfront in the short to medium term, but in the longer term the Avon’s bank-sides further downstream. However, we should not confine ourselves to one ‘group-attack’ on one specific date in the summer. With guidance from environmental specialists, the Association is launching a wider response to the problem – under the ‘strapline’ “PullSnapStomp”. When boating on, or walking alongside our waterways – whether as individuals, families, or larger groups, we can also . help to tackle the problem. To find out more about Himalayan Balsam and how you, your family and friends can contribute to our evolving campaign please visit the Association’s website www.waterways.org.uk/himalayanbalsam Non-waterway friends often ask me “Why do you do it ?”, [‘It’ being get involved with, and spend so much time on and around, our inland waterways]. For years I’ve thought about ‘it’, and now I’ve come up with the answer “Because it’s pleasure with a purpose”. Whether we are pulling up Himalayan Balsam, sign-writing on finger-posts, or anything else related to securing the future of our inland waterways, we are doing something that has long-term worth, and doing it in the company of like-minded individuals who soon become friends. So, if you’d like to do just that little bit more for your waterways, and make new friends in the process, then come and join us in our on-going pursuit of pleasure with a purpose.
Editor:
Ian Fletcher.
A Sign of the Times ? In our April edition we showed images of how our local inland waterways scene has changed over the last 60 years, but here’s an even more rapid change. In mid-January several members of the Lapworth Towpath Taskforce removed the junction’s 28 year old signpost - for Nick Nicholson to give the woodwork some long overdue ‘tlc’. Then Ian Fletcher, Neil Skerry, Sue Roy & John Powell re-painted the arms, and CRT’s Steve Lambert found funds to pay for the manufacture of a steel base-plate for the reassembly. The Taskforce team then replaced the sign in June – just in time to point the way to Stratford for July’s River Festival.
Before and after photos by Nick Nicholson.
Bear Bones:
Bear in Mind:
An outline of upcoming activities. Our Autumn / Winter Programme of Activities Unless otherwise stated, evening events take place at 7:30 at:-:
The Sports ConneXion, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Coventry CV8 3FL Wednesday September 13th 2017: Volunteering with CRT. by Sue Blocksidge, Volunteer Coordinator CRT W Midlands. Our popular and efficient local manager will tell us all the things that we didn’t know about the operation of the Trust.
Wednesday October 11th 2017: An Update on The L&H Restoration. by Bob Williams. Finance Director, Lichfield & Hatherton Trust Bob will give us an overall ‘progress report’ on this key midland restoration, and in particular their £1m Tunnel Vision project.
Sunday
October 15th 2017: Canal Clean-up in Leamington. . Meet from 9:45am for a 10:00am to 1:00pm session. Meet at Clemens Street Bridge (Br 40) in Leamington. Please wear appropriate clothing.
Sunday
October 29th 2017:
Yet Another Hatton ‘Haircut’
Meet from 9:45am for a 10:00am to 1:00pm. session. For on-going off-side maintenance work between locks 30 & 36. As previously, please park and meet at Oaklands Farm Kennels, CV35 7DZ. Please wear appropriate clothing. Tea & coffee will be available. Wednesday November 8th 2017: The History of the Canals Around Lapworth: by Nick Holmes – of the Lapworth History Group. A fascinating talk on the creation of the Warwick & Birmingham, and the Stratford canals – and their eventual connection at Lapworth – canal rivalry at its best!
Sunday
November 19th 2017: A Walk along the Stratford Greenway and River Avon. Meet at 10:15 for 10:30am start. For this 4.5 mile walk (short loop option available) – followed by an optional lunch in Stratford. Meet at the Greenway car-park, (pay & display) Seven Meadows Road, CV37 6GR, or SP195540.
Wednesday December 13th 2017: A Social Evening at The Sports Connexion - with Buffet Supper, Games of Skill and Chance – and prizes! Pre-booking is essential.
Sunday
January 7th 2018: A New Year walk to Holy Well - near Southam. Meet 10:15 for 10:30am at Wood Street car park in Southam. CV47 1PP, or Grid Ref: SP 419 618. th
Wednesday January 10 2018: Our Annual, New Year Dinner: This year will be held at Le Bistrot Pierre in Stratford, further info. at our autumn events - pre-booking will be essential. .
Other Work Party Information* CRT-WM: Towpath task-force: a) Hatton - 1st Wed & Fri of the month nd b).Stratford - 2 Thur & Fri of the month rd c) Lapworth - 3 Thur & Sat of the month *Note: For our most up-to-date information please see the Warwickshire page on the IWA web-site. www.waterways.org.uk/warwickshire
Carole’s Considerations. Hi folks, It’s time again for my ‘words of wisdom’. I hope that you’ve been enjoying the summer as much as we have. We’ve managed to fit all our IWA events in alongside our boating trips. We came back from London by train for Matt Preen’s excellent talk about the development of Calcutt Boats, then returned to Limehouse for a Thames Barrier cruise with St. Pancras Cruising Club. The trip was well-organised, really-interesting, and thoroughly enjoyable - I highly recommend it to others. We then went onto the Wey Navigation and Basingstoke Canal, before returning via the Thames, and Oxford Canal in time for our June walk at Ufton. The weather was good, the walk not difficult, the company great, and we concluded with a meal at the White Hart. Then came July, and Stratford River Festival & the ‘Balsam Bash’. At Stratford we had good feed-back about our work on the offside path at Hatton, and also good comments about the newly reinstated signpost at Lapworth - so well done all who contributed. It does make our efforts all seem worthwhile when they’re appreciated. It was also rewarding at Myton Fields to find that there was considerably less Himalayan Balsam around - than in previous years. Next season’s programme is now complete. I hope that it will satisfy more of you so that we can see new faces. At our Regional meeting we found that some branches attract more non-members to events - thus widening our range of contacts and friends to support them. Therefore one suggestion is that sections of the programme could be e-mailed to members at intervals through the year with a request to print out copies to be put in libraries, marinas and canal-side pubs and cafes. We may give it a try – could you help ? If you have any comments (positive or negative), suggestions, or offers to help - related to the running of our branch - then please contact me. carole.nicholson@waterways.org.uk Finally, looking ahead, please note that booking will be essential for both our December games and buffet evening, and our January dinner.
Carole Nicholson.
Random snippets from around our patch and beyond.
Bear-faced Lines: A Pub-Crawl with a Difference:
A Surfeit of Silly Signs:
Our treasurer Sheila Bell, organised our June picnic and walk, and it certainly was a walk with a difference – even for those of us who thought that we knew this ‘centre of the universe’ quite well, and even, even more for those of us who thought that we knew its pubs particularly well.
As certain CRT managers read BE, I wonder whether they could help your editor to understand the message on the sign below – one of a series that I recently discovered while out cruising. If not, then I’d appreciate it if they’d forward the image to their Superintendent of Silly Signs for interpretation, However, knowing that senior supervision may not be entirely au-fait with ‘sharp-end’ detail, they may in-turn have to confer with their ‘AA’ (Ambiguity Assistant).
The evening began with a picnic in the garden of the Stop House - where ‘someone’ even barbecued, with their swanky new ‘vorsprung durch technik’ German facility. [ I’m only jealous ! Ed.]
The message ‘comes across’ to me as an instruction, I’d therefore have thought that a ‘Please’ at the beginning or end would have made it more acceptable to more of the lock-workers and gongoozlers for whom I guess that its intended. But I still feel that something’s missing - some quantification - how high is high ? It also seems to imply that low-level falling is to be frowned upon, and falling into stop-locks - such as at Hawkesbury - is just not on at all ! The pre-amble to a pub-crawl
Photos by Nick Nicholson.
However, this was just a foretaste of what was to come. Armed with her newly acquired book about the pubs of Braunston, Sheila took us on a tour of some of the 26 pubs – yes 26 pubs! – that, at sometime or another over the last 250 years, have existed in or around Braunston. From the pre-canal coaching era, through canals and railways to the present day, we visited the sites of many of these pubs, some still in existence as private houses, others long-since gone – such as the four! that clustered around the former railway station – adjacent to the old coaching route from Cambridge to Coventry (now the A45 near the Marina entrance).
On a slightly more serious note, the location of some of these signs could be described as official vandalism - they certainly ‘visually un-balance’ balance-beams. As to where these signs are, you’ll have to wait for a future edition. All I’ll say now is that they’re thankfully not (yet) on our patch – and also I don’t think they’re yet to be found at Fall-Ing ! ‘Man’ of The Match: Our motm award this time goes to someone who’s annual ‘trips’ around our inland waterways are usually accompanied by too much, or too little, water. However, this summer they seemed to get it right. While working through Hunsdon Mill lock on the River Stort, Jackie Sanders was awarded a CRT ‘Boats In Bloom’ certificate by the local mooring’s warden. Jackie had tended three planters throughout their trip from Warwick - initially having to store them in the cratch during April’s cold weather; but by May sunnier, warmer weather had arrived, and Jackie was receiving many compliments from both passing boaters and gongoozlers alike - as the pansies added a welcome splash of colour to Mad Hatter.
Sheila tells us about a long lost pub near the bottom lock.
We did however finish at a ‘real’ pub, The Plough - which is the oldest of the four surviving pubs in the village. Here we even impressed the landlady with our newfound knowledge. If you missed this excellent evening, but would like to do your own ‘pub-crawl’, the book - Pubs of Braunston, by Dick Herne of Braunston Historical Society - can now be purchased from various outlets within the village.
Photo by Richard Sanders.
As this warranted a certificate from CRT then the least that we can do is award her our highly prized and much sought after motm award. Congratulations Jackie.
Bear with us:
National Round-up.
Friends and Neighbours.
Restoration Raffle:
A Presidential Pardon:
IWA’s 2017 Restoration Raffle is now open, but with some changes. This year we’ve decided to focus all our efforts through IWA’s Restoration Hub, For more information about the Restoration Hub, please visit www.waterways.org.uk/restorationhub Tickets are now available from the IWA shop, or www.waterways.org.uk/raffle This year’s prizes include: A Top Prizes of - £1,000 and also a one-week boating holiday on a 6-berth narrowboat:- worth £800 - £1,500. The closing date is 15th December. For full Terms and Conditions visit-
We don’t normally accept adverts here in BE, but please pardon us for this particular exception. We think (well at least we hope) that you’ll agree that this one’s a bit different - and therefore its worth making an exception for. Please read on:
www.waterways.org.uk/support_us/raffle/terms_conditions
Braunston’s Historic Boat Show: This year, in conjunction with Northampton Branch, we took on the joint responsibility of managing and manning the Association’s stand at the show over th the weekend of 24/25 June. Yet again interest, sales and recruitment at this increasingly popular event made it a very worthwhile exercise for IWA – even more so when, contrary to normal practice at similar such shows, the sponsor, Braunston Marina, actually pays organisations such as ours to attend!
The branch will make a contribution. However, if you wish to make additional personal donations then do by visiting: bclm.com/fundpresident.
Stop Press ! Seen above, (left to right), are:- Judith Pope (IWA Volunteer Engagement Officer), Greta Russell, Timothy West, Geoff Wood (Northampton Branch Vice-chairman), Prunella Scales, Sheila Bell and Tim Coghlan (Braunston Marina Owner) - with Greta and Geoff about to be presented with a (to be shared) £200 cheque by Timothy West.
Banbury Canal Day, Sunday October 1 st. Due to a delayed start on the Castle Quay Shopping Centre redevelopment, this year’s Canal Day has been hastily reinstated. For application form, and further information contact event manager, Ann Sewell. Phone: 01295-817314. or e-mail: ann.sewell@banbury.gov.uk
The IWA may not agree with opinions expressed here in this newsletter, but encourages its publication as a matter of interest. Nothing herein may be construed as a matter of policy, or an official announcement, unless otherwise stated. The Association accepts no liability for any of the material contained herein. Editor: Ian Fletcher, 4 Village Hall Cottages, CV47 9QH Phone :01926 – 815 413. E-mail : newsletter.warwickshire@waterways.org.uk For local contact on all other Branch activities please e-mail: < info.warwickshire@waterways.org.uk > Registered Office: Island House, Moor Road, Chesham HP5 1WA Tel: 01494 783453 Web: www.waterways.org.uk The Inland Waterways Association is a non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee. Registered in England no. 612245. Registered as a charity no. 212342
For up to date info. between BE editions visit our web page: < www.waterways.org.uk/warwickshire > Please inform Head Office of any e-mail address changes.