BEAR ESSENTIALS The Newsletter of : -
IWA Warwickshire Branch Issue No. 41 – December 2014.
Grappling with today’s problems on the GU. Encouraged by the all-round success of our March ‘clean-up’ in Leamington; we undertook another ‘fishing expedition’ on the first Sunday in November - this time it was on the Warwick section of the Grand Union between Emscote and Wedgnock. As before, our Branch team was augmented by groups of local residents, Warwick University students, and a corps of Army Cadets who had travelled all the way from Stourport to join us. Yet again the total turnout exceeded 80 volunteers. In addition, practical support was provided by both WRG and IWA’s Manchester Branch colleagues – who both kindly loaned us their much appreciated grappling irons; and by CRT West Midland’s Volunteer Leader, Steve Lambert who supplied and drove the workboat which collected our ‘catch’. The haul included a safe, three motorcycles, innumerable bikes and of course dozens of those ubiquitous shopping-trolleys.
‘Casting the lines’ I find few tasks today that are more heartening than the collecting and collating of the ‘copy’ for ‘BE’, and this edition has been no exception.
‘Landing the catch’ Photos by Greta Russell and Richard Sanders. .
‘Loading the workboat’ Once again our action has been noted and greatly appreciated locally. We have already been approached via Leamington BID (Business Improvement District) to repeat this exercise in the Leamington area next year – with a group called ‘Old Town Open Spaces’. We therefore plan to do so on Sunday March 1st. Details will be found on Page 2.
Whether, as can be seen on this page, it is the working together in groups for a common cause; or as you can read on page 3 – working individually to help a fellow traveller in distress; there seems to be an ‘atmosphere’ around our inland waterways that contrasts so sharply with all the selfishness and cynicism that seems to prevail in the ‘outside world’. I am particularly heartened to see the number of young people that now contribute to our clean-ups. We ‘old ’uns’ should all be pleased to see this – after all they are the future. However, we now have an opportunity to do something in return, not just for our waterways but particularly for them. On page 4 you will read of an IWA initiative to raise funds for a new minibus for WRG. It will take place here ‘on our doorstep’ and it gives us all a chance to ‘put something back’ - something that will particularly benefit young people. So let’s go for it!
‘Clearing Emscote bridge – just’
Editor:
Ian Fletcher.
Our New Year/Spring Programme of Activities.
Bear in Mind:
Unless otherwise stated all evening events take place at:
(Chairman’s Notes)
The Sports ConneXion, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Coventry CV8 3FL All evening meetings start at 7:30 pm. Sunday, January 4th 2015: Walk the Leam & the GU in Leamington. Please note this change to the programme. Meet at 10:30am at Newbold Comyn Arms car park, Newbold Terrace East, CV32 4EU - for a 1½ - 2 hour / 4 mile, easy grade, ‘circular’ walk along the banks of the river Leam, and the G.U. canal towpath, in Leamington.
Wednesday, January 14th 2015: Branch Annual Dinner. At: The Barley Mow, Newbold on Avon, CV21 1HW. Although most tickets have been sold at our earlier meetings, there may be a few places left. For the latest information, phone Nick or Carole Nicholson: 01926 – 855 228.
Sunday, February 1st 2015: A walk around Wolfhampcote. Please note this change to the programme. Meet at 10:30am at The Boat House public house, London Road, Braunston, NN11 7HB, GR: SP535 659, for this walk through an abandoned village and a lost canal loop.
Wednesday, February 11th 2015: The Rhodes Thomas Collections. by Ian Fletcher. Please come along to see and hear all about what several of your Branch colleagues have been doing for more than four years now with this fascinating collection of waterway slides, that were donated to the Branch in 2010 – some of which still need identifying ! Can you be there to help ?
Sunday, March 1st 2015: A Canal clean-up in Leamington. Meet at Clemens St. Bridge (Bridge 40) at 10:00am - 1:00pm. Please wear appropriate clothing and footwear.
Wednesday, March 11th 2015: Branch AGM, followed by: A review of Stratford’s waterway celebrations: 1964, ’74 & 2014. The Branch AGM Agenda follows the Association’s by-laws and is as outlined in the Region AGM Agenda - as laid out on page 4. The formalities of our AGM are always kept to a minimum, but this year the pressure to conclude will be even greater, as we show a series of slides and films from the three Stratford Festivals – concluding with a remarkable, long-lost, BBC film of David Hutchings before and at the 1974 ‘National’.
Wednesday, March 18th 2015: A walk along the Stratford Canal. Meet at 10:30am in the parking area on Salters Lane by Edstone (Bearley) Aqueduct. GR:SP163611.
The raison d’être for IWA branches is to provide a local focus to further IWA’s aims and objectives. We do this by having a full meeting programme, organising events which will attract and encourage local participation in waterway related activities and by promoting and representing IWA and its views at local events and planning applications involving waterways. All this is achieved by having an active and enthusiastic committee supported by branch membership. Sadly, after last year’s AGM we have only five committee members, which makes organising all of the above very difficult. To help with this load, we are grateful to those others who serve in various roles such as BE editor, Web editor, Planning Officer and Work Party coordinators. However, a larger committee would help spread the load, provide fresh ideas and ensure the future succession of our branch. Although in 2014 we have actively promoted IWA at events such as the Stratford River Festival, we have not been able to maximise our impact through lack of a Publicity Officer. Similarly we have not always been adequately represented at meetings with CRT and other waterway authorities. March may seem a long way off, but it is the month of our AGM, so I would urge you in the meantime to consider whether you could increase your support for IWA by serving on our Branch committee. Richard Sanders.
Sunday, March 22nd 2015: Branch work party at Hatton. 10am - 3pm Working on the offside towpath improvements. Please wear appropriate clothes and footwear. CRT will provide tools and safety equipment. If attending the whole session, please bring a snack lunch. Tea and coffee will be available. Park and meet at Oaklands Farm Kennels near the Shell garage on Birmingham Road, Warwick.
Additional Work Party info.* CRT-WM Towpath task-force. A) 1st Mon & Wed of each month – Hatton. rd B) 3 Thurs & Sat of each month - Lapworth. *Note: For the most up-to-date information on Branch work-parties (and all other Branch activities) see our Branch page on the IWA web-site. << www.waterways.org.uk/warwickshire >>
Thank you Many thanks to all who purchased IWA Christmas cards and 2015 calendars by pre-ordering through the Branch, buying at Branch meetings, or via other sources where they have been on sale. This year’s total will again exceed £300. This is an admirable sum to raise for IWA Warwickshire Branch funds to support local & regional waterway causes.
Bear-faced Lines:
Random snippets from around our patch:
A Rhodes Thomas Legacy?:
River and Canal Rescues:
The Rhodes Thomas collections have comprised not just thousands of waterway slides, but also hundreds of waterway books – some of which were quite valuable. We have now sold most of these books, and – having met all costs associated with the professional storage of these slides from this income - we now find that we have a significant surplus available. We have always said that we would like to devote any such surplus, in his name, to waterway enhancement projects here in the West Midlands, and ideally on his ‘own patch’ – which was primarily around Coventry and Warwickshire.
In our last (August) edition we gave Nick Nicholson our ‘man of the match’ award for towing Clive Henderson from Bearley Odd Lock to Wootton Wawen – following Nanshee’s breakdown when returning from the Stratford River Festival. However, with so much ‘copy’ and a ‘tight’ copy date for that edition we had neither the time nor space available to do justice to Nick’s even greater exploit a couple of days earlier. On leaving the River Festival in early July, the Nicholsons first headed downstream to Bidford – where they came across the unfortunate narrow-boat Musetta stuck under the middle arch of Bidford Bridge. Attempted tows were ineffectual – which meant only one thing; and we now know why Nick always wears shorts – there’s nothing like being prepared! (see image below)
As his family still live in Coventry, we are considering sponsoring a bench seat in his memory – to be located ideally somewhere around Hawkesbury. However, as this will not, by any means, consume all of our funds we are also thinking of at least one other project. If you have travelled on the Shroppie and its Middlewich Branch no doubt you will have seen, and possibly even made use of, the excellent picnic and barbecue facilities that The Shropshire Union Canal Society (SUCS) have created at Coole Pilate near Audlem, and near Church Minshull on the Middlewich Branch (see below). We would now like to create something similar around here.
After much heaving and hauling, and we assume a fair amount of cursing, Musetta was eventually released. This enabled the Nicholsons to move on to their next good Samaritan deed – helping Clive on the southern Stratford. Surely this was RiverCanalRescue personified.
Volunteers Needed:
These SUCS sites have been very carefully chosen. Deliberately located ‘in the middle of nowhere’ they are easily accessed by passing boaters and serious towpath walkers, but are far enough away from road bridges and other signs of ‘civilisation’ for them not to be taken over by the kind of boaters who give bona-fide continuous cruisers a bad name. On your travels around our local canals: anywhere on the Oxford north of Claydon, on the northern Grand Union, on the southern Stratford, or anywhere on the Coventry canal, can you think of any suitable location ? If you can think of somewhere that might meet our requirements - a wide towpath, a piled bank, but most important be ‘off the beaten track’ - then please let us know. If we can find such a location, we would like to discuss with the appropriate CRT Unit (West Midlands, South East or Central Shires) a project similar to those that SUCS have undertaken with CRT North Wales & Borders. We believe that CRT will treat any such request on our part sympathetically – not least because Rhodes Thomas’s full initials were in fact ‘CRT’.
As you will read over on page 4, IWA is planning a fundraising sponsored walk on our ‘patch’ on 22nd February. However, in addition to participants, a number of marshals will be needed to help with both registration and route guidance on the day. Tea and refreshments will be available for all such volunteers. If you are interested in helping then please contact Toby Gomm – details overleaf. If you do apply could you please ‘copy in’ <info.warwickshire@waterways.org.uk> or let the Branch Committee know of your offer by other means. Thanks in anticipation.
Canal & River Trust Open Days: See what goes on ‘below the surface’, at two local family CRT events in the new-year. Take this opportunity for a rare ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at a lock repair, and a chance to examine a lock chamber - from the bottom up! Braunston Lock 4 – 24th January, 10am – 4pm Park in Admiral Nelson car park, Dark Lane, NN11 7HJ Hatton Lock 34 – 14th & 15th February, 10am – 4pm If you park by lock 42 at the CRT Hatton Office, Heritage Skills Centre, Canal Lane, CV35 7JL, you can walk down the flight, to visit not only lock 34, but also see the ongoing offside towpath improvements undertaken by Warwickshire Branch between locks 36 and 30.
Bear with us:
Regional Round-up.
Notice of West Midlands Region Annual General Meeting The 2015 Annual General Meeting of West Midlands th Region will take place at 8:00pm on March 18 at: Martin Heath Hall, Christchurch Lane, (off Walsall Road), Lichfield, WS13 8AY. It will follow the Annual General Meeting of the Lichfield Branch (which is scheduled to start at 7:30pm).
Friends and Neighbours. Walk for WRG: IWA nationally, hopefully well supported by Branch members, is organising an eight mile sponsored walk along the Stratford and Grand Union canals on Sunday, 22nd February 2015. The walk aims to raise at least £1,000 (hopefully a lot more) towards the cost of two new minibuses for IWA’s Waterway Recovery Group – each vehicle will cost more than £25,000.
AGENDA 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Apologies for absence. Approval of minutes of the last AGM. Matters arising from these minutes. Report from the Region Chairman. Financial Report. Election of members of the Committee. Any items requested by members of the Region provided the Region Chairman is notified in writing of the item at least six weeks prior to the AGM.
This agenda follows the Association’s by-laws. Any member, regardless of the length of their membership, who feels that they can contribute to the work of the committee is welcome to volunteer for election, this is normally for a term of three years. This can either be done in advance of the meeting by contacting the Chairman or Secretary, or at the start of the item dealing with the election of the committee when the Chairman of the meeting may seek interest from the floor. No formal nominations are required in either case. Once constituted, the new Committee will elect its Officers - other than the Chairman who is elected by means of a separate poll once every three years - at its first meeting following the AGM. Normally this will take place within a few days of the AGM.
Northampton Festival of Water 2015 IWA is holding a major waterways event on the th st River Nene 29 to 31 August. This free event, centred around the waterfront at Becket’s Park, will have an array of attractions on and off the water and will celebrate the opening of the Canal Arm to the river in 1815. Visit: IWA Northampton Festival
WRG’s small fleet of minibuses and goods vehicles forms a vital part of WRG’s operation - transporting tools, equipment and volunteers across the country to carry out waterway restoration work. Some of the existing vehicles show signs of ageing and the WRG Board has decided that replacements are needed. This eight mile circular walk, starting at Lapworth Village Hall, encompasses idyllic stretches of the Stratford and Grand Union canals towpaths as well as country lanes and fields en-route, with country pubs to stop at for lunch - before arriving back at the village hall for tea, something to eat and a well-deserved rest. It promises to be a great day out, and will help raise funds to continue WRG’s vital work. If you would like to participate in the walk you can register online at: www.waterways.org.uk/iwalk or by phoning 01494 783453 ext. 611. Places are £5 per person. Under 16s go free, but under 18s need to be accompanied by an adult. After this, it’s over to you to raise sponsorship to support WRG. Once you have booked your place you will receive a welcome pack with directions, a map of the route, a kit list and a sponsorship guide. The walk begins at 11:00am, but you can sign-in from 10:00am onwards. To find out more: Visit: www.waterways.org.uk/iwalk Email: Toby Gomm - toby.gomm@waterways.org.uk Phone: 01494 783453 ext. 611.
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. The IWA is a registered charity (No. 212342), founded in 1946. Supported by donations & members’ subscriptions, it campaigns for conservation, use, maintenance, restoration, & development of the inland waterways of England and Wales - for the benefit of all. Registered & General Office: - Island House, Moor Road, Chesham, Herts. HP5 1WA. Phone: 01494 - 783 453.
Website :-
www.waterways.org.uk.
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 > For up to date info. between BE editions visit our web page: < www.waterways.org.uk/warwickshire > Please inform Head Office of your e-mail address changes.