TWENTY YEARS AT THE TOP As he prepares to step down from his role as IWA’s Chief Executive this summer, we talk to Neil Edwards about Canal Camps, career highlights and stand-out campaigns
It was initially with the Waterway Recovery Group in 1979. I was always conscious that waterways restoration was happening and when I made a determined effort to find out more, I contacted London WRG, went to a few work parties and eventually became one of its regular volunteers.
You were known within WRG as being 'captain Canal Camps'. Tell us how that came about. There was an article in Navvies magazine in the mid-1980s appealing for someone to take on the management of WRG’s Work Camps, as they were then known. The camps generally operated over the summer holidays at just two or three sites for around a month with people coming and going at various times. They were on the periphery of WRG in some ways. The organiser at the time wanted to step down and there was some debate within WRG as to whether or not the camps were going to continue. Because I’d had lots of experience with the National Trust’s working holidays since leaving school, I thought I could make a useful contribution. I put my name forward and the leader at London WRG acted as my advocate. From that point on, I took on the organisation of the camps and then restructured them into week-long residential activities. I also renamed them Canal Camps and marketed them to a younger audience to get new people involved.
How have the Canal Camps changed since you first made the changes? It took a while to get them going and I think we only ran four week-long camps in the first year. Gradually, we expanded the programme and built them up until we had around 25 a year, which took about ten or more years to do. We used the camps to get new people to stick around with WRG and join the weekend groups. We increased the number of the places that we could go to and approached local restoration societies asking them to consider hosting camps. When I took on the role, there was just one very old, dilapidated van that was barely roadworthy, and a limited amount of kit that went everywhere. Over the years we invested in modern vehicles that were reliable, as well as trailers and new equipment. We tried to make it more professional, and raise the standards in regards to health and safety and the range of activities that could happen. We also added the training aspect to improve the overall effectiveness
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of the camps. Initially the emphasis was on trying to get more people involved, but as time went on it shifted towards trying to make the camps really productive and worthwhile.
That's quite an undertaking. Was it one of the highlights of your time with WRG? Yes. There was a risk at the time that the Canal Camps could have faded away. I thought they had a lot of potential and knew from my work with the National Trust that it was a real means of bring in new people and engaging a whole new audience. The Canal Camps have become a major feature of WRG and one of the jewels in the overall IWA crown. It’s something I’m pleased that’s worked out really well, and was well worth the effort. Looking back, I suppose it was a fairly sizeable undertaking but it never seemed so at the time because it started small and built up slowly. WRG has also grown up in terms of becoming more professional and having greater expertise and influence on the restoration world. It has opened itself up to so many worksites, and is willing to help new schemes and be quite adventurous. Everyone’s been Neil was involved in several different committees before taking on the role of Chief Executive.
JOHN FLETCHER
How did your involvement with the waterways begin?
Summer 2020 20/04/2020 10:47
