Coming soon Training and Little Venice

coming soon... Get trained!

See the camps booklet which came with this Navvies for a list of the summer Canal Camps. And see below for opportunities for some training first...

Summer Canal Camps 2022

There’s no need for us to describe all 14 of the week-long Canal Camps that we’ve got planned for this summer, because included with this issue of Navvies you will have received a copy of the Canal Camps booklet giving full details of all of them. (Just in case you haven’t received a copy, there’s a list of camps at the bottom of this page, you can request a booklet from head office - print or electronic version - and all the info is on www.wrg.org.uk.

But just to make sure you’re well prepared for the camps season, we have some training events first...

WRG Training weekend: 25-26 June

The Wey & Arun Canal will be hosting our usual pre-summer camps training weekend at which we hope to help familiarise you with some of the skills, vehicles, machinery and anything else that will be helpful for your camp. But we’re not going to give a list of what training’s available - we want you to ask us for what your want to be trained at, and we’ll do our best to provide it. By way of examples, in the past we’ve offered training on machinery (including excavators, rollers, dumpers), vehicles (vans, trailers), practical skills (bricklaying), hand-held plant (breakers), technical kit (levels, Cat scanners), First Aid, risk assessments and lots more. So get in touch with head office on 01494 783453 or enquiries@wrg.org.uk.

WRG Leader Training Day: Saturday 21 May

This is aimed both at helping to provide help and guidance for those who have volunteered to be part of the leadership team on Canal Camps, and also those who are considering giving it a go. It will take place at Rowington Village Hall in Warwickshire, and again, you can contact head office on 01494 7823453 or enquiries@wrg.org.uk for details and to book.

Canal Camps 2022

2-9 Jul Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal 9-16 Jul Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal 16-23 Jul Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal 23-30 Jul Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation 23-30 Jul Lichfield Canal 30 Jul-6 Aug Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation 30 Jul-6 Aug Lichfield Canal 6-13 Aug Lapal Canal 20-27 Aug Wey & Arun Canal 21-28 Aug Shrewsbury & Newport Canals 3-10 Sep Swansea Canal 10-17 Sep Monmouthshire & Brecon Canals 17-24 Sep Swansea Canal

More details in the Canal Camps booklet, mailed with this copy of Navvies, or on waterways.org.uk/canalcamps Mobile groups’ weekends

In addition to the week-long Canal Camps listed (left), the regional mobile working party groups are also back at work. See Navvies News page 38 for details of two London WRG weekends, see pages 12-15 for news from WRG North West and NWPG, see the last Navvies for reports and pictures from KESCRG and WRG Forestry, and WRG BITM have been out too. So far, working parties have been mainly on an an ad-hoc basis - see the groups’ websites or Facebook pages for the latest news - but we plan to reinstate the Navvies diary in a future issue.

coming soon... Cavalcade

As the IWA Little Venice Canalway Cavalcade returns after a two-year absence, volunteers are needed to help run this popular London festival

Site services for Canalway Cavalcade at Little Venice, 27 April - 3 May

Canalway Cavalcade is the Inland Waterways Association’s annual festival at Little Venice (near Paddington in London), and a popular and colourful fixture in the canal boating calendar. It will return for the May Day Bank Holiday in 2022 after two years away due to the pandemic. One thing that makes it happen is a team of site services volunteers – not an official WRG Camp, but generally a bunch of mostly WRGies who set up and manage the festival infrastructure and site.

The camp runs from mid-morning on Wednesday 27 April (when stuff starts arriving and we build our camp) through Thursday and Friday when we build the festival. The three days of the weekend during the actual festival generally involve site management activities before the take down of the event on the Monday evening and Tuesday morning with the aim to have cleared the site by mid-afternoon on Tuesday 3 May.

To make it all happen we’d like the experienced volunteers who have helped in previous years to come again and also some new faces to join the team to ensure the future of the event. We recognise that you may not be able to attend the whole camp because it does run mid-week to mid-week but we do need people to attend on the weekdays, in particular on the Monday evening and Tuesday because this is when we most need them! We welcome people who are only able to help for a day or two. There will be a plan of work activities so that everyone gets chance to enjoy some of the festival and take in the amazing atmosphere of the event.

The accommodation is limited and restricted to two narrow boats for sleeping on, plus a field kitchen (which needs to be built on day 1) for cooking and eating. Work activities include putting up (and taking down) marquees, market stalls and banners around the site, fencing, and general event management.

Outside of the work camp activities, Canalway Cavalcade also needs volunteers to assist with other aspects of the event such as donation collecting, giving information to the public and children’s activities – if this is of interest please let me know.

Contact me on Pete.Fleming@waterways.org.uk for more information.

Pete Fleming

Martin Ludgate