Some very visible activities ...

This has been an interesting week.  Some of the things we have been doing are very visible to members and the public; others not quite so much yet, though that will happen in time.

First of all, the public ones.  On Saturday I had the great pleasure and privilege of presenting Environment Partnership Awards to the 10^th Chippenham Scout Group.  They have won the award by working with the Wilts & Berks Canal Trust on an environmental project.  As Simon Brown, their Scout Leader said, this is a tough badge to get.  The scouts have to identify a project, and a partner (us in this case), make contact, define the project, visit the sites, plan it in partnership, prepare risk assessments and ways of doing the work.  They also had to make contact with the Woodland Trust, who were good enough to supply the trees needed.  Then they needed to carry out the work, learning how to plant trees so that would be protected, and ‘take’.  Once they have done it, they then have to prepare reports and submit them to the partner organisation, and The Scout Association. 

The project that they identified and completed involved planting trees, at our worksites near Chippenham.  First of all they planted trees at the site north of the A4, where we are restoring the canal using a carefully prepare Habitat Management Plan, so their work fitted in very well.  Second, they planted the remaining trees at Pewsham Locks; in this case it was as a ‘holding nursery’ until we can move them to their final site.

Altogether it was a great project.  The scouts had clearly worked very hard on it, and had learned some valuable lessons.  From the point of view of the Trust, this was a great example of working with young people, and working in partnership for the long-term benefit of the whole community.

On Sunday it was the sponsored walk, organised by MCC branch.  This was as usual a success, particularly in involving people who had never previously visited the site.  There was an information tent, which also made some sales for fund-raising.  What particularly impressed a number of people was the work in progress of reconstructing the culvert carrying Cocklemore Brook under the canal. It really is a credit to the work party. I can confirm this because I saw it and photographed it on the previous day at the presentation to the scouts. The materials for the culvert restoration are being paid for by a £10K grant from Yorkshire Building Society(YBS). And when one of our members popped into a YBS office in Northumberland and mentioned that we had received a grant from them, it turned out that they had heard about “that tunnel” down South!”  

During the week there was a lot of less visible activity, including a great deal of effort being put into the Melksham Link MasterPlanning by Jock MacKenzie and the rest of the team.  At the same time we are thinking about the organisation and the structure of the Trust in order to be ready for the increasing level of project work that this will entail.  We hope to update you on this and other organisational developments in the near future.

Looking forward to this coming week, we are maintaining the dialogue with our friends and neighbours in the Cotswold Canals Trust.  They are very successful with their trust centre in Stroud, so we wanted to ‘pick their brains’ about this, this time with particular reference to how they deal with their trading and merchandising activities. 

Chris Coyle