what’s on this weekend? - canal & river trust web viewproject and also the upcoming ......
TRANSCRIPT
Communications Update
1st July 2016
News Round up
If your head is spinning from all the Brexit fall out, take a look at the calming waterway related news here
· Development & engagement manager Liz Fleuty and volunteer Mick Harrison had a nice chat with BBC Radio Nottingham about plastic pollution on Nottinghamshire’s waterways
· BBC South Today (30/06/16) reported on our inspection of the waterway walls on the Kennet & Avon Canal at Hungerford Wharf
· ITV regional news (23/6/16) spoke to principal engineer Tony Sims about the inspection by drone of the Iron Trunk Aqueduct on the Grand Union Canal
· There was been continued interest in our Great Nature Watch, with Trust ecologists speaking on regional radio:
Ecologist Laura Mullholland gave BBC Wiltshire (29/6/16) the model interview as she chatted to them about herons on the Kennet & Avon Canal
BBC Radio Leicester included the survey in news bulletins (25/6/16) Richard Bennett spoke to London Live TV (30/06/16) Phillippa Baron spoke to BBC Radio Sheffield (24/6/16) with the story also
repeated on news bulletins Imogen Wilde gave a great interview to BBC Radio Derby (28/6/16)
· BBC Radio Merseyside broadcast live from Ellesmere Port this morning (30/06/16). They spoke to Graham Boxer and volunteers about the 40 th anniversary of the National Waterways Museum, the opening of the Window on the World project and also the upcoming lock open event
· Former Canal Laureate, Jo Bell, appeared on Jonathan Ross’s BBC Radio 2 Show (23/6/16)
· The Birmingham Mail (30/06/16) reports on plans to regenerate the city’s Roundhouse. BBC Radio West Midlands (29/06/16) also covered the story
· ‘Crocodile spotted in London’s Docklands’ reported the Evening Standard, Metro and Daily Mirror (29/06/16). The crocodile turned out to be a bit of rope
In social media:
· Our post about Lizzie, who paddle boarded along 400 miles of canals in 22 days, reached 5,794 people on Twitter, gaining 154 engagements (retweets, replies, likes and post clicks)
· Our update on Elland Bridge reached 7,261 people on Facebook and Twitter
· We’ll be promoting Dance on Water across our social media channels this week. The hashtag is #danceonwater2016
And coming up next week:
· We’ll be launching an appeal to catch the people who are repeatedly vandalising a bridge on the Peak Forest Canal
· Matthew Symonds will be filming in Bradford upon Avon with BBC’s Inside Out programme about families who continuously cruise on the Kennet & Avon Canal. The programme will be broadcast at the end of the summer
· We’re expecting to reopen the Calder & Hebble Navigation to boats at Elland Bridge next week, following this winter’s flood damage
· We’ll be issuing a call for volunteer ‘seal spotters’ to help with a study on the River Tees
· A section of the Erewash Canal towpath is set to be officially opened on Friday after a £500,000 revamp
· We’ve been awarded a stage 1 pass from HLF to develop restoration plans for the Wendover Arm Canal
· We’re working with Birmingham City Council to highlight the benefits of the city’s new improved towpaths
· We’ll be issuing a press release about volunteers from Jaguar Land Rover being out on the Staffs & Worcs Canal
· We’re inviting media to see our clean-up of duck weed on the Lancaster Canal
· Media are being invited to see the work we’re doing at Standards Lock on the Bridgwater & Taunton Canal
What’s on this weekend…?
Stratford-upon-Avon River Festival
For two whole days every summer the riverside comes alive and 2016’s event will feature more free events and activities than ever before, whilst also welcoming back a host of old favourites by popular demand.
2nd July 2016 to 3rd July 2016Address
Stratford-upon-Avon,
Warwickshire,CV37 7LS
Come along to the 8th Stratford River Festival. This two-day free celebration invites you and your family and friends to join last year's 60,000 revelers to enjoy music, food, drink, 100's of stalls and crafts and more.
More information to come, for more info on last year's event visit: http://www.stratforward.co.uk/events/stratford-river-festival/whats-on
40th anniversary celebrations and opening of Window on the World
2016 marks the 40th anniversary of the opening of the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port and to commemorate this important milestone for the UK’s inland waterways, the museum is hosting a weekend of celebratory activities.
2nd July 2016 to 3rd July 2016
10:00am - 5:00pm
National Waterways Museum
South Pier RoadEllesmere PortCheshireCH65 4FW
The anniversary weekend will be packed full of things to see and do including the opening of its new ‘Window on the World’ experience, performances from the Museum’s artist in residence and the one-off chance to venture into the canal lock at the museum which will be specially drained for the replacement of
two hand crafted oak lock gates.
This is a very exciting time for the volunteers and staff at the museum as we celebrate our 40th anniversary as well as opening the ‘Window on the World’ project. We will be inviting visitors to step back in time, meet the characters who worked on the slipway, and explore how the historic winch would have raised boats from the Manchester Ship Canal.
Window on the World has been made possible thanks to generous grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Wolfson Foundation and AIM Biffa. It will showcase why Ellesmere Port was a ‘window on the world’ with the opening of the Port’s historic slipway, which was used for boat building and restoration between the 1840s and the 1920s. The Leeds and Liverpool short boat George is being rebuilt, and a grant of over £50,000 from the Wolfson Foundation has funded the preservation of the Mersey flat Mossdale.
Returning for the anniversary weekend will be Francesca Millican-Slater with her sell out performance of ‘Walking the Shroppie’, devised during Francesca’s ten month period as Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the NWM. There will also be the opportunity to take a look into the work the Canal & River Trust does to keep the canals and rivers open as work is carried out to replace the locks gates on the Shropshire Union Canal within the grounds of the museum.
Other events coming up…
Over & Under Adventure
Walk in the footsteps of the original tunnel controller.
3rd July 2016
10:00am - 3:30pm
Standedge Tunnel & Visitor CentreWaters RoadMarsdenHuddersfieldHD7 6NQ
Run in partnership with Marsden Moor National Trust, our Over & Under Adventures prove extremely popular year on year.
Take a boat trip all the way through Britain's longest, highest and deepest canal tunnel as our guide tells you the tales and tribulations of the navvies who built it.
Once you have experience the depths lying beneath Marsden Moor, take a guided walk back to the Visitor Centre over the top on the old packhorse route, walking in the footsteps of the original tunnel controller.
Start time: 10am
Booking essential - call 01484 844298
Birmingham Roundhouse: The un-tour
A unique opportunity to see one of Birmingham's hidden gems before restoration.
9th July 2016 to 20th August 2016
11:30am - 1:30pm
Birmingham Round HouseSheepcote StreetBirminghamB16 8AE
A rare chance to experience a tour with a difference, the ‘Un-tour’ is history but not as you know it, with a twist where you get to teach the tour guide.
Includes a treasure hunt and a quest?
The Un-tour is a tour with a difference. A fascinating building that tells the stories of the underbelly of Birmingham, revealed by two of the city’s leading performance poets, Spoz and Kurly.
Timetable for tours on each day
Two tours are available each day, lasting for approximately two hours.
Timings
Tour 1: 11:30am – 1:30pmTour 2: 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Dates
Saturday 9 July – Spoz
Saturday 16 July – KurlySunday 17 July – KurlySaturday 23 July – SpozSaturday 20 August – Spoz–(2-4pm only)
Prices
£8.20 per adult, children under 12 go free. 25% discount for National Trust Members and Friends of the Canal & River Trust. See website for further details.
Accessibility
Please be aware that Roundhouse is in a pre-restoration state. There are some areas that are not yet accessible via wheelchair (but we’reworking on this). There are uneven cobbles at a gradient on entry, and some uneven floors.
Dance on Water
Dance on Water begins its unique canal journey tomorrow, 1st July, in Birmingham. Twenty young dancers will make a seven day boat journey from Birmingham to Salford where they will perform a brand new waterways-inspired dance piece at The Lowry in Salford, as part of the National Youth Dance Festival. They’ll then return to Birmingham for a performance at the Birmingham Hippodrome. Working with world renowned Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and Re-Bourne, our arts director Tim Eastop is running the project with the help of project manager Helen Prosser. Thank you to Trust staff, particularly in the
waterways teams who helped advise on the route/mooring arrangements. Dance on Water is part of the Trust’s Arts on the Waterways programme.
Heritage Heroes
We're working with Help for Heroes on a two year programme to offer wounded servicemen and women, and veterans the opportunity to gain new skills and qualifications to help them make the most of life outside the Armed Forces.
Located on four different canals and thanks to £500k funding from the players of the Peoples Post Code Lottery under their Dream Fund programme, they will work alongside existing volunteers who are experts on heritage repairs and canal restorations.
What's involved?
Ex-service personnel will be working with the Cotswold Canal Trust who are restoring Ryeford Causeway on the outskirts of Stroud in Gloucestershire. The Trust have also been painstakingly restoring six of the 36 miles than joins the River Severn, Thames and Severn Canal with major infrastructure including a new road layout, new locks, bridges and excavation of the original canal channel.
With the help of volunteers, the last remaining 30 miles will be restored.
The Wilts & Berkshire Canal Trust in Wiltshire will also benefit from funding from the players of the Peoples Post Code Lottery, their aim is to restore some locks at Pewsham near Chippenham with 15 heritage heroes and local volunteers.
There are two more projects on the Kennet & Avon Canal and the Pocklington Canal in Yorkshire, and you can be a part of this new initiative by either visiting:
www.cotswoldcanals.com
www.helpforheroes.org.uk/how-we-help/career-recovery/
or directly contacting [email protected] for more information.
Meet our Selima ‘Champions’
Our Selima Champions are here to support you over the ‘phone or by email and will happily answer any questions you may have about the Selima online expenses system. The Champions can provide support by; talking you through setting up your profile, guidance on entering your first claim and attaching a receipt, saving favourites and duplicating regular journeys or troubleshooting any teething problems you may be experiencing. Please get in touch with them directly using the emails below, or if you’re not sure which Champion to contact get in touch with us at [email protected] and we’ll find the most appropriate person to support you.
Gordon Robbins - Gordon is a Volunteer Lock Keeper and Boat Mover, based at Hatton but travelling across the Midlands and into the South East.
Chris Littler - Chris is a Volunteer Lock Keeper at Marple, he can travel across our Manchester & Pennine and North West waterway regions.
Mike Groves - Mike is a Volunteer Lock Keeper at Fradley and can travel across the Central Shires waterway and over the boundary into the South East.
John Inman - John is a member of the Kennet & Avon partnership and Volunteer Lock Keeper at Bradford on Avon and undertakes training and qualification for the volunteer operation of vessels on both the Kennet and Avon and Bridgwater and Taunton Canals.
The Great Nature Watch
Take a trip to your local canal, river, reservoir or lake and record what you see there. It’s a fun activity to do with the family and will help us to monitor and protect the wide variety of precious wildlife that the waterways are home to.
This year we're calling on everyone to ‘Stop, Look and Listen’ to what’s happening around them following our own survey results, which show surprising gaps in people’s nature knowledge.
We've been working with the renowned Wildlife Sound Recording Society to create a series of nature noises and challenge people to identify them as part of our Wildlife Ear and Eye Q test. Surveying toddlers to OAPs, the results showed that 25% of parents and 30% of children could not identify the sound a duck makes.
We also found that 23% of parents and nearly a third of children thought that ducks have yellow feathers, perhaps the result of children’s TV programmes such as Peppa Pig.
Findings also show that 76% of parents believe that they are less knowledgeable about nature than the previous generation with 68% of parents also believing that their children are less knowledgeable about nature than they were at their age.
When put to the test the gap in wildlife knowledge between parents and their children is actually surprisingly close, however the gap between grandparents and their adult children and grandchildren is much bigger.
Dr Mark Robinson, national ecologist for the Canal & River Trust, says: “It’s a shame to see that people’s knowledge of nature is declining, but this can easily be reversed.
For more information, take part in a wildlife quiz and to download the Great Nature Watch app click here
