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By the time you read trhis, the 40th Anniversary celebrations will have come and gone. I hope those of you who attended enjoyed the weekend and the weather Gods smiled upon us.
Caroline & I have just returned from the Caldon canal where we had a very relaxing holiday. On the way up we stopped for the evening in Stone which we haven't done for several years. If you like well kept real ale I can recommend the Swan just over the bridge by the bottom lock. Those of you who like Middle Eastern food only have to cross over the road where there is an excellent Turkish restaurant, the Istanbul Palace where we had an excellant meal. Doesn't time fly by! It seems to be no time at all since I wrote the notes for my last column. A lot has happened since then. I am getting to grips with the workings of the society with the help of Council and other members and have studied the Memorandum and Articles of Association and the Society's leases to get an idea of our obligations and how they can be met. Our responsibilites under the pumphouse lease include exterior and interior decoration which are due this year. If you are prepared to help, please let me know when you are available and I will organise decorating days when we have sufficient volunteers. If we cannot attract volunteers then we will have to pay for the decoration which will be a drain on the Society's funds. Brenda, Barrie and I had a meeting with Tony Harvey and his management team at British Waterways at the end of April to discuss areas of mutual interest. The Society has agreed to carry out regular workparties on the Titford Canal to remove litter and rubbish, floating and sunken debris and vegetation from walls of the canal. We shall be working with British Waterways to enable the Society to achieve self supervising workparty staus as soon as possible. From January 2009 it will be a legal requirement that a qualified steerer is present on all workparties using the workboat. Again, we are working with BW to prepare members of the Society for this qualification. If anyone is interested in obtaining this qualification, please contact me. The DCI 150 Delph weekend on the 7th/8th June was quite well attended, Sunday being busier than Saturday. Lynda Waltho, MP for Stourbridge attended on the Sunday and started the Duck Race with Matt Ward of Dudley Building Society who kindly donated the first prize. Thankfully, the weather was good. The horse drawn boat was a great attraction and I found it very interesting. The guided walks around the line of the old locks were very informative and well attended. Many thanks to Alan Smith, Ray Shill and BCNS members who conducted the walks. The weekend was made possible by the efforts of the "faithful few" who cleared the site prior to the event and helped over the weekend. On behalf of the Society, I would like to thank them all. I am pleased to be able to tell you that Ivor Chambers has been appointed as the Society's Archivist. He has started by sorting & cataloguing the cpoies of "Waterways World" magazines and is about to start on "Canal & Riverboat". He is preparing a report for Council with a strategy for the future. I am disappointed to have to tell you that I have had no response to my request for volunteers for the posts of Volunteer Liason Coodinator and Health and Safety Officer. Pending appointments to these posts I am carrying out these duties myself. In addition to these posts, the Society desparately needs volunteers to help with the work. There is much more to the work of the Society than getting mud up to the elbows cleaning out canals. Help is needed in all areas. For example: helping with the shop at rallies, staffing the burger bar, refreshment stand and various stalls and helping to organise events to name just a few. If you are prepared to help in any way, please let me know what you are prepared to do and your availability. I will maintain a register of vlunteers who can be contacted when necessary. My contact details are in this magazine. I think that my most pressing task is to attract volunteers to help carry out the aims and objectives of the Society. To this end, I propose that we have subsidised worker's dinner (including partners) for those who are regular helpers at workparties and Society events. Attendance will be by invitation. The amount of subsidy will depend on the number attending. I would like to make it absolutely clear that the subsidy "will not" come from BCNS funds. Funding will be generated by the activity of the workparties. At the July BCNS Social meeting we were privileged to welcome Tony Harvey, General Manager, British Waterways, West Midlands, who came to inform us of latest developments and future strategy. I was surprised by the hostile and aggressive nature of some of the questions from members of the audience. In any group of people there is bound to be disagreement and reasoned debate is the way to reach a consensus. However, I thought the tone and attitude of some of the questions was unacceptable. Tony had been invited to talk to the Society, had given up his own time to do so and deserved the courtesy and consideration due to a guest. I have already apologised to Tony privately and now take this opportunity to do so publicly. Such incidents can only harm the reputation of the Society and must not happen again. Graham