£1 B&MK Makes A Splash At The Jubilee

The B&MK was showcased to the world at the Queens Jubilee Pageant on the Thames last month. This picture, shown live on BBC1‘s coverage, features nar-rowboat Ernest which was there to represent Bedfordshire and the B&MK. The boat was crewed by its owners, John and Sally Gwalter and carried the Deputy Lieutenant of Bedfordshire, Cynthia Gresham, Marilyn Leask, a director of the B&MK and Professor in the Faculty of Education, Sport and Tourism at the Uni-versity of Bedfordshire, and B&MK photographer, Keith Malone. More pictures on page 4

Boost For Boat Project The Bedford Community Boat project was given a very welcome boost recently with two separate generous donations of £5,000. The first was from The Duke of Bedford who has been a long standing supporter of the B&MK. The second was from our new Patron, Sir Samuel Whitbread. At this year‘s AGM, Sir Samuel, recently retired Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire, said: ―I am honoured and delighted to be part of this august organisation.‖ He went on to outline a brief history of his great, great, great grandfather‘s vision to create the waterway between the Grand Union Canal and the River Great Ouse in Bedford, a scheme which stalled until re-vived in the 1990s. The earlier Samuel was MP for Bedford. ―My hope is that the current scheme will have more success. If there is anything I can do to forward it I will do so.‖ he said.

Sir Samuel Whitbread at this year‘s AGM

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B&MK News

Published by the Bedford & Milton Keynes Waterway Trust. Editor…………............Geoff Wheeler Proof Reader..............Vernon Draper Photo enhancement....Keith Malone Distribution……….......Leigh Willows Printed by ………........Murrays Comments or articles for inclusion in the next edition should be sent to editor@b-mkwaterway.co.uk

View From The Chair

AGM and the Walks and Talks possible (people like Geoff doing the sound/vision, the whole team who worked on the catering, Leigh with the membership mailings, Keith putting in masses of time with photography etc) – we couldn‘t function, or appear so professional, without their help and support. Over the coming months the Trust, Milton Keynes Council, MK Parks Trust, and a number of other Partners will be exploring development opportunities to fund the first link at the MK end from the Grand Union Canal to Willen Lake. They will also be working on the plans for the Waterway through the new employment and housing areas that are being planned for the South East tip of Milton Keynes. Our volunteer directors continue to have talks with our partners, businesses and influential people to raise the profile of the Waterway Pro-ject, and in particular the Bedford Community Trip Boat and to raise funds and opportunities for our project. We continue to receive good media coverage both locally and in the national waterway press. However we still need more volunteers to assist us with our display stands and in fund raising, writing bids for grants etc. If you are interested in assisting us in this way then please do con-tact Claire Gathard at our Project Office. Enjoy the summer months whether you are boating or walking by the water!

Graham Mabbutt

Half way through 2012 and the Trust‘s activities continue apace. Since our last newsletter in April we have held a number of events, some of which are reported elsewhere in this newsletter. Our Talks Team ran a very successful evening for Members and Supporters at Box End Park back in April which was a most informative and enjoyable event. This is in addition to the talks that are organised by John and Sally Gunning which our speakers give to various organisa-tions around Bedfordshire and surrounding counties. Our thanks to all the contributors to the Talks Team, and to James Barbour and the Box End Park Team for hosting the event plus the Project Meetings which are held there. During the Spring and Summer months the Trust takes a stand at various events through-out the area. So far we have had our display stands and members of the Trust at the Milton Keynes Parks Trust May Day Festival, the MK Marina Open Day, and the Crick Boat Show. Still to come is the Bedford River Festival on 21/22nd July, and the Linslade Canal Festival on 28th July plus a stand at Woodworks at the Mar-ston Vale Forest Centre on September 1st & 2nd. Please do look at the Events Calendar 2012 in this newsletter for details of these and many other activities. In particular please note that all members and supporters are welcome to attend our Projects Group Meetings at Box End Park in Kempston. Coming to them really can keep you up to date with the Trust‘s activities. It was also very exciting to see on television, Bedfordshire and the B&MK Waterway Trust represented by the narrow boat Ernest in the Diamond Jubilee Thames Pageant. Many thanks to John and Margaret Gwalter for crew-ing and making their boat available. Our Information Evening incorporating the An-nual General Meeting was very successful in its new format which we shall repeat next year. Our next major event being our third Annual Partnership Conference on Friday November 2nd. Our Walks Team continue to be active. Back in April David Fowler led the Wootton Underpass Walk with a big turnout, not just members and supporters but also local residents.Thanks to Chris, Alan, David and Hilary for organising, and to parishes at Kempston Rural, Marston More-taine and Wootton for advertising the event. Our next major walk is the Ridgmont Ramble on 15th September as part of the Ramblers Walking Festival. I would like to give general thanks to all the be-hind the scenes volunteers, as well as the Di-rectors/Advisors, who make events like the

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The B&MK Waterway Consortium The Trust is one of 9 organisations that make up the Consortium responsible for taking the water-way project forward: Bedford Borough Council Bedford & Milton Keynes Waterway Trust British Waterways Central Bedfordshire Council Environment Agency Marston Vale Trust Milton Keynes Council Milton Keynes Parks Trust Milton Keynes Partnership The Consortium meets twice a year and works through two steering groups which cover the Milton Keynes and Central Bedfordshire/Bedford sections of the route.

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TALKS EVENING The Trust‘s second Annual Talks Evening was held this year in April at Box End Park, Kemp-ston. It was well attended and the venue proved to be very popular. Our three speakers, David Fowler, Hilary Gold-smith and Roger Crews each spoke expertly and entertainingly. Unfortunately, the fourth speaker, Paul Leach, was unwell and unable to attend. David gave a talk on the history of the proposed canal, and concluded with the latest position on the present situation. Hilary then clearly pointed out the proposed route as it stands at the pre-sent moment. Roger spoke about the promised trip boat and underlined some of the issues in-volved. He also invited the audience to volun-teer their services to help man the boat. The Trust is fortunate in having such gifted, dedicated and proficient speakers and our sin-cere thanks go to them for their unstinting ef-forts. They spread the word around the area, gain new members and provide useful income. Many thanks to James Barbour for kindly allow-ing us to use Box End Park for this meeting. It was an evening enjoyed, I am sure, by all those present. Finally, if anyone is interested in joining the Talks Team, or would like a talk arranged for their group or organisation, please contact us, Sally and John Gunning, Talks Organisers for the Trust. We can be contacted by telephone 01234 305925 or email at : talks@b-mkwaterway.co.uk.

John Gunning

Bedford River Festival

21st-22nd July

Visit the B&MK stand at the Water-space Village to find out more about ideas for improvements in, on, and around the river.

www.bedfordevents.co.uk/river-festival

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Jubilee Pageant Our ‗official‘ volunteer photographer, Keith Malone, was onboard narowboat ‗Ernest‘ during the Queen‘s Diamond Jubilee Pageant to record the event in pictures. He writes ‗It was a long day, leaving my in-laws in Hemel Hempstead at 04.20 hrs to allow time for the journey, registration, parking and boarding ‗Ernest‘ by 06.45, doing all the ‗stuff‘ on the boat, and arriving back home at 23.56 hrs! But it was a great day spent with lovely people, all out to enjoy the day regardless of the weather. John did a great job controlling the narrowboat on wide water with a strong wind and Margaret kept us fed and watered all day.‘

‗The journey up river from West India Dock to our mooring near Putney went OK as we had the wind behind us. However on the pageant run itself we were running into the easterly wind (and rain) so as soon as I lifted the camera to take a shot, the front of the lens was covered in rain droplets. Added to this my number 1 camera died as we came down river in the pageant. I guess it got fed up being cold and wet!‘

Despite his camera problems, Keith

managed to send us these pictures for which we are very

grateful.

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We have completed the specification for our boat that will carry between 50 and 70 passen-gers depending on what we can finally agree with the MCA (Marine & Coastguard Agency) and we have had responses from 3 potential builders. Unfortunately the MCA spec. has added £20k to the cost so at the time of writing we haven‘t placed the order for the boat. How-ever, I am hopeful that by the time you read this we will at least have placed an order for the de-sign of the boat, with a view to placing the order to build it in September or October. If we still haven‘t secured sufficient grants etc. and can‘t find more sponsors, we may have to consider taking a loan or delaying the boat project for another year. I hope that it won‘t come to that as we already have some bookings for the boat for next year and we have had some enquiries from schools. If you have been thinking of making a loan or donation to the Trust to build the boat, please contact us or download the form http://www.b-m k w a t e r w a y . c o . u k / d o c u m e n t s /Reply_Form_Leaflet_Holder.doc and send it off In May, Don wrote to everyone that has already kindly offered a loan or gift for the boat project. If you didn‘t receive an email or letter please contact him. Our Market Research, done by the University of Bedfordshire, showed that there is considerable demand for our boat, particularly from schools and youth groups. Over 70% of respondents said they would consider trips with two classes on the boat (up to 65 pupils & 5 teachers). Cost is a consideration for all users, so a large boat makes sense. For some it means that they can have more passengers on one trip and others want more space per passenger. Unfortunately, with the higher initial cost we have had to leave out some features in the early years of the boat. After one or two years of cruising, we hope to add a bar/galley to serve snacks and drinks and sell souvenirs. And we will add 230V electricity to power the galley and run discos and projec-tors etc. This will enable us to take far more business bookings as well as parties and dis-cos. I had an evening meal in a restaurant by the canal in Central Birmingham in June and no less than six boats passed with parties in full swing. We hope to serve tea & coffee from flasks in the first years and party groups will have to bring their own drinks! We are offering an introductory discount to members that want to book a party on the boat next year. Ongoing challenges Besides fund raising, the next challenge is to find volunteers to fill all the roles. Other trusts have around 80+ volunteers helping between one and six days a month to run their boat pro-

gramme. We already have 44, having recruited 12 at the Crick boat show, and we are hopeful of finding more at the Bedford River festival on the 21st and 22nd July where we will be taking a stand with a section dedicated to our trip boat. We need a couple more skippers. They are ultimately responsible for everything during a trip, much like a ship‘s captain. They will have to take courses in first aid, fire fighting and river rescue as well as demonstrating that they are competent in helming the boat and knowledge-able about the boat and the river. It will cost the Trust up to £1,000 to train and qualify each one. We still need a few more crew, helmsmen and galley crew too. We will need a Maintenance manager (ideally someone who lives near Bed-ford) to look after the boat and its 70HP diesel engine and some maintenance crew too to do weekly checks. To cut costs we will take delivery of the boat with the interior only primed so it will need a few coats of paint before we can carry any passen-gers. Similarly, we expect to make our own wooden folding tables, 16 initially. So we need a group of DIY enthusiasts. As we are a passen-ger boat, we will have to keep quite a few de-tailed records of what we do on and to the boat for inspection by the MCA, so we are looking for someone who is good on detail to manage our compliance and safety records. To keep our passengers happy we want someone to organ-ise serving tea & coffee etc on the boat and selling souvenirs. With so many people, we need a crew sched-ule manager to make sure every trip has the right crew! And someone to manage bookings, and ensure that private charters and public trips don‘t clash! To promote the boat and encourage bookings we will have a dedicated website if we can find a webmaster to design and run it. As every skipper has to have a health check, we need a Doctor. If you have a Doctor in or near Bedford please ask them if they would volunteer to be our ship‘s doctor, (they don‘t need to come on the boat, although they would always be welcome). We also need a qualified First Aid Trainer to train our skippers. To ensure our boat business is a roaring success we need marketing and sales manager(s). We will be running several special trips on the boat and each will need someone to coordi-nate it to ensure it is a great success, so if you could arrange for Santa to visit with 500 suitably wrapped presents or if you could rustle up and serve 40 cream teas on the boat or just book a Jazz band and ensure that they turn up we would love to hear from you.

Bedford Community Boat

Continued on page 6

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Boat project continued from page 5 Finally the ongoing task of fundraising is going to be paramount for the next few years. We are fortunate to have some of the best fundraisers in the county (witness the fact that we already have £75,000 towards our target) but we aren‘t there yet and it takes a lot of applications to get a few successes. We need more people to help them, so even if you have never completed an application for a grant you could still help and learn something in the process! If you know anyone who could fill one of these part time volunteer roles, please get in touch with Don or me (see the back page or our website) The boat is a business Besides helping to promote the objectives of the Trust, the boat project will be a business run as a subsidiary of the Trust. To achieve this, a separate company has been set up ―Bedford & Milton Keynes Waterway Enterprise Ltd‖ (BMKWEL) which will be registered for VAT. It will have a separate board of directors (with 2 or 3 common directors) who will be re-sponsible for ensuring the boat makes a consid-erable surplus each year that will be transferred to the Trust to help accelerate the impetus to build the canal between Bedford and Milton Keynes.

Roger Crews

Our ―Wootton Walk‖ on Sunday 25 March was very successful. Possibly it was the ideal weather, which was warm and sunny, and the Sunday was the first day of British Summer Time. More than 40 walkers gathered (plus one dog) at the Black Horse pub and pizzeria in Wootton ready to appreciate the spring sun-shine and to see the Trust‘s underpass for the waterway under the A421 at Berry Farm. We were pleased that so many of the Milton Keynes members had travelled over especially to join us, including our Chairman. Ably led by David Fowler, our first stop was at the Trust‘s field near the Quaker‘s Wood. David explained that although it is ―owned‖ by the Trust, the field is capably managed by the For-est of Marston Vale. Next we walked across to the blue bridge, where there is a bridleway crossing of the A421. From here we followed the old road down to Fields Road, where it was explained that the Borough Council will be cre-ating linear lakes within their employment area, which are aligned to be part of the future water-way. The reservation of the land alongside the Per-simmon housing development was also seen, where we are hopeful that shortly the developer will create the new ―towpath‖ (which will be used by the new off-road cycle-route for Route 51) and alongside will dig out the waterway‘s future channel. Initially that channel is expected to be dry and grassed. Across the Berry Farm land, we followed the new pathways, until we reached ―our‖ underpass built below the new A421 dual carriageway. The contractor had fenced off the underpass, so we took photographs of our walking party along-side. Next stop was a walk past the site of the old Berry Farm farmhouse, now demolished to ground level, and then we briefly stopped at the ―dipping pond‖ which had just been tidied up. At this point, many of the party headed directly back towards Wootton Church, no doubt hungry for their lunch. The rest of us took a slightly longer route via Hoo Lane to walk past the woodland which was planted by the Bedford-shire WI. Eventually we reached Wootton Church, and several local walkers also peeled off to their homes. The remainder made it back to the Black Horse for a bit of rest and refresh-ment. The next walk we are planning will be from Ridgmont Station (10:30am) to Salford Ford via Aspley Guise, on Saturday 15 September – in-cluding a tour of the station house (at Ridgmont) to see progress on the restoration by the Bed-fordshire Rural Communities Charity. We hope to see you there!

Chris Fox and Alan Mayo

Wooton Walk

Tony’s Marathon Cruise B&MK member Tony Lenten was celebrating last month after completing over 5,000 miles cruising on every stretch of connected naviga-ble waterway in England and Wales. His jour-ney took him through over 3,000 locks and countless swing bridges and tunnels. His ad-venture started in 2003 when he bought his 54ft narrowboat which he named Y-NOT. (Think about it!) After a trip on the tidal Thames he de-cide to see how much of the inland waterways he could cover and finally finished up at Border-sley Junction, Birmingham.

Tony is now venturing further afield and wants to cruise in Europe although sadly not in the present boat which is up for sale.

Bordersley junction and journey‘s end

Read the whole story in Towpath Talk www.towpathtalk.co.uk or follow the link from the B&MK website

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Date Event

Sat 21 – Sun 22 Jul

Bedford River Festival on the Embankment and Mill Meadows. Visit the B&MK at the Waterspace Village to find out more about ideas for improvements in, on and around the river.http://www.bedfordevents.co.uk/river-festival

Weds 25 Jul Projects Group

Sat 28 Jul Linslade Canal Festival. Visit the B&MK display stand at this annual festival with 100s of craft and demonstration stands in Tiddenfoot Waterside Park LU7 2AE.http://www.leightonlinslade-tc.gov.uk/assets/documents/linslade-canal-festival-poster

Sat 1 – Sun 2 Sep

Woodworks. Visit the Trust stand at this weekend festival of woodcraft, trees, ma-chines, real ale, arena displays and fantastic folk and roots music at the Forest Cen-tre and Millennium Country Park.http://www.marstonvale.org/woodworks/

Sun 9 Sep BBQ & Waterways History Talks in Broughton, at St Lawrence‘s Church. Talks between 11am and 1pm from Alan Faulkner, James Clifton and waterways societies on restorations of the upper Great Ouse, Cosgrove Aqueduct and Wendover Arm plus news of Bedford Waterspace Study and British Waterways becoming the Canal & River Trust. BBQ to follow in the Old Rectory Gardens next door. St Lawrence‘s Church open all day (10am-4pm). See poster at: http://b-mkwaterway.co.uk/talkswalks.html

Sat 15 Sep Ridgmont Ramble with a new walking route westwards, as part of the Bedfordshire Ramblers Walking festival and an update on the Ridgmont Station restoration. More details on the festival at: http://www.bedswalkfest.co.uk/Welcome.html and B&MK event poster at: http://b-mkwaterway.co.uk/talkswalks.html

Weds 3 Oct Projects Group

Fri 2 Nov 3rd Annual Partnership Conference at the Open University with the latest progress on the route from B&MK Waterway Consortium plus a special presentation on Iconic Waterway Structures and the Falkirk Wheel from Jim Stirling.

Weds 28 Nov Projects Group

Fri 4 Jan 2013

Members New Year Social

Events Calendar July onwards

The third Annual Partnership Conference of the B&MK Waterway Trust is being held on Friday 2nd November from 2pm until 5pm. The confer-ence this year is in Milton Keynes at the Berrill Lecture Theatre, The Open University, Walton Hall. It is the Trust‘s policy to hold the confer-ence in different geographical areas each year, the first being held in Central Beds, the second in Bedford, so this year it‘s Milton Keynes‘ turn. We are delighted that our guest speakers will be:

The Mayor of Milton Keynes, Cllr. Ca-triona Morris, with a welcome to MK, Trust Directors John Best and Drew Mar-chant who will turn the spotlight on pro-gress made along the route, Jim Stirling, Technical Director of British Waterways, who was responsible for the Falkirk Wheel and will talk about Iconic Structures (and we need one for Brogbor-ough Hill!) Richard Rutter, Head of Regeneration

South, British Waterways, who will talk about the first 150 days of the Canal & River Trust as BW will have become. Jane Wolfson, Vice President of the B&MK Trust who will talk about the Bed-ford Community Trip Boat.

There will also be an opportunity to put ques-tions to the panel of speakers before, as Chair-man of the Trust, I invite you to mix and mingle with the Trust Directors, Consortium Members and the Speakers in the downstairs café over tea, coffee and biscuits. The event is free of charge to all members, sup-porters and partners although we are actively looking for sponsors! If you missed last year‘s conference this year‘s is unmissable. There is another hugely successful year to report on. Do come and join us for another great conference. Places are limited to the first 120 delegates so book now through our Projects Office.

Graham Mabbutt

Invitation

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B&MK WATERWAY NEWS is published by the Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway Trust, a non profit-making company limited by guarantee (No.5760839). Registered office 30 St John Street Newport Pagnell MK16 8HJ and a Registered Charity (No.1114294). Contact us at enquiries@b-mkwaterway.co.uk or B&MK Waterway Trust, PO Box 3611, Newport Pagnell, MK16 OXN Tel 01908 302592 (mornings)

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Our base at Linslade is within weekend reach of the Waterways Museum at Stoke Bruerne or the Chiltern Hills and Aylesbury. Choice of exciting one or two

week cruises including the River Thames. Also ‗Waterside Cottage‘ (sleeps up to 11) set in the boatyard grounds

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Tel: 01525 372355 Fax: 01525 852308 www.canalholidays.co.uk Email:James@canalholidays.co.uk

Sign Of The Times?

This sad picture shows our interpretation board by the junction with the Grand Union Canal. It‘s not clear whether the damage was caused by vandalism or a mower accident but unfortunately the board is beyond repair. The position of the junction is under review and will probably be 200 — 300 metres further north so any replacement board will have to wait until the decision has been made and the existing planning permission modified.