Leaderboard

I agree that back in the 60s this was the case. If it hadn't been for the IWA and others back then we would not have the canal system we have today, bad as it is in places. The problem now is that all these groups, including the IWA, all have their own little agendas and seem to me to be working against each other. Until a coherent, collective, consenus of opinion prevails boating will be pushed further and further back down the agenda in my opinion. Reading this thread I get the impression that the diversity of opinion on the canals is reflected here. As has been said the reasons for rebranding have gone above a lot of boaters heads. I don't agree with some of it I will admit but, to an extent, it is neccessary. About getting more awareness of the canals that will only come with education. Open days, canal walks and school and young people organisation's presentation. I know a lot of you poo hoo the educational side of C&RT but it is an essential part of the fund raising scenario and the youngsters of today are the boaters, canal users and C&RT employees of the future. I am involved with the Canal and River Explorers, and in my opinion, this aspect of C&RT cannot be ignored by anybody.

CRT have done a great job alienating what could have been a group of core ambassadors with this rebranding....I think not bothering to change the licence paperwork is just the last straw...it would have cost about £20 of someone’s time to change the pdf but shows that boaters are the bottom of the pile.

Just to follow up on this - I had the fuel pump replaced last week. This weekend I did about six hours running, most of it running hard on the tideway and... no recurrance of the problem. Fingers crossed, I hope the problem is now solved.

You have a fridge that can ride a bike?? Fantastic!!!!

As a Johny come lately, that's me not you by the way, I am living on the back of your and others previous efforts for which I thank you and applaud you. New logo, whole threads on that, personally I don't like it, but accept its done now. The most important thing to me now is the future of the network. I can understand, but not in all of its detail, the problem that has to be addressed. So I have to ask myself Do I accept the reasoning behind the new strategy? On balance yes Do I accept that to achieve their objectives a new management structure and quality directors are necessary? Again yes. Do I accept that a re branding exercise was necessary so soon after the last on? Not fully but pragmatically am willing to accept it has been implemented if it means energies can be directed towards the future of the networks. Is it important to lobby, pressurise and keep on track the new board? absolutely. Is Richard Parry the man to be taking us forward and to tackle the difficult challenges? On what I've seen so far I would have to say yes. Should we give them stick when they get things wrong? Absolutely I don't think they would expect anything else. On balance I accept their future strategy. How it pans out I've no way of knowing.

Usual arseholes out in force again I see. Someone new dares to ask a question, someone else gets nasty because they know everything there is to know about boating, how dare you ask a question do your research we don't like where you intend going lets take it as an opportunity to get nasty for no effing reason whatsoever, then they get all butt hurt because the newbie dared to stand up for themselves & then rest of the usual crew join in... Post count (just for sh*ts giggles)... Dicks! Bring on the banhammer!

Excuse me. As I said I am 'thinking about launching at Watford', I am researching, I am just about to order a boat. I am a single mum and buying a boat on my own to live on is no small feat; it's exciting yes but also incrediby stressful owing to the hundreds of decisions to make. I absolutely want to make sure I am not going to be forking out twice for haulage. I came on here to double check as I thought the community would flag up a problem that I can not forsee from using the internet alone for research. It's a perfectly good question from someone not in the know who is about to embark on the biggest purchase on my life that will swallow all of my life savings in the hope I might just be able to pull off a nice home for my daughter and me to live. I didn't come on here to insulted thank you. Dicks!

And, boy oh boy, do some of those attempting it need to practice! Nice to see if done right, but a pain in the arse if you are held up by a crew that consistently fails to do it right. The problem I see, is that whilst you are theoretically keeping an old technique alive, in the old days they left the paddles up, and just motored out leaving the gates open, so it was a genuine saver of both time and effort. However, if you need crew on both sides of the locks to drop paddles, and close the gates once the boats have left, in general they could also have opened the gates, and avoided having to get the gate lines off the boats and correctly set up on both sides!

Solid mounting an HA engine would be normal, though. Both our HA2s are solidly bolted to the engine beds, though one has a hardwood bearer in between, whereas the other goes straight onto the steel.

I would recommend using Tico pads,with the proper bolt sleeves - but you will need a fair area of pad. Chris G

It's definitely coming up at the grove ... but there's a bit to go yet before we're all floating. springy

A mast & looby were handy for Gate /thumb lining with a southern pair or a pair in wide locks. Whoops sorry a frowned on practice or even a NO NO nowadays

And I'd third it - not only is the food in the "Spice of Bruene" excellent but they are lovely people as well.

Waterway Engagement Monitor (WEM) Adaption of an existing tool The Waterway Engagement Monitor (WEM), an online monthly survey, is the Trust’s primarily tool for measuring brand awareness, engagement, participation and people’s motivations for use of our waterways. This online monthly survey focuses on both use of the waterways such as volume of visitors to the waterways, frequency, activity type, visitor satisfaction, motivations and demographics as well as eliciting information of strategic importance to the Trust about the levels of brand awareness, appeal and advocacy within the wider population. The Trust will use this tool to measure and evaluate some of the OMF indicators at a national level. This continuous survey (operational since 2004) is currently managed by BDRC Continental on behalf of the Trust. Between 2004 and April 2015 it was administered using a telephone methodology but moved in May 2015 to an online methodology with a sample drawn from online panels. A nationally representative sample comprising 960 adults across England and Wales are interviewed each month, totally 11,500 adults over the year (and the sample is weighted to represent the England and Wales adult population. There is an even distribution of respondents throughout the month in order to smooth vagaries of weather and other extraneous factors. All survey respondents are adults aged 15 or over (although information is collected on ages of all household members including children and ages of all child participants in waterway activities). Data is weighted to the national GB population profile in terms of region, sex, social grade and age. It will provide a national and regional benchmark against which local community surveys and towpath intercept surveys conducted within the Longitudinal Study Areas and project-specific evaluations can be compared. WEM has been adapted to include the survey questions relating to: • household demographics; long term illness, health problem, disability; ethnicity; • alternative mode of sustainable transport; use as a location for physical exercise; awareness of and value of waterway to local area; and length of time lived in current neighbourhood; as well as • the self-reported, attitudinal and perception indicators, linked to the six OMF domains. Since April 2016, the Trust has included the four Office of National Statistics (ONS) four measures of subjective wellbeing. We intend to compare these results with the UK National Statistics for the same period when published by the ONS later this year. The above was taken from https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/thumbnail/33802-canal-and-river-trust-outcomes-report-waterways-and-wellbeing-full-report.pdf What is interesting is that Section 8 of this report describes future plans Our planned activity for next twelve months Our activities during next twelve months will focus upon: phase two of putting the measurement and evaluation infrastructure in place to support the outstanding OMF / outcome indicators; collatingthestatisticalevidencetobeabletoreporton,andapplythevaluationmethodologiesto the different OMF domains and indicators for inclusion within our second Outcomes Report; the first phase of retrospective project evaluation work, to help build the repository of evidential case studies, testimonies and examples for effective ‘storytelling’; developingapropositionthatenablestheTrustto‘capture’theoutcomesgeneratedbyothers using our waterways as a platform (charities, clubs, social enterprises, etc); and using our outcomes work to inform our public policy and public affairs work and our response to devolution as well as provide strategic direction on the Trust’s activities and interventions as part of the business plan preparation process. There then follows 7 pages (of a 123 page report excluding appendices) and nowhere does it talk about this re-branding exercise

Congratulations. You just managed to encapsulate most human endeavour in the 21st century. For a longer exposition, see "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber. MP.

Some very good friends are in the area and taking the pics for me, next update will be tomorrow now, photographer will try and get as close to the action as possible. The engineer I mention is very clued in on this sort of thing and his insights have been invaluable.

……... just turn the instructions on their side

Bit slow Rach but for what has been done already, I have been down Bath/Bradford on Avon looking at a job and a few more in between this weekend and more to do for the next week months. I am going to see if i can do some after work in the next week or so to get a little further ahead with it. Next weekend i pick up my business vehicle and then to Birmingham to trial fit a job on the Sunday Saturday will be day for a chill put for a change and treat T to a meal out in the new car. T`s orders n all.

Many years ago I did a 26 mile walk with about 350 otherssetting out from a school in Quorn, Leicestershire. A short distance from the school we all 350 of us crammed onto the towpath, much to the delight of the fishing match participants who were already there. Much hilarity and good natured banter ensued.

No it was set up because some out of control mods with power complexes decided they didn’t like their views and so permanently banned them with, in most cases, no warning or explanation. One of those people decided to set up TB and the rest is history. oh and I checked the “MtB is a prick” thread, it was in 2016 so surely you’re not still sulking about it? Started by EmmaB who was an obnoxious loudmouth on here too (not banned though). There were a few who supported the theme of the thread and a few who disagreed with it. Sounds like a fairly normal situation, you can’t expect everyone to like you! Especially when you rarely miss an opportunity to slag of TB whilst (as you freely admit) not actually going there.

We just had a new member on there, lots of fun and banter and no unpleasantness. I have just posted a lengthy and hopefully helpful tome in response to a question about mooring in Birmingham. So actually you are quite wrong which is not surprising since you have no idea what you are talking about.

Then there was the 'young girl (last year) called Miss Max who asked for help and advice, she received it, still bought the boat and had tremendous problems. I PM'd her and offered assistance (turns out lucky she didn't accept), other members actually went to help and were subsequently accused of offering help for 'services', she eventually closed all of the air vents and painted the whole boat in black bitumen paint. and was never heard of again. Do a forum search if you want to see what happened. Not everyone wants to hear the truth when they ask a question - they are rally looking for a response "gee your doing great, what a great idea, forget the rules just do what you want, anything goes in London"

I wondered if OP meant magel or similar …… hmm. three great minds collide in unison.

The issue I have with the re-branding as I'm seeing it is this..................... I am prepared to accept, as a "non marketing" person that where signs are aimed at the general public, whether informational or actively "selling" CRT that the expense may be worthwhile and bring returns in terms of greater public awareness. What I simply can't see any justification for is replacing large numbers of signs that can only be of interest to boaters, such as those for mooring restrictions, sanitary stations, water points, rubbish facilities and the like. Perfectly good signs with the old logo are already being taken down and replaced by identically worded ones in blue with the new logo. Boaters on CRT waters are already well aware of CRT, so in my view nothing is being achieved with boaters other than "that looks like a waste of money". Please tell me how replacing (say) a 2 day mooring restriction sign in (say) Stoke Bruerne with one that just happens to be blue, and have a new logo on is achieving anything with the public at large. I really can't see it, and it seems to me a huge swathe of boaters feel exactly the same. I think this is a major cock up at a time they are looking for donations to help with major failures of the infrastructure. I certainly wouldm't donate money whilst they are (in my view at least) wasting it in large amounts.

Let's face it we need the public's support it's not a case of us and them..

Given they managed for a year or more when Chasewater was drained, I don’t see that turning it off for a day or two or whatever it was would take it from higher than normal, which it certainly was on Sunday with all the rain, to be 12 inches off normal. That is a awful lot of water that has gone somewhere, and I don’t think it can be explained by lockage. Sure continuously topping up fron Chasewater could keep the level up, but where has the water gone?

I think the dispute over the ownership of the valve has be going on for some time, I don't really understand from what has been said here why that should suddenly cause the water levels to be low. About 5 years ago when Chasewater was drained for repairs to the dam, there was no water supply to the Wolverhapton level from there for a long time, and it managed to survive just on the pumping at Bradley.

The bottom appears to have got a lot closer to the top. That’s a hell of a lot of water to have lost.

There is something parochial about the inhabitants of the canal system that I don't understand. Its not supposed to be a closed shop only open to those with superior knowledge of old boatmen or those who own a National or something, its 2018 and for most its a leisure activity, for many its a home, as us old gits die off others will take our place and they will not know everything. If someone wants to know about the difficulties of the Canal du Nord I hope I will tell them what I know without telling them that as they don't already know they shouldn't be there.

Ah guys .. give the lady a break. What is wrong with wanting to give her daughter a nice boat shaped home? There are plenty of shows on TV telling her how wonderful it is (and we all now it can be) IMHO the only really helpful comment has been the one suggesting a narrow boat over winter before investing in a new wide beam .. just 'cos we're all jaded and bored with the same things coming up time and time again is no reason to scare off a potential long term boater.

It seems you are one of those people who will only accept an answer that is the answer you want. Good luck with blowing your life savings on an unsustainable model. It will all end in tears when the authorities in London ban coal stoves and Diesel engines. I think we are not that far away from it. to be honest you seem a fairly unpleasant and ill tempered person, you will get on well in the ghettos of the London canals. For a while. Anyway, you came looking for advice. You got it. You don’t like it and no doubt you will ignore it because it doesn’t suit you. Bye bye.

You probably aren’t still here, but if you are and by way of explanation as to why the responses were somewhat hostile, London has become pretty much a no-go area for leisure boating because it is full up with people living on boats because they represent a cheap way to live in a very expensive city. Wide beam boats are obviously more problematic because they take up more room. Some people feel almost as if the public facility of the canals in London have been taken over by squatters. if you had said you were taking the boat somewhere else I think you would have got a different reaction. Personally if “London” plays a big part in your decision to buy this boat, I would think very carefully about what the future might hold. The year on year increase in live-aboard boats in London is unsustainable and sooner or later steps will be taken to curtail it. Probably sooner.

Well you have to at least give them credit for asking before it got put in the water. Personally I knew even less when I got my first boat and have never looked back..

No 2. My bank, HSBC will only allow my money in it, they don't want my batteries in there as well!!