madrilin

Ike had to rescue Captain Kit (full grown moggie) after he was surrounded by Canada geese recently. Dispute over food I think. I'm not tempted to eat goose after seeing one in distress after it's mate died. We have had goose egg omellete on occasion and it was no different (except in quantity) from other eggs. We found that taking the eggs stopped the geese taking residence on top of our boats where they laid eggs in the flower pots. There are a pair of swans up here (Ashton under Lyne) who regularly produce offspring. We have watched the female carry her young on her back, under her wing, which I've never seen before. One little un kept falling off and she'd wait patiently till s/he climbed back on board.

Chris denies all knowledge - think it was Ike! How come I'm never there when there's free food going!

"as if any money would go on the boats". I can only assure you that it does! I am the treasurer of the WCBS. I am a retired social worker/Probation Officer. We are a registered charity and we are audited by Community Accountancy every year. I take your point about presentation. One thing we've been awful at is marketing ourselves. We're working on it - making new display boards and we're planning a blog on our website. Southam (which has had lots of work done on it over the past few years) will be used for marketing purposes. Volunteers will be able to travel to festivals and put up a stall etc. Local people tend to know us because of press coverage - but it's not always been clear who we are to people outside of the area when they visit. We had an open weekend recently (advertised on this forum) and when the spring comes we'll do more of these. As I said previously it's great when we get donations and we're always thankful for them. But it wouldn't be practical to rely on this. We have a charity shop that has been doing well. It keeps us ticking over. Our trading arm (Pennine Canal Carriers) has a development worker who's concentrating on raising funds for the re-build of Hazel and we're looking into funding for buildings at our new boatyard. There will be a public viewing area at this site. Long-term plans include the development of apprenticeship schemes so that boatbuilders can pass on their skills. I can only say that it has taken a long time but things seem to be coming together. It was a big leap - going from being a group of enthusiasts to realising we had to think bigger and better and develop the organisation. It's not been painless and I don't expect it's all going to happen overnight. But, we've stuck with it so far and intend to continue.

I'm about to have a wood/coal burning stove put in my house. Thought it'd be cheaper than gas! Eee I feel proper northern, discussing the price of coal. And no, I won't be storing it in the bath. Smelly, get a new keyboard. You're driving me mad.

No, help can't be demanded of every passer by. But there is a large amount of literature on the psychology of altruism. Some people think that the human race is successful (*) because of it's co-operativeness, rather than it's selfishness. And as to 'human nature'. I'm probably mis-quoting but the philosopher Kant said something like 'you don't see the world as it is, you see it as you are'. So when people say this or that is human nature, it often says more about them than other people. lol! no offence! *depends how you define 'successful'.

Well thank you kindly. We're at The Wooden Canal Boat Society, 19 Market Avenue, Ashton under Lyne, Greater Manchester OL6 6AL. Our email address is wcbs@live.co.uk The above is our shop address. We hope to be moving somewhere bigger and better soon and there are plans for a book/tea shop on the premises. Will let everyone know when it happens. Thanks again to everyone who's been supportive of our work. x

Thought this might be of interest. This is what actually happened. Hazel sank a few days before the Tameside Festival so Chris 'phoned the Fire Brigade and asked for help. He knew they were usually at the festival so thought they might lend a hand. They agreed but arrived wanting to do the job two hours before expected! So nothing was arranged and it was organised chaos all round. The pumps mentioned had been out of action for a while so took some coaxing, but they got going eventually. There are some great photos somewhere of Chris in the water fully clothed. He never took his hat off through the whole thing. Chris has been in/out of the cut so many times he reckons he's immune to all diseases of the watery kind. lol! Oh and Hazel has remained afloat since that time.

We are grateful for any donations received but we realise everyone's strapped for cash these days and have their own individual commitments. We realised a few years ago that if we were going to survive we had to learn to fundraise - and we are becoming increasingly good at it. In addition, our trading arm, Pennine Canal Carriers, now has a professional development worker on board and this should help a lot. We have some very skillful volunteers but they have to make a living and we realise we can't survive with volunteer labour only - we need to be able to pay people to do some of the work, so we're determined to develop the business end. Chris continues to work himself silly on a daily basis whilst also doing his stuff being a 'celebrity' to promote the society. Watch out for Griff Rhys Jones' The River, due to be aired next year!

Three more volunteers are in the shop making money. And I'm doing the accounts. Our development worker/fundraiser is working on a proposal today - for the re-build of Hazel. There is maintenance work going on at the basin on a regular basis (not every day) but you can't re-build a boat there. So we're building a boatyard in Stalybridge! Lilith is there at the moment - the forecabin has been replaced and a new roof is going on the back cabin. I went down to the basin earlier and noticed a few random bits in one of the boats including a supermarket trolley. I understand that Ike pulled this out of the canal - it was just under the bridge and could have knackererd a passing boat. This will be returned to the supermarket soon and the scrap wood (also pulled out of the cut and left on the towpath) will eventually be used as firewood. Waste not, want not.

The boats don't attract the ne'er do wells. It's the availability of Asda beer that brings them and benches to sit on. And there is only occasional trouble down there. It's quiet most of the time. It's ludicrous to suggest that a few boats with stuff in them on the other side from the tow-path are attracting the 'wrong sort'. I've got a green at the end of my street and people congregate there. Maybe it's because my front door needs painting. I have said it before and I'll say it again (yawn) the boats are worked and you will see some recyclable materials on them. It changes from day-to-day because stock and metal is moved on to be sold. It's a very lucrative way of funding the society. I should also mention that one of the reasons visiting posh boats don't get bothered so much down there is because we're there. We are very active in terms of protecting other people's property as well as our own.