Fat boats on the North Oxford

[frangar]

1 minute ago, CV32 said:

I fail to see the smoke and mirrors .... he is an official of CRT and his (and everybody else) email should be available

I personally would be reluctant to put anyones email on here given the way bots harvest now. Maybe others opinion may vary.

[1st ade]

3 minutes ago, frangar said:

I personally would be reluctant to put anyones email on here given the way bots harvest now. Maybe others opinion may vary.

I (personally) think @frangar and @Lily Rose have the right of it - never mind if someone's address is on a public website, don't give the bots more ammunition - email is becoming a millstone as the volume of "spam and scam" outweighs the legitimate usage.

 

 

[CV32]

A risk of being employed by a public facing organisation - What's the point of having an email address if no one has it or its not available - if he gets some spam then bad luck, surely CRT's excellent IT department will take care of it 😇😉

[1st ade]

4 minutes ago, CV32 said:

A risk of being employed by a public facing organisation - What's the point of having an email address if no one has it or its not available - if he gets some spam then bad luck, surely CRT's excellent IT department will take care of it 😇😉

I'm a Town Councillor - Mine (and the other 15 Councillors, and 10 Office Staff) address's are out in the public domain, they have to be, that's what we are here for - last week a Councillor got caught by a Spam email to the tune of £500. That's a £500 loss for a job they volunteered for. There is a difference between "available" and "posted publicly" - I have zero problem with a PM ".... here's the email you need" but some with a public "anyone who needs it..." open to all.

[CV32]

Difference being this Matthew and all the others are paid to do a job and have a public presence - not their personal email but a work provided and managed email address.

[1st ade]

4 minutes ago, CV32 said:

Difference being this Matthew and all the others are paid to do a job and have a public presence - not their personal email but a work provided and managed email address.

Er yes, so is our Council one. Councillors have a public presence and have a "xxxx @ yyy Town Council . gov . uk " email - we're getting away from Fat Boats but email is becoming unusable as a communications medium.

[Lily Rose]

We are getting away from the point here (I know, it's what happens in forums), which is that CRT do seem to be willing to do something about Miles Away but would like to hear from anyone who has witnessed this incident, and perhaps similar incidents of poor/inconsiderate boating by this individual.

 

Can anyone on here help with that request.

[Nightwatch]

Sadly I don’t have photographic evidence to back up anything to do with this nuisance of a man. Ifihad I would send it to CRT requesting forwarding onto Matthew Symonds as an urgent matter.

[Rob-M]

36 minutes ago, CV32 said:

A risk of being employed by a public facing organisation - What's the point of having an email address if no one has it or its not available - if he gets some spam then bad luck, surely CRT's excellent IT department will take care of it 😇😉

I find it better to write the email format than the actual address as most CRT email addresses are firstname.lastname@canalrivertrust.org.uk this way the spam bot can't just follow a mail to link.

[BEngo]

I agree that the public facing members of CRT should have reasonably widely available e-mail addresses.  I  would not though qqpost such an e-mail without munging it sufficiently to deter the bots. There is enough internally generated garbage in inboxes without encouraging externally generated garbage.

 

The IT dept should be dealing with spam, but more spam means more IT folks and even less money for

repairs.  Not to mention the tendency to over treat spam so that stuff which is not spam gets spam canned.

 

N

[David Mack]

37 minutes ago, 1st ade said:

 last week a Councillor got caught by a Spam email to the tune of £500. That's a £500 loss for a job they volunteered for.

Yes it's an unfortunate circumstance for the individual concerned, but would have been no less unfortunate if the spam email had been sent to his personal email address.

 

Spam and phishing emails are so common now that anybody using email really should think twice before opening a message, and particularly clicking on links in an email unless you are sure it comes from a source known to you.

 

Over the last couple of weeks I have received several emails apparently from someone I know in a waterways organisation. They are all written in a stilted style and invite me to click on a link in an unusual format. Expanding the sender's name in my email reader shows an email address from a completely different domain to that the organisation uses, so I know it is not really from my acquaintance. So the message just gets deleted. Everyone treally needs to be aware of such tricks.

[George and Dragon]

15 minutes ago, CV32 said:

A risk of being employed by a public facing organisation - What's the point of having an email address if no one has it or its not available - if he gets some spam then bad luck, surely CRT's excellent IT department will take care of it 😇😉

 

3 minutes ago, 1st ade said:

I'm a Town Councillor - Mine (and the other 15 Councillors, and 10 Office Staff) address's are out in the public domain, they have to be, that's what we are here for - last week a Councillor got caught by a Spam email to the tune of £500. That's a £500 loss for a job they volunteered for. There is a difference between "available" and "posted publicly" - I have zero problem with a PM ".... here's the email you need" but some with a public "anyone who needs it..." open to all.

CRT have an IT dept that should be capable of spotting most spam and dealing with it before it ever gets as far as the employee. Sadly, I suspect many town and parish councils would struggle with that unless they buy their email service in. Maybe that's not been seen as important but the loss you refer to incurred by a councillor means it needs to be considered in future.

[Paul C]

What do you mean "caught by a spam email". He must have failed to recognise it as such, and clicked thru a link or some other action?

[Lily Rose]

Anyway, trying to get back on to the topic of Miles Away, I've had another email from Matthew Symonds thanking me for asking around and also saying "Any further evidence of any incidents would be helpful."

 

So the ball is in our court. 

 

Have any of you got anything that will help, or know anyone that has?

[MtB]

1 hour ago, Lily Rose said:

Anyway, trying to get back on to the topic of Miles Away, I've had another email from Matthew Symonds thanking me for asking around and also saying "Any further evidence of any incidents would be helpful."

 

So the ball is in our court. 

 

Have any of you got anything that will help, or know anyone that has?

 

 

Given you have the ear of Mr Symonds, could you perhaps stress that the excursions of "Miles Away" are all in breach of the CRT policy that wide boats may only use the North Oxford for 'one off' transits to a permanent mooring at Onley?

 

Once there, it is an abuse of the facility to notify repeated leisure trips to and from Braunston. The policy does not permit as far as I can see, leisure trips.

 

Much obliged...

[Athy]

17 hours ago, BEngo said:

l without munging it sufficiently to deter the bots.

 

N

That's a new one on me. Modern computer parlance or old dialect?

[Lily Rose]

7 hours ago, MtB said:

 

 

Given you have the ear of Mr Symonds, could you perhaps stress that the excursions of "Miles Away" are all in breach of the CRT policy that wide boats may only use the North Oxford for 'one off' transits to a permanent mooring at Onley?

 

Once there, it is an abuse of the facility to notify repeated leisure trips to and from Braunston. The policy does not permit as far as I can see, leisure trips.

 

Much obliged...

 

Hi Mike,

 

I've got a better idea (I think) and I mean this in a nice way! Why don't you email him?

 

The problem at the moment seems to be that, despite all our moaning on here about Miles Away, CRT have had a distinct lack of complaints.

 

I've complained directly to Matthew 3 times but only the first of those was regarding an incident that involved me (at Braunston Turn waterpoint in August 2021). I get the feeling that I'm the only one he heard from on this latest transgression and that it would be very helpful to him, as he does seem to be keen to get something done, to hear from other people affected by Miles Away's apparently frequent leisure trips.

 

I sent him the photograph from last Saturday's incident but it appears they have not had any other complaints about it. Certainly not from anyone who was there anyway.

 

Regarding the breach of policy, I don't recall reading anything that specifies the permitted purpose or frequency of these trips, not that I've studied the rules in detail. Are you sure about it?

 

I've just been assuming they left it vague and as a result he has been able to exploit a loophole.

 

Someone else has put Matthew's email address further back in this thread but feel free to contact me for it if that's easier.

 

Sean

 

 

 

[Rob-M]

The CRT notice does not say it is a one off journey, it states it has to be in a single journey so no mooring between Dunchurch and the junction.  Here is the details...

 

Managing the safe movement of wide beam boats on the North Oxford Canal

The North Oxford Canal between Braunston Junction and Hillmorton Locks is a narrow canal, not designated for wide-beam craft. However, wide-beam craft access to and from Dunchurch Pools and Barby Moorings is permitted, in a single journey (i.e. not mooring on the towpath or offside between Braunston and Hillmorton Locks).

Boaters with wide-beam craft planning travel on the North Oxford Canal, to or from Dunchurch Pools or Barby Moorings, should notify
enquiries.westmidlands@canalrivertrust.org.uk
one week ahead (where possible*) of the boat movement with the following information: 

Boat index and name
Planned date of movement (if a you cannot provide an exact date please provide a range e.g between x date and x date)
Direction of movement
Contact number for the person who will be navigating the boat
*If you are unable to give a week’s notice, please email the West Midlands team as soon as possible so that they can make others aware of wide-beam craft movement on the north Oxford canal

Planned wide-beam boat movements on the north Oxford will be published on the Trust’s notices and stoppages web page.

The maximum craft dimensions for boats on the canal are:

Length 21.96m (72ft)

Beam 2.13m (7ft’)**

Draught 1.09m (3ft 7’’)

** subject to the above exemption for access

[Lily Rose]

I did make the point in one of my emails to Matthew that I felt Miles Away was exploiting a loophole by undertaking frequent leisure trips and that surely this was not what CRT had in mind when they brought in the rules.

 

Maybe our rep on the Navigation Advisory Board will raise the issue when they reach this item on the agenda in September.

 

Who knows, maybe they will amend the rules and thus put an end to these shenanigans. But again I think it probably needs a few other people to complain that these trips are a nuisance* to them.

 

* Matthew has quoted from licence conditions " boat licence terms and conditions do include a clause that make clear that the skipper should not do anything which will cause injury, damage or nuisance to us or any person or their property"

 

[Nightwatch]

Up here in t’north, there’s many fat boats. Trip boats, hire boats and privately owned fat boats. Some are Dutch Barge replicas, which are lovely but are so out of place on the canals. Others are seemingly, over fed narrowboats, I have not seen a good looking one.

Why would anyone want one? Just my opinion.

[Lily Rose]

3 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

Up here in t’north, there’s many fat boats. Trip boats, hire boats and privately owned fat boats. Some are Dutch Barge replicas, which are lovely but are so out of place on the canals. Others are seemingly, over fed narrowboats, I have not seen a good looking one.

Why would anyone want one? Just my opinion.

 

Ha, that should set Tim off!

[davem399]

It’s a pity he doesn’t take a leaf out of the CMers book and stay in the marina.  Perhaps the forum should chip in and give him NBTA membership?  

[Nightwatch]

2 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

 

Ha, that should set Tim off!

Tim’s getting on a bit nowadays. Won’t even notice!!

[Lily Rose]

Just now, Nightwatch said:

Tim’s getting on a bit nowadays. Won’t even notice!!

 

This could be fun.

[Lily Rose]

 

Looks like CRT have been in touch with Miles Away to get him to confirm whether it's Saturday or Sunday for his return from Braunston to Dunchurch Pools. It's a pity they couldn't get him to be even more specific, not sure why not as passages booked through tunnels are at a specific time. Anyway, better than nothing I suppose, at least anyone planning to be in the area on Saturday can relax.

 

Notice Alert

Oxford Canal
Location: Between Braunston to Dunchurch pools Marina, Wide beam passage
Starts At: Bridge 93/94, Braunston Junction
Ends At: Bridge 81, Borstal Bridge

Sunday 28 August 2022 06:00 until Sunday 28 August 2022 19:00

Type: Advice
Reason: Information

---

 

Update on 26/08/2022:

 

Please be advised the wide-beam boat will now be making the journey on Sunday 28th August only.

We kindly remind customers to take extra care whilst navigating this section.