Help Requested with Attitudes to Inland Waterways Survey

[The Bearwood Boster]

Me too,good luck.

[Beo]

Done ?

[Odana]

Done. Agree with Blackrose - he'd do well to include a discussion in his methods of the limitations of the survey and the sample. When in mark dissertations I'm much more understanding of limited survey/interview findings if the student has properly critiqued the methods and also used other sources to cross check.

Good that he is doing this bit now not at the last minute like some! Good luck with it. What's he planning to do after?

[Beaker]

Done.

[Phil.]

Done

[Jim Riley]

agree with the constructive criticism, would be interesting to see the results, but how would we know whether answers were by a boater, walker etc.

[BruceinSanity]

Done. The way to get experience is to make the mistakes and you've got to start somewhere.

[DeanS]

done

[Up-Side-Down]

Done

[jacloc]

Done

[Keeping Up]

Done.

 

I did wonder if living on the canals for a year counts as spending time near inland waterways 1 time per year or more than 20 times.

[Athy]

Completed.

I, too, wondered what bearing one's gender would have on his conclusions.

[Tam & Di]

I think questions 6, 7 and 8 should have a "Don't know" option.

 

I really don't know whether waterways will be a significant part of the future of the UK for leisure and recreation? Given the nature of this forum I suppose many people will naturally agree with that statement, but I have no idea what will happen in the future. For example, with a population projected to reach 70 million by 2027; 78 million by 2037 and on the same projection 132 million by this time next century, the waterways may well become much less significant in terms of leisure and recreation and much more significant in terms of housing and accommodation. It really depends on what happens after I'm long dead and I really have no idea.

 

Edit: Sorry I don't mean to be unhelpful, but when designing these sort of surveys one really needs to think very carefully about the questions. Perhaps this will also help your son.

 

I agree. There is a problem too that people who think that inland waterways are significant in their own lives will project that onto the world at large and into the future, and will give a fairly high score.

 

They are very significant to me and have been for most of my life, but trying to answer more objectively I think they are fairly insignificant for the majority of the population and will remain so. I have given honest answers to the questions, but they may not mean what your son thinks they mean.

[Nightwatch]

Done.

[boathunter]

Done as a non-boating, non-canal/river user. This forum is the nearest I get.

 

It might come as a shock to boaters, but I believe 99% of the population give zero thought to waterways in general. Even as an inland dinghy racing sailor I had no interest at all, other than for places I would like to race, which were not rivers or canals. I have only recently taken any interest as I decided it would be the only pleasant way to buy and rent out a house for income while living elsewhere. I don't have the cash for two houses and I don't like motorhomes or mortgages.

 

So, via this forum I believe I have quite a good handle on it now, but if it weren't that I was going to join the throng living aboard I would still be in complete ignorance. From that previous perspective I had no more interest in what happened on a canal, than what happened on the M25 in rush hour or what happened on a hillside in Scotland. It would just be more stuff in one ear and out of the other with no relavance to me.

 

That, boaty peeps, is the population you might be appealing to for support should things go awry with CaRT at the helm. A population who actually don't give a fig about what they would perhaps perceive, if they turned their attention to it, as a spoiled elite mixed up with a bunch of traveller squatters floating about in another world.

[Athy]

a spoiled elite mixed up with a bunch of traveller squatters floating about in another world.

Many a true word's spoken in jest.

Not that any CWFer would belong to either category, of course.

[boathunter]

Many a true word's spoken in jest.

Not that any CWFer would belong to either category, of course.

 

I wasn't joking. Perception is all and viewed from afar with no knowlege of the realities...

However, what I say above is also the attraction for me. Another world of little interest to the majority of our population is just what I'm looking for.

Edited January 3, 2015 by boathunter

[Tisinca]

Done

[zenataomm]

Done

[cuthound]

Done

[matty40s]

Done

[boots]

another one done

[Richard Fairhurst]

A population who actually don't give a fig about what they would perhaps perceive, if they turned their attention to it, as a spoiled elite mixed up with a bunch of traveller squatters floating about in another world.

 

And frighteningly enough I believe this was pretty much the perception of one of the lead civil servants at DEFRA responsible for funding British Waterways, as was. Inland Waterways Branch themselves were much more clued up, but they weren't the ones deciding on how much money BW got. We have a lot of work to do in changing perceptions, where "we" includes both users and CRT.

 

(Oh, and - done.)

[Ally]

Done

[Humblespud]

Dun.