Events

As we no longer have a Social Secretary to organise meetings we have decided to combine both Society and Committee meetings and hold them on the fourth TUESDAY of each month at Gregory's Restaurant at 8pm commencing on the 27th of January, 2009.

It will be an open forum.

There will be no Committee Meeting in November but there will be one on the 9th of December at the New Bridge Inn, Chellaston at 8pm.

Waterways Cuts.

If you have been out and about on the canal system recently, or read the magazines, you will have noticed the increasing numbers of maintenance jobs which have not been done. They are not life or closure threatening and are typically a bank slippage or paddle gear out of action but by not having the cash to fix them, they will cost more in the long run as BW are only too well aware but they cannot do anything about it.
Orange netting usually used to fence off the problem and it becoming so common that it is now known as ‘DEFRA Rash’.

The University of Derby are working on the Environmental Impact Assessments for the Derby Arm and the river Derwent navigation and possibly the development of the Arm.

Spondon Community Forum, via the Spondon Community Association, has awarded us a grant of £5,000 for a study to solve the water supply problem for the Spondon mile.

A group of people from St. Osmund’s Church have cleaned up the bridge and since then volunteers from the church, ourselves and Lakeside School have met to discuss what should be the theme of a mural which will be painted on the underside of the bridge.

A meeting was held recently at the Church with Derby Homes, the Community Safety Partnership, the Police, the artist Paul, and others, to take the scheme forward, culminating in a cheque for £700 being handed over.

A few days later Judy and Doug visited the school and gave an interactive talk and exhibition to the whole school. We dressed up as traditional boaters and laid out the dimensions of a boatman's cabin complete with cupboards, Buckby can, bucket and chuckit, stove etc to illustrate the very limited room in which to raise a family. That, together with a description of the hard work involved in shovelling coal, opened a few eyes! We did of course emphasise that it's not like that now but it gave the school a history lesson. A lot of people do not know thst there was a canal in Wilmorton.

The following week the children had a day with the artist giving him ideas as to what they would like in their mural. 

Paul has collated the ideas and designed a mural.