Chairman’s Update – June 2019
Dear Members of the Derby and Sandiacre Canal Society.
Welcome to the latest edition of the newsletter,
We have had a unexpected bonus at the cottage this month, at the loss to our friends at the Cromford Canal, the WRG group planned for the last week end in May could not take place. This involved 12 members of the London group that are not adverse to brick work.
George contacted Chris Madge to see if we could use the labour – of course we said yes and welcomed them to our site on Saturday and Sunday. Much work has been done (see below) and this also enabled us to release most of our normal team to Borrowash to concentrate on the prep for the WRG group coming to us in July for a full week.
This is also a good time to point out that the first week of June was Volunteer Week
An amazing event considering the help mentioned above and the fact that we have our friends from Sky coming back to help clear the ditch at Draycott. Anyone looking for something to do/ work experience/team building – please get in touch – we need you.
Recent Speakers
Recent speakers, Jeanne and Derek Smith, talking about Cruising on remote waterways and Norman Stainthorp talking about the Ellesmere Port Museum restoration went down well and lots of good comments, thanks to the I.T team on the night and the wonderful support from the ladies holding the raffle.
Society Annual Walk
This month you have myself on the Society annual walk. Meet as normal at the Coach and Horses in Draycott at 7.30pm. I will be taking you on a short walk around Draycott to look at one of the largest mills built in the UK, then a walk across fields to the canal path when we will turn left to the cottages that pre-dated the building of the big mill for an external walk around and update on progress of renovation. I walked the stretch on Saturday and start to finish should be no more than 90 mins. We will return via Hopwell Road to the Coach from the cottages.
Meeting starts at 7.30pm, free for this one – but all donations welcome.
Derby Boat Trip
It’s June and we should hear about the planning application – have you all supported it on-line? Once we have that we should get the grant and then it’s full steam ahead, pardon the pun, with the boat build. We visited Crick and came back with even more contacts and some good ideas. Mike Wingfield has been researching how to fit the disabled facilities on the boat with the Chesterfield (thanks to Sarah and crew) so that we are ready to commission the build with detailed drawings. We’ve even made excellent progress with the overnight mooring security. Touch and go on the launch this year given it’ll take three months to build the boat, but we’ve nearly cleared the hurdles. Thanks for those that volunteered – we’ll be back when we’re sure about the timetable.
