September 2011

Eva and Stephen Thompson run our promotional trailer - the James Brindley (JB). Here Eva gives an account of the activities so far this year.

Thoresby Hall 20th February, 5th March, 20th March
Preparation for CCT participation at the exhibition “Life in North Nottinghamshire” started sometime in November last year when we met Caroline Hughes, Co-ordinator of the Pierrepont Collection at Thoresby Hall for the first time and learned about the aim of this exhibition. Prior to the opening of the exhibition on 19th February, we met again to discuss our part in the exhibition. Steve choose the photos from the archive we have at home adding those by Richard Allsopp, while Rod and Alan James prepared and Alan made new exhibitions panels and on the morning of the 19th February, we brought the exhibitions panels and “guess the item” (old auger) to the place. Ollerton photographers group, Boughton scouts, Norwell Parish history group, The Wellow Maypole and Laxton History Society were among other exhibitors. The exhibition was a celebration of local communities showing their activities in the past and present. John Lower and Dr. Geraint Coles delivered talks with slide shows which filled all chairs and more in the room. JB was inside the courtyard and although it was freezing cold, windy and one day also rainy, Nick Somerbell, Julie and George Drackett, Kath and Rod and Steve and I bravely resisted the weather.

Morrisons Halfway – 25th March
Rod arranged with the Morrisons manager for JB to come to their premises and spread the word about the Canal. Rod and Kath, Barbara and John Lower, Nick answered the questions or simply offered the shopping going people to come and learn the news. Rod collected me and the sales items, which was great as the people have been very generous – we collected the highest donations amount and the second highest sales sum this year.  It was a working day so we were very happy when the clicker showed 248 visitors stopped at JB by the end.

Skipton Waterway Festival 30th April - 2nd May
Stephen told me about Dr Coles's idea to visit this festival about 2 years ago and this year it became true. We travelled with JB on Friday late afternoon (while the rest of the nation recovered from the Royal Wedding!) to be in place early next day. On the first day Eileen and David Blackburn came to give us help, on Sunday came Kath and Rod Auton and Bev Hunt who was there also on Monday with Martin Clapham who lives in the area.  To tell the truth we would be not able to be there without any help. The festival had a musical theme – I enjoyed very much singing by professional singer Amy Cartwright (incredible voice).  Plenty of activities kept kids entertained while the parents did shopping at stalls offering locally produced food. Although many of the stallholders raised money for their charities nobody complained of a lack of generosity of the visitors. The Festival had also the 4 boaters competitions – best dressed boat, best illuminated boat, best dressed couple and boat in bloom. From our place we saw people standing in a long row waiting for their boat trip. We had lots of interest at JB (including a coach party from Chesterfield!) and sales/tombola and I am sure we will come back to the next festival.

Asda Retford 4th May
This supermarket was another shopping place arranged by Rod where we could come with JB. It was a working day and therefore I was unable to come as Steve was working and I was without transport. As reported by Kath, Rod and Keith: great sunny weather in Retford but not such great interest of Retford people or Asda visitors. JB was placed at the back of the parking area and only 11 people came to interrupt our three volunteers with their sunbathing! Nevertheless, Kath said all showed deep interest. My thought is – how lucky Retford citizens are to have restored canal and shame on them that they didn’t demonstrate more interest in CCT work.

Barrow Hill Rail Ale Festival – 13th-14th May
Only by hearing the name of the festival I imagined it as one of those where the flow of people never stops to this celebration of rail and beer. And it was exactly so. My journey to the place took me nearly 2 hours (!) from home in Killamarsh – terrible public transport, (I waited a lot and then walk a lot) and when I arrived Kath, Rod and Keith were already very busy. CCT was represented only with JB, this time without sales. After the train rides had finished, Steve came in the evening directly from work and we spent a couple of hours more than planned because of interest and a resurgence of visitors later on to the bars. The next day, Saturday, Bev and Julie and George came to help us. We didn’t have time to go around because it was so busy. By the way, I did drink there a good English beer (at last), “Bombardier” which was served from inside and outside of an old red double-decker bus.

Dobbies at Barlborough – 17th May
Kath and Rod took JB to this heavily visited shopping place. I remember (I hope correctly) the visitors have been very much interested. Unfortunately they didn’t have clicker (my fault) so we don’t know how many people visited JB. 

Derbyshire Food and Drink Festival - Hardwick Hall 21st -22nd  May
Stephen was looking forward to this event very much after last year’s success. And I think everybody who visited must enjoy it too. We had plenty of members helping us as we counted 1660 visitors and I am sure that there were more of them as I was sometimes unable to click – so many people came at once to JB and to sales and tombola. (Later we read on internet news that over 11 000 visitors came to the Festival.) We had a place in the middle of the event together with Derbyshire Countryside Services. Among the cuisine available to savour, wonderful looking cakes made people ready to buy them together with incredibly good smelling sausages, great choice of cheeses and wines and other hand crafted goods. For those who love cooking the demonstration by one of the well-known chefs made the opportunity to learn something new. Kids had plenty of options to enjoy them too. We sold a few bricks, tombola brought plenty money into Trust’s account, couple of visitors become new members, but all of our visitors were pleasantly surprised how much CCT proceeded in the Canal restoration.

Rother Valley Country Park 30th May
Unfortunately I was not able this time to be with JB crew Kath, Rod, Steve and later Dave Morris - I visited my family in Slovakia and therefore I had not the unique opportunity to break JB's records for everything. They have been directed to park near to the water-sports facilities so their expectations have been quite high. Do you want to know more about the new record of JB? Take your glasses as you would not believe it – visitors: 0, sales: 0, donations: 0, Staveley Lock bricks: 0. Yes, you see correctly – big fat zeros!!! Never happened before and we hope never will happen again. Later I was told the weather was (as many times) against us with heavy rain during the day.

Loundsley Green Community Funday 4th June
This time it was only Steve and me. A little bit concerned as we aimed to use our newly purchased gazebo for the first time and we didn’t know how we will put it together with only us two. Well, we did, and I can say that was the best decision of Steve, Kath, Rod and I when we went earlier in the year to the Gala tent company and bought it together with two very stable tables. It was windy and the gazebo gave me shelter against it and I was able to sell tombola and other items. As we noticed from the programme, Brampton Band, which we enjoyed so much last year, should have been appearing again there but unfortunately we didn’t hear it as all the events on the programme took place near the entrance to the Community building. Although this event is for a small part of Chesterfield about 180 people came to JB and our stall.

Gainsborough Waterside Festival 11th June
We have been on the same place as last year. Kath and Rod had already started to open JB when we arrived with the tombola and sales items. The crowd slowly appeared around noon, but we had been there nearly since half nine. Our new gazebo gave us support against the wind and showers so we were able to keep things dry. The only change to a year ago was that we found ourselves in a loud Bermuda triangle – in the middle between ice cream van, karaoke kids and fun fair rides – all with high levels of music.

Holmebrook Valley Fair 18th June
Jim Bower came and helped us during our presence at this event which was being held for the first time. Our invitation came from Howard Langley (formerly from Tapton Lock Visitor Centre) early in the year and just as well for we ended up with 4 invitations to local events on this day and unfortunately we don’t have enough volunteers at present to help to promote canal restoration and raise money at so many places on the same day. The place was very nice and over 200 people came to us. Very important was that the weather was good till nearly the end of the fair when heavy rain suddenly came for a few minutes.

Woodsetts Mid-summer Gala 18th June
Our Chair, Robin Stonebridge, and Nick Summerbell attended this much reduced (in size and time) event with plenty of information for the local community and managed to talk to about 150 people.

Hollingwood Gala 18th June
As you can see, we were already stretched on this day, but we did have an unstaffed table of our leaflets at the Gala.

Old Whittington Gala 25th June
Last year we, Steve and I decided to visit new places with JB and so it happened we contacted the organizers of this Gala. The event took place around Revolution House. Howard Webster came to help Stephen and I was doing sales and tombola. We had only just started to open JB when people stopped to ask about the Canal. Suddenly a lady came and told me she’s from the Well-dressing Committee. This year offered the committee many important events such as the Royal Wedding or 90th anniversary of the Royal British Legion. But then this lady had the idea to dedicate this year to the Chesterfield Canal and this very proposal won the support of the committee members. The other reason was the closeness of the Canal to the village. Rod and Kath made a short stop during the day to make pictures of the well dressing which has been put on the CCT website. After the event finished we went to see the floral design and we have been amazed how beautiful it was.

Bolsover Gala 26th June
Our expectations regarding to both visitors and sales have been rather high after success from last year. The weather forecast has been great (same as last year) so Steve, Keith and I thought we will be very busy. The organizers did excellent work again as the event was full of various attractions for everybody. Gladiators, dancers, drummers, BMX bikers, firemen with their fire-engine, police, living mediaeval camp, crafts stalls, other charities and of course plenty of refreshments stalls made this gala very attractive to locals. But this year we had a change of place within the recreation area – close to the entrance which, in my opinion, influenced very much the numbers of visitors to JB and sales/tombola too. Because of that many people did pass by saying we will stop later, but later they have been already tired or all their money has been spent.

Coal Aston Gala 2nd July
It was our first visit to the event of this village. That is why we wanted to be well prepared for all questions so Bev, Keith, Kath and Rod (for a couple hours) did help us. The event was held in the parking place behind the village hall and nearly every second stall raised funds for different charities with tombolas (which did scare Bev and me a bit). I think the main attractions were vintage cars and the joy of seeing a Spitfire fly past – twice! We took my goddaughter Jakubka (visiting from Slovakia – and a member!) with us too and she helped me with the tombola a bit and exercised her knowledge of English. A number of visitors remarked they had voted for us in the People’s Millions Lottery on the Regional TV station for our project to build a new boat. At the end of the day it was considered a success as we counted 436 visitors and not bad with sales and tombola as well.

Misterton Village Gala 8th July
After a year of absence we’ve come back to the gala with new helper-member  Pam Hodges who we met a couple years ago at our own Kiveton Festival where she and her husband Jim promoted their boat experience business. The gala was busy with locals who appeared to visit the event in waves, suddenly everybody disappeared or plenty of visitors came. The weather was not the best and at once all gazebos were full of visitors looking for shelter against heavy rain. Pam was brilliant, nobody around escaped her question: “Do you know about our petition? Did you sign it?” and we went home with a large number of full petition sheets. This is the first time that I have mentioned the petition in these event reports but the readers can be sure we took the petition sheets everywhere with or without JB and I reminded everybody in JB – from my position behind the table – to ask the visitors to sign it. Many times I simply put it in their hands whilst they are talking.

Tupton Carnival 23st July
This visit of JB was the result of looking for new places where the local community hadn’t seen us yet. The following came to help - Bev, Jim, Keith and Sara Thompson - our sister-in-law, a Trust member of course, came for the second time to help and enjoyed it saying she will do more in the future - plus Steve, my Slovak goddaughter and me. Besides our own activities – talking to people, collecting signatures, selling tombola and other items - we also enjoyed the music by Sheffield’s own Scottish Pipes and Drums and Chesterfield Musketeer Showband. The Carnival has a tradition to vote a Carnival Queen with princesses and I saw one little princess in blue/white long dress passing our place a few times with her proud mum. There was also parade of old tractors which took the attention of many people, and many various stalls.

IWA National Festival Burton upon Trent 29th-31st July
I don’t know how to describe our attendance at IWA. It seems to me to be more “must be seen there” than “we want to be present as it brings something to us”. Unfortunately our pitch was a square which meant that the gazebo had to be at right-angles to JB rather than alongside, the best arrangement, at the crossing of “streets” so it appeared we were two different exhibitors. That meant the people visiting JB did not necessarily see that we offered something else and so came to the gazebo and vice versa. Python was also there as part of her Grand Tour and Tom Flewitt was so impressed with the tombola (after winning 3 prizes) that he asked to run one by Python on the Sunday, and in a few hours raised a goodly sum of money!

Kiveton UrbFest  6th August
An event aimed at the local youth population and attended with JB by Rod and Kath. A certain amount of interest but generally a lot of loud music too!

Tesco Chesterfield Community Fun Day 7th August
Well, good idea by Tesco managers to organize something for the public and for their customers. We came with JB a good 90 minutes before the official opening of the event. Although Steve had sent our request on the space needed we had a problem to fit in as the whole area dedicated for the event was already occupied. So after a while we found a bit of space in the corner next to a fencing club. We don’t know how many visitors came to other stalls in the main area but we saw only a few of them. Some days later we went for shopping to Tesco and we spotted a billboard with pictures of the all event participants hanging on the wall – surprisingly ours was not there.

50th anniversary of Retford & Worksop Boat Club, Clayworth 3rd-4th September
Rod and Kath brought JB to the Club on Friday evening and spent a few hours there waiting for the illuminated boats parade (that which we never have time and possibility to see as it is always too late). Well, on Saturday it was Steve and me talking to visitors and doing sales including tombola. CCT was represented also by our lady “Python” with Maurice Marsden, Arthur Naylor and Pete Ramsell. During the official opening a cheque for £500 was handed over to Robin, our chairman by the head of the Club, as well as a windlass from Boatie Clark, given by Richard Allsopp and a set of log books from nb Nelson, all for our archives. To my big surprise the event was only for the club members and their friends and the local villages have been not invited to come and celebrate together (how unusual and strange!). Next day Barbara and John offered to be there and stayed despite the horrendous weather and a total of 4 visitors.

If you would like to help on the JB in the future, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
We will be doing our Town Centre tour soon
Chesterfield - 22nd October
Sheffield - 5th November
Rotherham - 12th November
Retford - 26th November
Staveley - 2nd December.