No 140 Dragonfly Spring 2016

Cover Image - Cover Image - WRG (BitM) Forestry (Branch) with MCC & Foxham & Lyneham clearing the bed of the canal at the A4 near Chippenham

Report from the CEO - The new organisation is in place, it's now time to focus on the business of the Trust: progressing all our projects including the major ones: Melksham Link, the Pewsham Locks, the Peterborough Arms, Studley Grange, Wichelstowe Link, and an extension to Jubilee Junction at Abingdon

Office Move - From Spittleborough Farmhouse to the Peterborough Arms

Chairman's Report - With re-organisation done, we can focus all our attention on the big task ahead of delivering miles of new canal

Fundraising - Chippenham Area Board has awarded a grant of £19,873 towards the restoration of Top Lock at Pewsham

Letters to the Editor - Don't feed the ducks bread. Waterways.co.uk offers a free map. Grey Herons in Wootton Bassett and Dauntsey

Partnership Canal Officer's Report - Submitted to the Environment Agency and Local Authorities two reports suggesting use of the canal for flood relief at Abingdon and Swindon New Eastern Villages

Around the Branches - Activities in all areas are reported

No 141 Dragonfly Summer 2016

Cover Image - Cover Image - W&BCT at the 2016 IWA Trail Boat Festival, Staveley Town Basin on the Chesterfield Canal. Bob Airey, East Vale's WPO works the marquee early on the first day

Report from the CEO - HRH The Duchess of Cornwall has graciously agreed to extend her patronage of the Trust for a further five years. Opportunity to purchase land at Queensfield. Wiltshire Council announced that they were transferring all their land along the canal line to the Trust

Chairman's Report - The year is already half way through and so much has been achieved thus far in 2016. Long term supporter and champion of WBCT, Chris Coyle, felt he could no longer offer his commitment to our work, for personal reasons, his resignation has been accepted

Fundraising - CRT and Help 4 Heroes announced the “Heroes Return” project funded by the Post Code Lottery, which will benefit the Pewsham Top Lock restoration. We will receive £99,000 of funding and will be able to work with H4H veterans in spring 2017. A bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for approximately £850,000 has been submitted

Letters to the Editor - Hidden Gem? the restoration at Latton Basin at the junction of the Thames & Severn and North Wilts/Wilts & Berks canals. Discussions on the transfer of land from Wiltshire Council

Partnership Canal Officer's Report - Discussion on the plans for the North Wilts Canal and the Chippenham Branch

Around the Branches - Activities in all areas are reported

No 142 Dragonfly Autumn 2016

Cover Image - Cover Image - Cheque for £200 being presented to Doug Small for attending Braunston Historic Narrowboat Rally

Report from the CEO - Started the final phase of the Studley Grange project with the aim to complete by the end of October this year. Peterborough Arms project continues to make progress largely as a result of many volunteers

Chairman's Report - Very sad news of the death of our volunteer Peter Konitzer in August on one of our worksites, the Trust expresses deep sadness and profound sense of shock at this tragic accident

Letters to the Editor - Santa looking forward to being welcoming children on board nb Dragonfly again this year

Partnership Canal Officer's Report - Changes to the way the Environment Agency is conducting it's business is a challenge to have meaningful discussions without incurring significant charges. South Swindon MP Robert Buckland is currently helping to initiate meetings with EA to see how the situation might be resolved

Fundraising - Continue raising funds to pay for the Studley Grange delays and extra costs. Destination Lacock appeal is already up to £43,000

Around the Branches - Activities in all areas are reported

No 143 Dragonfly Winter 2016

Cover Image - Cover Image - Site of the old junction with the K&A at Semington after painting

Report from the CEO - Review of the progress since the start of the new Executive in March of this year. Studley Grange project was saved through the efforts to raise additional funding

Chairman's Report - New website launched at the AGM in October. Spring 2017 will see the final works on the Studley Grange towpath

Letters to the Editor - Malmesbury U3A engineering group, thank Malcolm Hitchinson for hosting a group to visit the Pewsham Locks Rural Heritage Site. Could the Trust create drone videos

Fundraising - Unfortunately, GWR turned down our bid for funding a new bridge on Bincknoll Lane so that we can join Chaddington to Studley. A bid has been submitted to IWA for part of the Tony Harrison legacy

Partnership Canal Officer's Report - WBCT members disappointed that Swindon BC did not feel able to support construction of the canal as part of the developers’ obligations for the New Eastern Villages

Around the Branches - Activities in all areas are reported

No 144 Dragonfly Spring 2017

Cover Image - Cover Image - Family and friends of the late Allan Williams plant a tree and a plaque in his memory

Report from the CEO - Progress in recruitment. The Pewsham Lock project and the Canal and River Trust/Help4Heroes/People’s Postcode Lottery connections are proving very productive

Chairman's Report - We need our Trust to be a thriving and growing Trust, all our members to join in with helping as much as you can by recruiting new members

Events Team - John Minns and Doug Small have decided that the 2016 season was their last manning the Trust stand at numerous venues up and down the country

Letters to the Editor - The Melksham Food & River Festival has a new web site www.melkshamfoodandriverfestival.co.uk

Partnership Canal Officer's Report - Plan to discuss at the next meeting "how Partner organisations can be more effective"

Fundraising - Partial Retirement for Kath Hatton. We had a large share of disappointments last year, competition for grants is intense now, but we must bounce back and increase the number of applications submitted. Destination Lacock appeal has reached £55,000

Around the Branches - Activities in all areas are reported

No 145 Dragonfly Summer 2017

Cover Image - Cover Image - Royal Wootton Bassett branch’s newly purchased work boat

Chairman's Report - Three new Trustees from external organisations. Welcome to Susan Cooper from IWA, Cllr Fleur de Rhé-Philipe from Wiltshire Council and James Harpum from the Inclusions Project.

Report from the CEO - We have not yet reached a final settlement with the external contractors on the Studley Grange design and construction cost overruns. The Peterborough Arms refurbishment project is coming to its conclusion. It is extremely important that the Trust management makes best use of the Trust resources, this means that projects may have to wait their turn for resources

Celebration - Work was recently completed and a workboat can now travel the entire length of the canal from the bottom of the former flight of locks near Pewsham to the impressive Double Bridge near Reybridge – a distance of almost 1.2 kilometres

Dragonfly - In the past six years due to the hard work of over 100 volunteers from the Trust doing the skippering, crew, booking, publicity, present wrapping, finance and boat maintenance, the Boat had generated £18,000 profit from its operation and collected £2,000 in donations

Partnership Canal Officer's Report - Discussed in some detail ways that the Partnership could be more effective, there was no single conclusion to the discussions, the Partnership should continue in its current form to look at strategic issues, it will consider ‘mini partnerships’ that were related directly to a deliverable scheme and appropriate partners would ‘sign up’ for the duration of each of these projects

NB NONSUCH - Vic Miller donats his narrowboat "Nonsuch" to the Wilts & Berks Canal Trust, it was named and launched by Professor David Bellamy as part of the official opening ceremony for the 1998 National Trailboat Festival on the Wilts & Berks Canal on Saturday, 23rd May 1998 at Royal Wootton Bassett

Letters to the Editor - Thank you for Dragonfly article "Water, water everywhere" by Stuart Fisher, I would dearly like to read other articles written in the same enlightening manner for other subject areas of the canal

Around the Branches - Activities in all areas are reported

No 146 Dragonfly Autumn 2017

Cover Image - Medal Winners from the raft race at the Melksham Food and River Festival

Chairman's Report - Two new Trustees, Sheila Wade who will be involvement in strategy and policy setting and Gordon Olson involved in fundraising. The Studley Grange project was finished this summer. The work at the Peterborough Arms is pushing ahead towards a re-opening

Report from the CEO - Membership appeal supported the Trust in raising significant funding to cover the cost overruns incurred on the Studley Grange project

Apology - Cllr Fleur de Rhé-Philipe was inadvertently announced as a new Trustee in the last edition of Dragonfly. Our Chair is discussing with Fleur the possibility of becoming a Trustee now or in the future, but she has made no decision at the present time.

Dragonfly - The canal just North of the bridge by Waitrose is being de-watered, to allow construction work including putting a sewer across under the canal, we managed to continue public trips until mid-September, for the rest of the year Dragonfly will will operate from the original landing stage by the bottom of Kingshill in Swindon

Partnership Canal Officer's Report - The Partnership has implemented the concept of ‘mini partnership’ working with Swindon Borough Council. This has started on both the Wichelstowe and New Eastern Villages projects

Around the Branches - Activities in all areas are reported

No 147 Dragonfly Winter 2017

Cover Image - Reflections on Templars Firs section

Chairman's Report - 2017 has been a year of solid progress in building our momentum for future restoration. First quarterly Open Forum evening will take place at the Peterborough Arms in Dauntsey in January 2018

Report from the CEO - I was delighted to meet and have lunch with our founder member Neil Rumbol and another long term member Chris Toms. We are in the process of reorganising the executive and introducing delivery functions to the Executive to make a clear distinction between support and delivery. Membership subscription will increase for 1 January 2018, this is the first increase in 25 years. Studley Grange work continues to recover from the errors which resulted in the extremely large cost over-run of c.£300,000

Partnership Canal Officer's Report - My role is to liaise with Local Authority Partners .. to make sure the canal restoration is taken into account in policy (like the Local Plans), .. help WBCT with planning applications for various projects, .. General publicity and public relations (including social media) on behalf of the partnership

Around the Branches - Activities in all areas are reported

No 148 Dragonfly Spring 2018

Cover Image - Elwood and Inara Minney with their rope dragonflies - Photos from Chippenham Museum event by Claire Selman

Chairman's Report - We have been busy working to put the Trust on a stable footing for the future. We have just completed the purchase of land at Queenfield Farm near Lacock.

Report from the CEO - We believe we have taken the final steps to ensuring that we have fully funded the cost overrun on the Studley Grange and two other projects. I will be discussing with the Board of Trustees what projects should be prioritised from a funding and delivery point-of-view. New Executive Organisation Structure completed. Subscription Rates Increase effective 1 March 2018

Dragonfly - At the time of writing, Dragonfly trips will start on 31 March 2018 but will run from our Kingshill Landing Stage until the canal at Waitrose has been reopened, hopefully in mid-summer

Partnership Canal Officer's Report - The March meeting of the Partnership was cancelled due to the bad weather.

Around the Branches - Activities in all areas are reported

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