WILTS & BERKS CANAL TRUST

First we had the A.G.M. in Swindon which I have to admit had its moments when we were running around like headless chickens.But on the day almost everything went well and even the small mix up over signing in was overcome with good humour by those standing in line.For those not there we had all the information on computer this time but we did not have the password to get into the laptop so we resorted to going around asking members their names and manually writing them down.All this turned out to be pointless as the man with the know-how turned up in plenty of time and all was resolved with ease.

Ken gave a conducted walk around the town showing our members the possible new route of the canal through the centre of Swindon.He was a little surprised when about 70 of them took him up on his offer and we had to arrange for Keith Walker to ride shotgun at the back, or was he the sheepdog keeping them all up together, whichever he did the job admirably.

For those who visited it the house next door to the A.G.M. is a step back in time.
It is a small museum, A house captured in a time warp giving us a glimpse of life in Swindon one hundred years ago and the people that run it opened it especially for the canal members to view at their leisure on the Saturday morning of the A.G.M.

A group of Swindon artist's also had a display on in the hall called ( The future is now ) which had some wonderful pictures of Swindon as you have never seen it before, my own favourite was the view from the top of the Murray John Building at night, Just stunning.One of them also wrote us a poem on the spot which he read out to the audience, part of which can be read on our web page ( guest book ) The walls of the hall being covered by Brunel History also lent something to the proceedings even if it was the Railway's that lead to the demise of the canal. I will not spend any longer on the A.G.M. as others will cover it much better than I.

Our next huge project was just seven day's away.The Swindon concert band will be playing at Christ Church in Old Town on behalf of the Canal Trust and there was work needing to be done to make this a success. Thanks once again to all the Swindon members that turned out and helped.After all the bills were paid we made £644 for our branch funds out of this event.You will read about this event elsewhere in Dragonfly so I will say no more about this either in my report.

Now that money is coming into the branch in larger amounts Jan and I felt the time was right for the branch to have its own bank account, Which we have duly done.This will help us to become more professional in our approach and handle things in a more business like manner.

Our work party members have been helping out at Stepping Stones Bridge with the West Vale branch for some time now but we had to bring them all back on Sunday 5th November.

We have been working on revitalising the area behind the garage at Kingshill for some weeks now, cutting down tree's trimming hedges, clearing paths, rebuilding information boards and painting them, taking out old barb wire and very carefully collecting old needles that the druggies leave behind. ( bless the little darlings for they know not what they do ) My attempt at sarcasm. What to do with all that rubbish, well there is one day a year that nobody really minds you having a bonfire and that's November 5th so we got stuck in mob handed and cleared the lot up in one day. Thanks to everyone that turned up and helped out, We had the best bonnie in town.Now all we have to do is re-lay the hedge, and concrete in the seats that we intend to put at either end of the canal.

Our next task is to organise our January open meeting which may have taken place by the time you read this.Last year we had 126 people turn up, But for health & safety reasons we are going to have to restrict our numbers to 100 in the hall Each year we try and do something different for this event so now's the time to get our thinking caps on.
We are hoping to be able to make a D.V.D. about Swindon's Canal History in time for the event.
My wife tells me that something called Christmas happens about this time of year but I really do not have the time for it, So much to do and so little time to do it in.

Roy Cartwright