WILTS & BERKS CANAL TRUST

The branch stalwarts keep plodding on, progress, albeit slow, is being made on all fronts, not just down the cut but in the background as well. Our flagship project, Steppingstone Lane Bridge, progresses steadily with something happening almost every weekend, not all good I quickly add! We have a graffiti artist at work, our storage hut, safety notices and a parapet wall of the bridge itself all received his tag. (I believe that's what the great uneducated pond life calls it). It's not too bad and it will be cleaned off, an unwanted distraction! Now the good news! Two WRGies camps are booked, at Christmas and Easter. The first will be to collect those coping stones I mentioned in the last report, yes we were offered them as promised, a railway bridge near Didcot is being demolished and we have to get the stones off site and back here over the Christmas/New Year break. Luckily, the WRGies are bringing transport as well, where would we be without them!
We have also been offered, from another source, a large quantity of tarmac road planings to surface the road over the bridge, another logistics job, still in the planning stage, as we have to transport them back to site as well.

Depending on winter weather and volunteer numbers, work will continue on the bridge but we have a big scrub bashing (nice warm bonfire job) and ditching as fall back jobs that must be done.

With luck the Easter camp will be able to put the finishing touches to the bridge.

Local members have been busy too - one job has been to remove and straighten the height barrier at the canalside park entrance - yes someone managed to drive into it and bend it! Someone also managed to wreck the small gate by the car park- a new stronger one is now in place. Another group of revelers staved of the cold of an English summer nights frolicking in the park by having a nice blaze of our stored fencing and a picnic table. They didn't take home their rubbish either! Our little canalside Park takes a lot of looking after. We still have a lot of fencing and a gate or two to install so the West Vale few will be kept busy over the winter - any helpers out there? Behind the scenes, so to speak, negotiations on the leases here in West Vale continue to make steady progress, but as I said, slowly! Site visits and negotiations continue and maps, plans and agreements have been drawn up. The amount of work that goes into it would surprise you!

Talking of maps, we are updating our walk leaflets, (surprising how things change over the years) with quite a lot of alterations needed. They will be ready soon and will be published on the website - no excuse then to come and pay us a visit to see all that's going on! We are also hard at work preparing more articles and information for the website as well.

Our Annual Autumn Quiz Night went well again this year, well attended, well enjoyed, well done by our quizmasters, well done by the quizzers, well done by the bar staff, and over ?300 profit. Well done! What to spend it on - transport I guess!

Merry Christmas and a muddy new year - but remember "it's not all digging in the mud"

Alan Norris - Branch Chairman.