Volunteer projects yield big improvements You will have read elsewhere in this issue of the sterling work being undertaken by IWA's Waterway Recovery Group and our local canal societies, SUCS and SNCT. But there is also a lot of other activity going on to benefit our canals and you may like to consider offering your services to either the Small Tasks Team Vounteers (STTV) or the Shropshire Union Middlewich Branch Adopters (SUMBA) - or both if you're feeling really keen! - both of whom offer a friendly welcome to new volunteers on their sociable and worthwhile work parties. (Contacts on page 17.) Since SUMBA's creation in April the group has been on what it describes as a ‘skills learning curve’ and has mainly concentrated on painting and repairing picnic tables and posts, signage, cutting back vegetation and litter picking. At the end of September it completed a major cutback of overhanging vegetation and a litter SUMBA volunteers at Sykes Hollow Leisure Area pick between Nanney's Bridge and Photo: SUMBA the Sykes Hollow picnic area, as well as painting the five tables and barbecue stands in the picnic area itself. Sixteen volunteers, including members of the Crewe Clean Team, contributed a total of 88 hours work and made a huge improvement to the visual appearance of the towpath. Canal & River Trust has now suggested that SUMBA carries out an offside cutback between the bridges at each side of the Sykes Hollow picnic area, together with a painting and tidy-up at Church Minshull and Cholmondeston locks. These projects will require CRT's input, onsite involvement and a great deal of planning and will be a major step up for SUMBA’s activities. Readers cruising the Middlewich Branch will also be starting to see evidence of progress with SUMBA’s environmental plan to plant bulbs, apple trees, fruit bushes and insect attracting shrubs along the towpath. The first phase of planting bulbs and some trees opposite Aqueduct Marina will complement the planting of SUMBA's first two apple trees, kindly sponsored by the marina and Trevor Hancock, earlier in the summer. The trees, a Minshull Crab and a Bee Bench, both local cooking varieties, are flourishing!
Shroppie Fly Paper
Page 26
Autumn/Winter 2014