The Newsletter of : -
IWA Warwickshire Branch December 2017.
Who’d ‘a’ thought it ? Is it really sixteen years since we launched Bear Essentials ? Back in 2001 we planned to move our monthly meetings to a new, more customer-friendly, venue and at the same time wanted to improve our attendances. We assembled a stellar cast of speakers, including:- Chris Coburn, Audrey Smith and Garth Allan - all before Christmas! We wrote to all branch-members with a copy of BE-1 – a single-page, text-only newsletter that simply amplified the dry ‘one-liners’ on the Programme Card. We told members a bit about the speakers and their topics. We ‘sold’ the meetings - and doubled the average attendance within a year. Old hands may remember that in our first edition (see left) we also floated the then quite advanced idea of asking whether branch members would like to receive BE by e-mail. This caused a bit of a stir in some circles, not least because Head Office was (quite understandably) worried about the proliferation, and control, of such databases. However, with your agreement, we pressed on, like purposeful pioneers - and just did it ! Images: Top:
BE-49 Aug 2017, Our last edition,
Middle: BE-38 Dec. 2013. Our first enlarged, Illustrated edition. Bottom: BE-01, Sept 2001 Our first edition. th
Any ‘ 50 ’ is a cause for celebration, and an inevitable ingredient of that celebration is looking-back. I make no apology for doing that - both here above and again on page 3. However, our fiftieth comes at an important time for the Association, and shaping our future is not just-as important – it’s even more so – and that’s why elsewhere in this newsletter we look forward. On page 2 we look at the near future - with our new-year’s events-programme; but on page 4 we take a longerterm, wider-aspect look at our waterways role. The future always starts in the past, and looking both back and forward not only helps to produce a better evolution, it also creates a better ability to differentiate between babies and bathwater. As no-doubt by now you know; at our September AGM a new logo was unveiled. Personally, despite understanding concerns of members who paddle or sail, I like the propeller, I think that it spins together well the different strands of our work - but for me it’s the text that’s the problem.
Success bred success, and we introduced more activities – notably walks and work parties. Soon two sides of A4 weren’t enough to cover what we had to say. So four years ago we re-vamped BE and produced the illustrated 4-side version that you receive today. We also introduced a 3-year rotation of blue, green and red identifying colours. Were we pioneers yet again? – well ‘ahead of the curve’ that you can now read all about on page 4. I understand the need for uncluttered text, and the confused messages that clutter can send – particularly to that all-important ‘new blood’ that we need to attract. But I am rather concerned at the degree to which the contribution of the Association’s membership – through the reduction in the size and positioning of the ‘A’ word – appears to be denigrated. And I believe that – just as CRT found with their initial attitude towards boaters – we will find that it is our existing members who will be needed to ‘keep the propeller turning’ – at least until all that new blood has been turned into memberships. However, it’s important to realise - particularly with the pressing issues that we face today, such as EA’s treatment of its Anglian waterways; and, nearer to home, even CRTs Chasewater problems (see page 4); - that any perceived shortcomings in our new logo design must be treated as a few drops of ‘spilt-milk’.
Ian Fletcher
Editor.