Basingstoke Canal Society Page

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Basingstoke Canal Society

All-new “green” canal boat to replace diesel-powered Kitty

Fundraising is a constant of Society life and our team has embarked on another large project to replace our aging canal boat, Kitty, which runs trips along the waterway from Woking.

Kitty is very much a community resource. Thousands of visitors enjoy the beauty of our fine canal environment through our volunteer-run public trips each year. In addition, she also provides trips for local schoolchildren, care homes, hospitals, heritage open days and people with disabilities. Kitty has also had a long association with the children of Chernobyl, taking those on recuperative breaks in the UK on trips each year. But, at 45 years old, Kitty is near the end of her life and we are working hard to raise money for her replacement - in the form of an environmentally-sound, all-electric canal boat. Kitty was named after the last horse to tow boats along the canal, so it is fitting that Kitty II will be as environmentally friendly as her namesake! As well as making Kitty II non-polluting, we also plan to install several charging points on the canal in Woking which will represent our first step towards making the canal fully electric for all users. Newly designed, Kitty II will allow easier wheelchair access and provide enough space for an on-board toilet. She will be produced by a UK

based boatbuilder. Together with installing the charging network, we have a fundraising target of £200,000. The society is contributing £70,000 of its own to kickstart the effort and aim to raise the remaining £130,000 from sources including grants, individual and corporate donations and an art auction scheduled for late February at The Lightbox gallery and museum in Woking. We are also working to launch a crowdfunding site to support the project and hope to have news of its launch soon.

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Digital archive will make Basingstoke Canal artefacts available in online museum

A photo from the Basingstoke Canal Society archive: Barge horse Charlie at Lock 3 in Woodham in 1915. The stables shown have now been extended and form a part of the Like many long-standing, volunteer-run organisations, the society has found itself in a position of having a lot of information being held by different people in different places and at risk of being lost if anything were to happen to these hard copy resources. As a result, we have been working for some time on converting and saving these items to a digital format. Volunteer Don Cooper, who is leading the project, said: “We have an extensive collection of nearly 12,000 items, including photos, maps and documents with additional parts of the collection at the Surrey History Museum

and the Winchester Public Records Office”. “We must pay tribute to the incredible effort and dedication of our outgoing archivist David Tonkinson, who has carried out outstanding work to digitise over 70% of our collection over a period of 10 years! We are now working to complete this project and would welcome new volunteers who would like to support the society, particularly with this ongoing task to maintain our archives.” The society plans to make its archive available to a wider audience through its website, creating an online museum populated with the digitised documents for anyone to see. Work on the website has already started with an early scoping phase to see what technology will work best to display the archive properly. “We will do this through creating a section on our website, like an online museum, and populate it with the digitised versions of our documents for anyone to see. This will then allow us to carry out some housekeeping on the physical material.”

Odiham Raft Race Returns

Following an absence of a year due to the pandemic, we were pleased to support and welcome back our fundraising Odiham Raft Race in September. Held at Colt Hill, Odiham, this popular event sees the teams battling for first place across a 1.6 km course aboard homemade rafts.

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The race always attracts a crowd of spectators who enjoy the thrills and spills of the race - won by the Badder Belles in a time of 26.52 minutes - as well as this year’s demonstration by the Basingstoke & Deane Canoe Club and the new Tug-oWar competition, won by the Boatyard Buoys. A number of stands and a steady supply of refreshments were enjoyed by all with the society receiving a very welcome boost to its coffers at the end of the day!

Calendar competition captures the best of the Basingstoke Canal

Our canal calendar photo competition closed at the end of September. Thirteen winning images were chosen and now feature in the pages of our Basingstoke Canal Calendar 2022. Run on Facebook, our competition invited local photographers to capture beautiful views of the canal, its wildlife and human users. The calendar has been produced and is now available to buy from our online shop, alongside Christmas cards which also feature seasonal scenes of the Basingstoke Canal. Last year’s calendar raised £1,500 for the society and we have our fingers crossed for the same this year, if not more! The calendar, priced £8, is a colour, A4 landscape format, while the Christmas cards are available in packs of 10 priced £4, with a discounted price of £10 for three packs. All are available from our website: https://basingstokecanal.org.uk/shop/.

First look at canal information boards

We now have initial designs for the information boards which will be installed at points of interest along the canal. The society raised £20,000 to fund 15 information boards along the 32-mile waterway which will tell visitors about the route, history and wildlife of the canal. The content of the boards will relate to each location and is being put together by the society’s Neil Taylor. Each one will be reviewed by the society and the Basingstoke Canal Authority, who manage the canal on behalf of its owners, Hampshire County Council and Surrey County Council.

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All of the oak frames for the boards have already been produced and, once the designs and information and been finalised and approved, the boards themselves will be prepared by Greenhouse Graphics, in Basingstoke. The company has a philosophy of sustainability and a commitment to using sustainable resources, minimising their carbon output and waste production. This feels right for the Basingstoke Canal Society which has identified securing an environmentally sustainable future for the canal and protecting the natural environment as key objectives in our work.

Lisa Taylor

Trips aboard the John Pinkerton II and Kitty

Boat Trips

Boat trips for this year finished at the end of October and both John Pinkerton 11 and Kitty will be out of service as we undertake our annual winter maintenance. We will accept requests for dates in 2022, though all bookings will be subject to current Covid-19 restrictions, which may reduce our passenger numbers from the nominal maximum of 50. Charter trips booked so far are those shown in the list of Scheduled Trips & Events. If you would like to charter on a day without a trip shown, please contact us at https://basingstoke-canal.org.uk or phone the Booking Team on 01256 765889 (10am - 8pm). Cruising in the peaceful surroundings of the Basingstoke Canal is a great way to relax. You can charter the whole boat for exclusive use by family, friends or work colleagues

Trips from Mytchett: Boat trips on board our friendly 12-seater boat Rosebud usually run at weekends and on public holidays from Easter to September. Please contact us for up to date information. Tel 01252 370073, email info@basingstokecanal.co.uk or check on Facebook or Twitter.

Focus on Accessible Boating Association

The Accessible Boating Association, (Accessible Boating or ABA), is a registered charity initiated in 1985 by Mildred Stocks, then Chairman of Hart District Council, who wanted to enable people who couldn’t use existing canal boats to enjoy cruises on the Basingstoke Canal. Two boats are available: Madam Butterfly is a comfortable 7-berth cruising boat and Dawn is a 12-person day boat Both boats are based in Odiham at Galleon Marine’s boatyard with trips operating from Colt Hill Wharf from April to October. For more details see the website www.accessibleboating.org.uk. New volunteers are always welcome; speak to one of our volunteers or contact our Chairman, John Ranson at chairman@accessibleboating.org.uk