From the Chairman: a new WRG logo?

Chairman’s bit

I would like to think that every edition of Navvies

gives you something to think about. Sometimes for good reasons, other times maybe not. But I do hope that some of this edition hangs around your little grey cells even longer than normal. Several pages of this

Navvies are dedicated

to remembering an amazing person – Mick Beattie. I was on a Canal Camp when Mick passed away in August. In many ways that was probably the best place to be, in the company of people who knew and loved him and surrounded by reminders of what he had brought to the organisation. Mick’s funeral was a mix of laughter and sorrow as favourite memories (some of which you can read on pages 34-35) were brought to mind by some wonderful tributes. One of the most impressive eulogies was from Mick’s employers, Land & Water, who truly captured what it was to know and enjoy the company of Mick. There were all the points you would expect (and that feature heavily in this Navvies) – the humour, the friendship, the love, the Pernod, the charm, the loyalty and the constant inspiration. However, the point that really stood out to me was just how much they appreciated Mick as a mentor for, well, pretty much anyone and anything. Whether it was formally or informally Mick always found the time to help you get better at just about everything. More than anything Mick believed in the sheer pleasure of doing a job well and doing it right. Even more than that Mick, believed that everyone should have that pleasure. It’s a skill that WRG absolutely relies on and we probably don’t recognise and appreciate it enough. So can I thank everyone who has ever taken five minutes out of their working day to help pass on their skills and experience to another volunteer. Formal training has its place (and, as the founder of the WRG Training Weekend, that’s another thing we have Mick to thank for) but the thing that really helps us grow is the constant reassurance that whilst on site we are surrounded by people who can help us get better. Anyone who has read Navvies for more than a few months will know that I’m often commenting on our parent organisation’s ability to indulge in ‘navel gazing’. I’m often rather dismissive of

this but it seems that they may well have called my bluff this time. On page 16 you will find an article from the chaps at Head Office describing how IWA is starting to address the question of ‘Who are we and what are we doing?’ Now the real proof will be at the next IWA Trustees meeting where all of these lofty phrases will be distilled down to (hopefully) some decent campaigns that everyone who values the waterways can get beOne of the things they have been addressing

is the tricky question of how do we identify as all

part of one big organisation and yet keep our own identity. We have been working quite hard on this

point because, although its nowhere near as important as making sure we actually have a clear vision and a definite plan of how we are going to get there, sometimes you do need to make sure you look the part if you are going to be taken seriously. I’m pretty pleased with the results, which were unveiled at the IWA AGM in September, and here is my personal take on all of this. To me the sticking point about having a

‘single brand’ for the whole organisation was two

fold. Firstly, WRG have worked very hard to build up our reputation in a way that was thoroughly linked to our logo and it didn’t seem sensible to throw that away. Secondly, it kept coming back to this concept of a parent organisation, and that

doesn’t quite seem to fit these days. Because, to be blunt, WRG is 47 years old and even though IWA has got 20-odd years on that, it still puts us as pretty mature, no matter how much we might pretend we are still the stroppy teenager. But with some new Trustees and some renewed appreciation of how important restoration is to the IWA, it really does feel like a family affair now, and that is what I like about this new logo – it’s just an indication of the family you are in – your identity is still there in the words alongside the logo, be it IWA, EWL or WRG. We don’t have to try and shoehorn the IWA and WRG logos together whenever we print a leaflet, send a letter or paint a van. We just need the family logo and then add our clear identity. Read the rest of Alicen’s article to see whether you think it all makes sense. But just to be clear – we are still Waterway Recovery Group, they are still the Inland Waterways Association, our kit is still red and nobody is being made to surrender old T-shirts just because they don’t match

the new style. (It also goes without saying that a lot of clever people have checked out whether it works when reversed, printed large, printed small, in greyscale, wrapped round a pump. etc). So apart from having a ‘family’ logo to signify what we believe in and who we are part of, you might be thinking that none of this ‘rebrand’ will affect what we do; after all, we have a great message and so we should continue to push it as far and as wide as possible. Which is true, but hopefully, as IWA gets its act together and achieves an ever better profile, we will automatically gain by association with this new brand. Enjoy the rest of this edition – it’s been a cracking summer with some great work. See you at the Bonfire Bash/Reunion to start it all again !