Work Party Report

Athina Beckett

Since my last report work has progressed steadily on the canal at Cosgrove: we are working on a new site at the A5 end. Once again we took part in Make a Difference Day (MADD) - I think this is the fourth time or is it the fifth?

Now, as you know, I'm always looking for extra volunteers, so when a lady from the Mormon Church rang me to say that their other MADD activities had been cancelled, so could they come and help us, naturally I was pleased. 'How many volunteers would you like?' she asked. 'As many as possible' I replied. 'Well,' she said, 'we have 100 youngsters attending our church conference. Could you take all of them?' Big gulp from me. One hundred could be a little more than I felt I could manage!

Luckily we then discovered that most of them were too young anyway, but eight Mormons volunteered to help us on MADD along with nine others making a total of seventeen people. Unfortunately I didn't receive any extra certificates this year, so only the people who had officially registered with M.K.Volunteers got a certificate: this was a shame, but I managed to find free pens for the rest of the group. So a big thank you to all those who took part in MADD on Saturday 27th October. They certainly did make a difference to the canal at Cosgrove!

On the weekend of the 17th-18th November, BITM WRG arrived to spend the weekend with us. Once again they did a sterling job and cleared the remaining tree stumps from the middle section of the canal. They then went on to work on the A5 site on the Sunday. This is the last major site we have to clear at the Cosgrove end of the canal.

At Buckingham, most of the clearing work has stopped while we work at Cosgrove. But Nick Hawes, the landowner, has supplied his excavator and driver, a lovely chap called Martin who has worked extremely hard on our behalf and has now dug up most of the remaining tree stumps right up to the lock cottage. We are now leaving them to dry off to be burnt in the spring, thereby leaving the canal bed clear and then allowing us to move on to the next job which will be to restore the spillweir.

If anybody wants any more information about the work we are doing please ring me on 01908 661217, otherwise I hope to meet as many of you as possible on one of our Sunday or Wednesday work parties.