Shroppie Fly Paper - November 2024 Dear IWA member,
From The Steerer Welcome to this edition of your branch newsletter, Shroppie Fly Paper. You don’t have to be eagle-eyed to spot that it’s very different from the newsletter that we have customarily delivered through your letterbox or to your inbox. So much so that perhaps we ought to nickname it the Shorter Fly Paper!
Whether this format turns out to be temporary or permanent depends, in large part, on whether we are successful in finding one or more volunteers prepared to take over the editorial role. Could you help us, individually or as part of a team? Writing this in the October half-term break, the festival season has finally ended, and we can soon expect to see boat movements tail off on our canals. But in the meantime, we hope you enjoy the reports of our summer activities, updates from our local restoration projects, and some future dates to look forward to.
Contents Membership Matters Gnosall C-Fest and Gnosall Towpath Restoration Annual Lock Wind Whitchurch Canal Festival Nantwich Embankment Repaired Waterways Photographic Exhibition Restoration Round-up – Montgomery Canal Calendars and Christmas Cards Winter Walk 2025 Branch Steering Team and Situations Vacant
Membership Matters We’re delighted to welcome the following new members, who joined at our waterways events over the summer: Mr & Mrs Gerrard from Colwyn Bay Ms Gwinnett-Webb from Alton Mr Coburn from Wrexham Thank you for joining IWA. We hope you enjoy being part of the country’s only independent, national waterways charity and that we’ll see you at future branch events, either as visitors or perhaps even as volunteers. We’re sorry to be saying goodbye to two tremendous supporters of the branch for the past 20 or so years, Dawn and David Aylwin. David has undertaken, with distinction, many different roles in the branch steering team, including chairman, newsletter editor and boat festival harbourmaster back in the days when we initiated and ran the Norbury Canal Festival in the early 2000s. Dawn was a most diligent branch secretary for many years, keeping a succession of branch chairmen on the straight and narrow and participating widely across all the branch’s activities. Dawn and David are now moving to a very different part of the country to be closer to their family. We thank them for their massive contributions and send them our best wishes for the future. And, sadly, we say final farewells to two waterways stalwarts, June Dickin and Pat Wilson. Both have been staunch supporters of IWA and their favourite waterways causes for decades,