Peter's Waterways Blog A Volunteering Diversity This was first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in January 2018, to give a rounded view of the value of volunteering, mainly about lockkeepers on the Canal and River Trust waterways.

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“What was that shouting?” “Just some old bloke – couldn’t hear over the engine ...” They were a steroetypical nuclear family at their first locks on their first hire-trip: MrsBoater steered while MrBoater and two children were on the bank with handles, looking slightly bemused at which paddles to be winding. The unheard shouting was indeed an old bloke in a Canal and River Trust volunteer-teeshirt: “You can’t steer that boat sitting on your arse”. Not in jest, it seemed, and he was pleased to share with us his views about the advantages of National Service (he was a fan), as well as telling us his opinion that old-fashioned violence towards children was good for their behaviour. The problem is not so much the holding of such views, but their unnecessary sharing while representing C&RT to their customers: the weather and the number-of-boats-today are enough uncontroversial topics for a full day of discussions with passing navigators.

A helpful volunteer

As observers of the events, we ought to have complained directly, and our only excuse is that we had left the locks before we had collated the full story from separate observations, and that we too were relaxing on our holiday. The conclusions ought to be wider than the problems of one grumpy volunteer. C&RT likes to quote its total volunteer-hours each year: for 2016/17 this exceeded half a million for the first time (p5 of the Annual Report) and they plan an increase to 600,000 this year (p49). On that same page there is a “Diversity” target, that the number of women in C&RT senior management should reach a quarter. That may indeed be a challenging target in practice, but there is nothing in the Report about the current or planned gender-diversity among volunteers.

Would it be similarly challenging to have a quarter of those volunteer-lockkeeper hours delivered by women? That seems miserably unambitious: but during our fifteen hundred miles this year we met a number of sets of C&RT volunteer lockkeepers, and I cannot recall seeing any women doing the job. Let's combine that with the age distribution, which is mostly those who have retired from full-time jobs. It’s not just a statistical quirk that ‘lockkeeping’ teams are old blokes (and I’m an old bloke, too) who retired from jobs in which they were accustomed to telling their staff what to do.

Working fulltime for C&RT

They continue to expect to have the same relationship from inside a lockkeeping volunteer-teeshirt: if they are giving up time to be a ‘lockkeeper’ then they expect to be the person in control of the lock. Our experience is that assistance is hardly ever ‘offered’: if we make a specific effort to tell lockkeepers that they are not needed, they generally seem content to do something else, but by default they adopt the ‘controlling’ role, and often they wind the paddles before seeking permission.

New navigators are inexperienced and may do the wrong thing: they might well have had insufficient or ineffective guidance from their hire-base. Of course, if dangerous things happen, we should all intervene immediately to prevent the boat hanging on the cill, or suffering similar nastiness. Other than those emergencies, the assistance on offer needs to recognise the fundamental point that the operation of a lock is under the direction and control of the master of the vessel using it, however ill-equipped they might appear to be for that task. They may well have paid two thousand pounds for their week afloat, and if that’s for a hundred miles and a hundred locks, maybe about £12 and £8 for each, respectively: maybe they don’t think of locks as ‘work’ and dislike others taking over from their children who had been looking forward to turning their own handles. We all need to be sensitive to other users’ expectations before taking over from them, however much they may appear to need help.

Also working fulltime for C&RT

A dull afternoon in October saw two of us taking Copperkins down through a lock. There was some help from a C&RT-clad person who helpfully wound-down a bottom-gate paddle for us: we waved our thanks to her for breaking off from her (full-time-paid) C&RT-work clearing the weir, and we are on our way to the next lock. There was a contrast to the same lock earlier in the year. I was lockwheeling that day and wound down the same paddle on the same gate. As it happens, I wound the paddle in exactly the same way that our later helper used – and this generated shouting from the other end of the lock. S... disagreed that my way of winding down the paddle was the way that he would have done it. I stayed to discuss with him and his fellow C&RT volunteer. We parted still talking to one another, although not in agreement. I told him where to find me in the C&RT Annual Report (p105) and he was keen to ‘report’, to someone important no doubt, how I had wound down ‘his’ paddle, which was different to his training course, it seems.

How is the winding of a paddle likely to cause such a long discussion? In this case my windlass was still on my shoulder, I had wound back the paddlebar slightly to release the catch and was utilising gravity to assist in lowering it gently into the closed position. Nobody had told S... that paddles had been lowered that way for two hundred years – probably less gently in working days. But he thought of himself as “in charge”. As did the chap who pushed our bow out, not understanding the steerer’s intentions. And the chap who wanted the gate paddles wound differently, not understanding Fulbourne’s front deck. And the chap halting boats halfway up the flight, not understanding how the water supply works. Sadly, it’s the disagreements that are remembered, rather than the many helpful or at least harmless hours spent waiting for the next boat. It could all be so much better.

A balloon above Foxton Locks

For completeness, there is a caveat: on large locks, tidal locks and some complicated locks: the Navigation Authority may, through its volunteer or employed lockkeepers, take control and responsibility for safe working, and direct boat skippers and their crews through the locks. To understand better where boat crews or the Navigation Authority is in charge, your task (if you choose to accept it, as they say) is to seek out published information to compare and contrast the operating regimes at a sample of locks and flights: Apperley Bridge, Bascote, Bingley5. Bingley3, Bosley, Bratch, Botterham, Bunbury, Caen Hill, Field, Foxton, Frankton, Grindley Brook, Hatton, Hillmorton, Middlewood, Northgate, Pamona, Tardebigge, Tinsley, Tuel Lane, Watford, Wigan.

C&RT (Annual Report p26) claim “a step change in driving diversity and inclusion within our workforce” during 2016/17, “...establishing internal groups to focus on gender balance,... so as to make the Trust as family friendly and mindful an employer as we can be.” But where are the outcomes from this? Let’s have a specific plan for volunteer lockkeeper development. Advertising should encourage couples, families, and groups of friends to volunteer together. All lockkeeping teams should only operate with between one-third and two-thirds women. There should be an advertised service, and it should be possible for navigators to book ahead online for some assistance to one particular boat going through one particular lock-flight. Even if it’s raining.

Potential volunteer lockkeeper recruits to change the gender banlance.

A woman volunteer on Scotland's Lowland canals

Where narrowboats are planning to use wide locks, the lockkeeping service should co-ordinate boating timetables to encourage sharing of locks. In summary, the lockkeeping programme ought to be more than a count of volunteer-hours, and positively contribute to the canalling environment. The Falkirk locks on the Scotland Lowland canals have volunteers organised through a social enterprise called “Re-Union”. Volunteers are offered employability programmes for the community as well as running tripboats in Edinburgh and Falkirk. It is much more structured, it seems better organised, it has wider social objectives compared to lockkeeping run by C&RT, and it is much closer to my development proposals above. And our lockworking team-leader was a woman.

Update in Milepost in June 2018: I suggested in January that we need a better gender balance of C&RT volunteer lockkeepers, with more emphasis on helping boatcrews and less on directing them. Co-ordinating boat movements to share locks would also be a useful contribution. Alternatively, volunteers might be better deployed staying with one boat which had specifically invited them to help through a lock flight - in effect as additional members of the crew; our early season boating included the May bankholidays at busy junctions, and we encountered hardly any volunteers this year. Peter Scott @peterjohnscott

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