Peter's Waterways Blog A Family Chair This was first published in IWA West Riding's Milepost in May 2017, to remember the acievements of West Riding Branch during the previous ten years of firstly my chairmanship, and then Elaine's, on the occasion of her retiring from the job.

Click to read full issue

Frank Rigby Branch Chairman

A Family Chair .... ... on temporary loan from the West Riding Branch for ten whole years: it may seem longer to those who loaned it… It all began with a 1997 Christmas present of a year's IWA subscription for Peggy and Alastair Furniss, Elaine's parents, who had enjoyed a few canal trips on nbCopperkins in their retirement years, and it was hoped they would continue to support the IWA, and perhaps enjoy the magazines. The early Milepost advertised the Friday evening West Riding Branch meetings at the Leeds Deaf Institute, with a speaker usually introduced by Frank Rigby's prepared evening joke or witticism. A+P found them sufficiently relaxing to invite us (Peter and Elaine) to join them. This became a regular (winter-) monthly jaunt after Peter's job returned to walking-distance-from-home (in Sheffield) for the 1999/2000 season of West Riding meetings, and it was all downmhill (or uphill, according to taste) from there. Firstly there were chances to show Peter's much-treasured old colourslides to a wider audience than just those on the trips, at "Members' slide" evenings, then Frank persuaded Peter to compile a full evening's talk, which later evolved into 'My Illustrious Namesake and the IWA'; then there were more slide presentations; with an expanding collection of digital images, a 'reserve' talk for Chris Pinder's time at fronting the meetings, ready for substituting for any guest who cancelled too late to be replaced.

Peter retired from full-time work in 2005, and by 2007 had recovered from a surfeit of (work-) meetings to answer the West Riding need of a new volunteer to be chairman in succession to Chris. This meant transferring IWA membership from the 'slumbering' South Yorkshire and the Dukeries Branch, and being fully committed to West Riding, with both Peter and Elaine volunteering for the Branch Committee. In 2009, after much consideration, the national rules changed, and this brought the retirement after 23 years of our Region Chairman John Reeve, who nominated Peter as his successor, to be voted into this job (as well as being a national trustee) directly by the Region members. The elections for this were initially for one-year, and then three-year terms and have all been uncontested.

Deaf Institute, Leeds

Chris Pinder Branch Chairman

Elaine volunteered to take over from Peter as Branch Chairman, and found the task of organising and chairing the Committee and the Open Meetings very enjoyable and rewarding. There were ten committee members at first, and the meetings circulated around the front rooms of those who could host us; this resulted in some good discussions and lots of light refreshments. Over the years committee members have stood down to do other things in their lives, and have mostly not been replaced by other volunteers. Firstly we needed someone else to take on 'sales', then the editing of Milepost, then the writing of committee minutes, the interaction with new and departing members, the organising of Open meetings, and the storage and organising the branch stands, all of which became concentrated in fewer hands, but didn't create more time-in-the-day to do the tasks. Even so the Branch stand has had about three outings each year.

A significant challenge during Elaine's chairmanship was when, in August 2011, we heard that our meeting venue at the Leeds Deaf Institute was to be closed in October, so we could no longer meet there; this coincided with having taken on the Milepost editorship. Luckily the South Pennine Boat Club kindly offered us the use of their Club House and the magazine was able to alert our members to the change of venue before the next meeting: it was a rush to complete the compilation, arrange the printing, stuff the envelopes, stick on the stamps and fill the local postbox in good time. It seemed fun at the time and members arrived safely; we have had many good meetings there since then, for which we thank the Club.

South Pennine Boat Club as cover picture

Salterhebble Working Party

More fun were our three boat gatherings 2012-14 at Thwaite Mills, as part of the Leeds Waterfront Festival: it was a significant expansion of our earlier bring-a-stall; and we brought IWA's vanload of physical stalls from our central store of such things. Lots of preparation, and work during the weekends; objectively Not Many Boats attended, it was a good experience for those who were there, while it lasted. The small boating numbers helped another initiative, an extra-visiting-boat-mooring campaign in Leeds in concert with the Canal and River Trust North East Waterways Partnership, and this continues: our first small step of removing the one-hour mooring restriction on the pontoon outside Fearns Wharf was washed away with the whole pontoon, destroyed by the Boxing Day 2015 floods.

We have represented the Branch at many events run formerly by BW, latterly by CRT. There were some work parties in Leeds and on the Calder&Hebble and one organised walk on the Barnsley - all revived ideas for collecting Branch members together; we the Branch continued our sponsorship of Leeds and Liverpool milepost projects, including replacements and repainting, and a specific project was taken up by C&RT as part of the Leeds and Liverpool bicentenary 2016. Also for the bicentenary we took the banner into the Flotilla on our narrowboat. (We enjoyed it very much, but Ian Moore sprained his ankle jumping for the towpath)

Leeds Office Lock Working Party

Peter

And we usually enjoyed the many user group and similar meetings, and the little campaigns such as persuading CRT to work on the ease-of-paddle-winding lock at Fall Ing lock, removing the inaccurate sign for a drinking-water tap from the toilet-emptying room in Leeds Sanitary Station, complaining of the timing restrictions for westbound boats leaving Leeds centre, and the intricate complexities of sanitary stations and mooring facilities at Granary Wharf. We could go on ... We wrote a long piece in Waterways telling members across the country of the delights of West Riding as a branch: it has been fun and we would like to thank all those who have supported us during our years as chairmen. We wish you all a happy and successful future with the IWA. It's time for someone else to have a go ... All you need is a HAT! Peter and Elaine Scott @peterjohnscott

Elaine