Living waterways transform places and enrich lives

Council Meeting 22nd September 2016

• Chairs: the first generation…..

• What we’re for

• What we’re doing

• How we will do it better

• Vanguard : 2011/12, South Wales & Severn, West Midlands WPs

• Following Wind: March 2012 on, the balance of Waterway Partnerships

• A bargain! 11 fairly hefty figures from many backgrounds, plus around 100 strong WP membership as CRT champions – all cheap as chips!

• Broadly based local/regional force, embracing/articulating the charitable objects, promoting/making them real on ground, blending with Trust staff efforts

• Plans, strategies, templates (!) – and real, tangible activity & outcomes

• Chairs’ Forum: influential, astonishing unanimity on big issues, sounding board for senior management, Chair and Trustees

• Collectively, with WMs, Partnerships, local staff – a serious local force!

Different things in different places, by definition, but all about :

• Keeping old friends, making new ones

• Reaching out to new audiences, partners, using non-traditional approaches (e.g. marching into top of organisations, rather than just operational levels)

• Using our own networks to build more, broader strategic relationships

• Creating a community ownership & engagement context and ethos

• Banging drum for CRT in new ways & levering in new, different resources

• Promotion, advocacy, public engagement, visibility

• Constructive challenge, help knitting to work across CRT functions – we all know there’s still work to do to make the Trust gel and function seamlessly

Again, different in different places, but common themes:

• Events: public promotional/celebration days on the water, large & small, CRT led, and partnered, to showcase, and to welcome people, communities to, the water and waterside: it belongs to us all!

• Institutional engagement to common ends/mutual benefit (e.g. local authorities, health, LEPs, HE/FE, many others….)

• Researching, addressing barriers to participation (perception, physical)

• Targetting particular groups (e.g. young people, ethnic minorities)

• Trying new things, pushing the boundaries

• Framing this in coherent strategic plans (priority, capacity, opportunity)

• Seeking engagement of Trust staff - in all its parts - in local action/projects

We frame how we help make CRT and the local waterways work across five

headings *(in close step with WM/ team):

• Supporting and adding value to the Trust’s work

• Ambassadors & advocates for our values and aims

• Strategic thinkers, generating and testing ideas

• Promoting local interests, difference and value

• Influencing and supporting CRT’s development

* It’s under these headings that our performance and contribution are judged by

the Chair of Trustees…

• Nationally, +100 WP members, from all sectors, areas of expertise, developing Strategic Plans, delivering local/channeling national projects, year in, year out:

• (NE): Developing, placing Leeds Waterfront festival at heart of the events agenda in Leeds (c. 20K visitors to Leeds Aire Corridor over event (June ‘16)

• (NW&B) : Part of Natural Health Service group led by the Mersey Community Forest , highlighting health opportunities from green spaces

• (London): Originated brilliant Stratford2Stratford event for young people (awareness, new audiences & partners - appointing WP member for arts)

• (EM): Youth Engagement Advisory Group, helping shaping the way we listen, engage, welcome future generations (with local project work to road test)

• Opening doors to new partners, audiences, representing Trust interests, with agencies (LAs, HE, LEPs, politicians, 3rd sector…) – all WPs – THE DAY JOB

• (WM): taking key Conservative Party conference people on narrowboat run

• (NW&B): preparing Mid Cheshire Waterways Strategy (+Development Board/Cheshire West&ChesterCouncil); part of strategic group improving links between CRT and LAs in Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal World Heritage Site

• (EM): strategic partnership with NTU, commissioning research, engaging students, testing ideas, recruiting volunteers. Member of Nottingham Heritage Panel, helping secure heritage perspective in major city development plans

• (NE): MOU with Univ. of Leeds, working on performance framework for coast to coast canoe trail, Utilities’ business evaluation (Water source heating in London); supporting links with education to build STEM agenda.

• (K&A): Filming celebrities living on 2 narrowboats, promoting at living aboard

• (NW&B): connecting Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet village with Shropshire Union Canal, National Waterways Museum – visitor economy potential

• (M&P): first development of Green Flag recognition for a waterway space

• (NW , M&P, NE): influencing Northern Powerhouse prospectus (waterborne freight, port of Leeds and use

of Aire and Calder Navigation). Principle of East Coast European gateway, Cross Pennine waterway.

• (NE) – supporting WM and waterway in developing strategy to attract income and social return –

principally around support for HLF Landscape partnership particularly “Calder Valley Rising” – Landscape

partnership bid

• NW&B, K&A, others): testing potential of health and well-being agenda, e.g. NW&B hosting three events

covering its area for health professionals and others 'Unlocking the Health Potential of the Waterways'

(flyer available)

• (EW) “Running Trails”, with local/regional running groups, launching at Nottingham Marathon; “No Labels”

children in care group – how to capture their imagination/advise on promotion(Guide), Notts/Beeston

Water Bus project; Tidal Trent buddying/app

•

• (ALL): Community Adoptions; NW&B, Shropshire Union Middlewich Branch Adopters (SUMBA) 5 miles of

canal; small, but lots (EW, inc. Erewash Rangers and NE: community partnerships - increased adoptions by

30%). And so on…

• (ALL): Waterway celebrations, festival development; EM: Nottingham, Boston, Lincoln, Trent Lock; but

examples of showcasing, projecting the unique worth and value of the waterways across network, with

partners (e.g. Leeds (20k in June; London planning major new event, 2017 alongside (being restored)

Carpenters Road Lock, Olympic Park)….lots more, large and small

• (ALL): Community Engagement: (K&A: youth trips; EM: Nottingham Nature in Mind/Leicester Somali family

group; NW&B Community Engagement Plan);

•

• (ALL): Communications, marketing, publications/media (e.g. EM: Lincoln Guide, East Midlands Guide, in

development, Notts TV work, Young Creatives)

• (VARIOUS): (K&A): Heritage Trail – Bath to Bradford on Avon; (NE): supporting and promoting interest in all

NE waterways based on strategic characteristics; coast to coast canoe trail Aire and Calder; (NW&B):

identifying five locations for its 'Canal of the Future' project (masterplanning); …..

• Chairs’ Forum, a safe space for fresh perspectives on policy, cultural change

• Drawing in new, influential support for the future (MPs, local leaders)

• Capturing new audiences, widening reach , deepening community connections

• Testing, sharing new ideas for mainstream policy across “new” areas: health and well-being, youth,

diversity, community engagement, branding, as well as

• “traditional” areas: heritage, regeneration, freight, maintenance, environment

• And playing a full part in integrated regional planning:

….…..Partnerships at “front of pipe” in shaping what we deliver, region by region, waterway by waterway, in

coming years, expressed in single regional plans

Waterway Partnerships are a huge, rich resource, significant “soft power”.

We have contributed a lot. We can contribute much more, in promotion, reputation, reach, impact (and much else) as we muster for the future.

HOW? By making WPs (writ large) a more integral part of the Trust “machine”:

….communicating, planning, seeking and taking opportunities together;

……making the WMs the interface and choreographer of CRT’s many parts;

………and developing a single narrative/plan for our work, region by region

That’s how we - the Trust as a whole - will become central to local communities and understood as part of national fabric: the waterways as national treasure

Delighted to say this next part of the journey is under way – watch this space…