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…