About the event

Every year, the Inland Waterways Association runs a major event during the summer. In 2011, it's at Shobnall Fields, Burton on Trent, on the Trent and Mersey Canal. For the first time for a long while, it will be from the Friday to the Sunday of the last weekend in July, rather than the Late Summer Bank Holiday.

Like a lot of other volunteers, we'll be there for three weeks, starting on Saturday 16th July. Our main contribution will be editing and producing the daily newsletter which is circulated to the boaters, campers and exhibitors at the Festival, starting on the Thursday before.

Disclaimer

Note: this is an entirely personal account of our time helping to set up and run the Festival. It's not an official IWA site; please use the link above for that.

Friday 27 August 2010

Second Thursday

A short blog today; we’re being judged for the Marion Monk Trophy for the best private boat at the Show at ten, and Sheila and Elanor are busy putting the finishing touches to our boat cleaning whilst I write this.

Yesterday was wet again, and the site became soft in places. There’s still a heavy restriction on vehicle movement, so as the traders arrived, their vehicles were brought as close as possible to their stand without cutting up the ground. Then WRG teams carried (“handballed”) their stuff to the stand. They did 20 such yesterday; only another 120 to do today.

Fortunately, the forecast is for a slow improvement from here on in, with really good weather on Monday, but it rained quite hard overnight, so everything is still soggy.

The Beale Park Bugle is being well received, which is a huge relief. There seem to be a few glitches in the distribution system, inevitably; we will probably have sorted them by Tuesday.

We'd used KESCRG's marquee as our field kitchen, and now it had to be moved to become their Appealing Food stall in the Show. No need to take it down, if you have enough wrgies!

Entry to the Camp Site, showing the developing problem with access

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