The final post: why we won't be back

Site knock down has gone really well this year, helped by the continuing fine weather, so that there's no mud to slow you down, or rain to send you diving for shelter. Another powerful factor has been the wrg leader, Al Moore; her campers have clearly been inspired and motivated by her.

The very limited distribution spoof issue duly went out yesterday morning. Much of its silliness was appreciated, but a piece in which I attempted to mimic the contrarian style of Steve Haywood's column in Canal Boat misfired badly in some quarters. In it, I challenged the purpose of the whole exercise, and this was taken by just a few people in senior positions, it seems, to be a criticism of the substantial effort that goes into mounting the show.

As a result, we had to sit with gritted teeth during the congratulatory speechifying last night as Ian West described it as "ill judged", so that we were  the only part of the whole operation not to be told how well we'd done. That's all right, it was only most of four weeks work designing, editing, printing and distributing the thing, not to mention this blog.

Just for the record, no one could doubt the incredible achievement that is the Festival, a huge weekend show mounted by volunteers, with the only professional input coming from the parts that absolutely have to be professional, like the marquee erection, the power supplies to the traders, the security cover and the like.

I have nothing but admiration for the way the volunteers throw themselves into the tasks and work amazingly hard for no return other than a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

But... with no Festival next year, IWA is quite rightly taking the opportunity to have a policy review of the aims and purposes of the event. I shall be seeking to make my own input to that, so do feel free to email me or to comment on this blog with any thoughts you may have.

• Should the Festival carry on as it does at the moment?
• Should it be focussed more tightly on one or other of its aims?
• Should it happen at all?

Next year there will still be the Canalway Cavalcade in London, the trail boat rally and the campaign rally, so there will be plenty of IWA events to attend.

This has been our eighth National Festival, and before we got here, we had decided that enough was enough for the time being. Recent events have done nothing to change our minds, so we won't be going to the 2013 Festival in Newbury or wherever else it happens, assuming it happens.

We do plan to attend Cavalcade, though, at the beginning of May, so if you are about the Paddington Basin and Little Venice area that weekend, do look in to see us!

For now though, it's goodbye from here. Tomorrow's post will be over on Living in Sanity Again, probably posted in the late afternoon as usual.

Day 17, almost over

It always feels very strange, how quickly an event that's been the focus of everyone's efforts for so long is so soon done with. It's even more so this year, of course, as the show was a half day shorter. This is my penultimate post here; tomorrow's will be the last.

Good stuff about this year:

• The site was an easy one to work, being flat and of a regular shape.
• The weather was great, though it made things hard for the wrgies slogging in the sun
• For the third year running, no child was lost for long enough to require a sweep of the site to find it.
• Lots of people came; we're waiting to hear the final figures

and for us personally:

• We won the Calor Rose Bowl for the best galley on a private boat in the show.

Amazing; we've never won anything like that before – thank you Braidbar! The prize included a compact gas barbecue, which we're currently scratching our heads over, not having a lot of space on a liveaboard for such items.

Less good:

• That car park, of course. Saturday's gate was probably reduced by the need to turn cars away from the free parking, though on Sunday another car park was identified, and things were easier.
• There was a degree of confusion over timings for things like the Opening Ceremony and the finish yesterday. I've no idea what went wrong there; usually the team gets that exactly right.

Some final pictures:

Guy the Arena manager getting out of a classic dray

The Park and Ride shuttle from Burton Town Centre

A weary wrgie

The car park in use

Remains of the heap

So, nearly over. I plan to help the fencing team today, then there's the end of the event party tonight.