LNBP’s Paul Iverson reports on another successful and productive weekend for us at this year’s Crick Boat Show.
Crick Boat Show is the largest inland waterway festival in Britain, organised by Waterways World. This year’s dates were Saturday 25th to Monday 27th May 2024 with a Trade and Preview day on Friday 24th May. LNBP has supported Crick Boat Show for many years and we continue to have good working relationship with the organisers.
LNBP took Guinevere as a show boat to encourage people aboard and to explain how the Project provides canal experiences for Community Groups in terms of weekend, midweek and longer residential breaks and holidays.
In essence, LNBP at Crick was all about the following
- Attendance and support of the largest inland waterway festival in Britain
- Publicise the new lifejackets and support of Midland Chandlers, Crewsavers and The Rugby
Benevolent Fund - Show Guinevere to promote LNBP and to encourage future bookings
- Fundraise via bucket collection, mainly from the trip boats
- Provide a venue and refreshments for the annual AGM
It all started on the Wednesday with moving Guinevere (and ‘cargo’ for the Show i.e. tents, marketing materials etc) from Braunston to Crick. This was done in two stages with going from Braunston – including through the locks network and tunnel – to Norton Junction, mooring overnight at the latter before resuming the second leg via Watford Locks into Crick Marina on the Thursday.
As mentioned above, Friday’s dedicated Trade and Preview day of the Show provided us with the perfect opportunity to bring various parties together to celebrate and announce the recent sponsorship initiative and life jackets donation from Midland Chandlers and Crewsaver; details of which you can read more of below.
As part of this we were also pleased to welcome representatives from the Rugby Group Benevolent Fund whose generous funding also contributed towards his initiative; details of which you can also read below.
Trip boats at your service
As part of LNBP’s involvement at Crick, we also run the Show’s day boat trip service, a 30-minute trip down the Leicester Line of the Grand Canal from Crick and back, including providing a timed ticketing service.
LNBP successfully ran the trip boat booking tent (thanks to Julie and Linda) and provided a good shuttle service with the three trip boats provided. We also collected and returned the trip boats from Foxton and Braunston on the Friday before and Tuesday after the Show.
In total we offered 86 boat trips and took 858 passengers plus 53 dogs. Excluding the dogs, this represents 99.7% capacity which was more than last year. Unfortunately, due to a boat breakdown on Saturday, we were unable to provide 9 boat trips and were potentially 90 passengers short. LNBP provided a team of 27 including 15 skippers. We also had 16 camping over the weekend on the Show Campsite. This included a mixture of older and newer members and the social value shouldn’t be underestimated. Specific thanks to Sharren for organising the catering and John Driver for
arranging tentage and tables.
Showcasing Guinevere
Guinevere was given a prime location for the 2024 Boat Show and was regularly visited by a variety of “customers”. Nigel and John Tobin were the primary recruiters. Guinevere and her crew left Braunston on Wednesday and returned on Sunday night to allow cleaning etc. before a 10 day hiring
on the following Tuesday.
There was some genuine interest in Community boating, there was some family groups interested on getting on a boat without having to book with the boatbuilders and there was some interest from others keen to gain boat layout ideas. Community groups often need to plan activities over 12 months in advance so we were able to introduce Nigel as a real live Booking Officer (rather than a chatbot) and we have had bookings from previous shows.
Funds raised
With bucket collections plus an additional monies generated from card reader donations, LNBP benefited from donations
totalling nearly £1100.00; this reversing a previous declining trend. So thank you to everyone who contributed during the course of the weekend.
AGM
We are required to hold an AGM each year and Crick provides the opportunity to hold this
given the number of people already on site; and avoids having to arrange a separate venue, travel
and catering.
A healthy attendance and constructive AGM was held with a successful review of the past year conveyed and no major changes in personnel for the coming year to report. Current Chairperson John Tobin has indicated his desire to step down from his role in May 2025.
Here’s to Crick 2025..
In summary, another successful Crick Show was enjoyed with thanks to everyone who contributed in whatever shape, form or level of commitment they provided.
Plans are already afoot for the same time next year, so watch this space.
