Paul Iverson provides a brief rundown of LNBP Community Boating’s participation at the recent Crick Boat Show with his 2023 Show Report.

 

Background

Crick Boat Show is the largest inland waterway festival in Britain, organised by Waterways World in association with the Canal and River Trust and Aquavista. It attracted over 20,000 people who are interested in canal and river craft over the bank holiday weekend. This year’s dates were 27th – 29th May with a Trade day on 26th

LNBP at Crick

LNBP took Guinevere as a show boat to encourage people aboard and to explain how the Project provides canal experiences for Community Groups. We also run the day boat trip service, a 30 minute trip down the canal and back, including providing a timed ticketing service. LNBP has supported Crick Boat Show for many years and we continue to have good working relationship with the organisers.

Objectives

  1. Attendance and support of the largest inland waterway festival in Britain.
  2. Show Guinevere to promote LNBP and to encourage future bookings
  3. Fundraise via bucket collection, mainly from the trip boats
  4. Provide a venue and refreshments for the annual AGM
 Attendance and support

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 95 boat trips and took 925 passengers plus 48 dogs. Excluding the dogs, this represents 97% capacity which was more than last year.

LNBP provided a team of 27 including 14 skippers. We also had 17 camping over the weekend on the Show Campsite. This included several potential new members and the social value shouldn’t be underestimated. Specific thanks to Denise for organising the catering and John Driver for arranging camping catering kit.

The Show organisers are very grateful to LNBP for our support, especially the professional running of the day boats. We are contacting the organisers to provide some feedback but have been asked to run the trip boats again in 2024 (dates are 24th May Trade day and 25th – 27th public days).

 

Guinevere on show

Guinevere was given a prime location for the 2023 Boat Show and was regularly visited by a variety of “customers”. Nigel, Paul Dadford and John Tobin were the primary recruiters.

Guinevere and her crew left Braunston on Wednesday and returned the following Tuesday.

On Thursday, Karl had arranged for a roving reporter from BBC Northampton to broadcast four live broadcasts with crew interviews as we made our way through the Watford flight.

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 it would be difficult to confirm any bookings directly from the 2023 Boat Show as yet. Nigel was on site on Saturday and Sunday we have had bookings from previous shows.

Without definite bookings from the Show, we are unable to confirm if this objective has been fully achieved (yet).

Fundraising

Bucket collections raised £962.21

2022 was £1,047, 2019 was £1,060 and 2018 was £1,118

We also directed people to the LNBP donation website via the QR code to donate online. Given the 925 passengers travelling on dayboats, the buckets represent just over a £1 per passenger.

AGM

We are required to hold an AGM each year and the Boat Show provides the obvious opportunity given the number of people already on site. This avoids having to arrange a separate venue, travel and catering.

A big thank you…

To everyone connected with LNBP who gave their time during the course of the weekend; whether it was manning the ticket tent, guiding Show visitors around Guinevere or skippering the trip boats and manning the quayside. Whatever your input, it is hugely appreciated.

Particular thanks go to Paul Iverson for all his considerable work in coordinating arrangements with the Show’s Organisers, and along with wife Denise – who not only provided a fantastic meal for everyone on the Saturday evening – but both helped bring Guinevere from Braunston to Crick Marina and back.