Two weeks rolled into one!
April 26, 2010
I must apologise to those who kept checking online to see if I had put a post up last week, but I was stuck in a “special” hotel in Cornwall on a training course about reducing diffuse pollution from farms. But before I get carried away on that topic I’ll fill you in on the week starting the 12th!
Monday was the usual, Philip came in to go through stuff lots of correspondence, and I finally finished off my report on our electrofishing of Chipping brook for the Hodder Consultative. It was interesting to look at the data on a map and considering the various outcomes that we could derive.
Tuesday I had to take the dog in for her booster shot first thing (and got the great news that she has cysts on her ovaries!). When finally on the office I arranged a Crayfish survey (which I’m doing tomorrow!), got our RFCA report done, and then took Steve Powell out to look at some of our projects on the go this year. We stopped at Padiham, Montford, Barrowford and Swanside. Montford was interesting as we saw anglers fishing the run created by the weir removal, from the right bank, something that couldn’t be done before!
Wednesday I had a meeting with the Dan Atkinson from the EA (now of the River Hodder DVD Fame!) and Mike Horner to discuss our River fly partnership and the future plans. Mike is going to get involved this will help in allowing us to continue to expand the scheme. It was a really positive meeting with Dan Confirming that he had secured some funding for us for this year training events!
Thursday I prepared a presentation for the next day, and then nipped up to empress to get a quote. In the afternoon I took out our fencer to look at a couple of jobs. And then in the evening, it was the Hugh Falkus memorial. What a great night, to see so many anglers come together for a beer, a supper and to look at the work that is going on to improve the river, and obviously to have a gander at the tackle, fly tying and paintings also on offer!
Friday I was up at the AONB offices at Dunsop, who were hosting a training day for Farm Environment Planners. These are the guys who write the applications for agri-environment schemes. A year ago we had mentioned to Natural England and the AONB staff that we felt Agri-environment schemes were missing out opportunities to help the river. So they asked me to come along and give a presentation. It was great, I really was able to hammer home the importance of small streams and looking after them and how easy it was for them to incorporate it into a scheme. Although there was some debate about fences not being good for Landscape value!
Last week…. where to start. It was an intense week, certainly not a Jolly, although I managed to sneak in three 2 hour fishing sessions on the West Country Rivers Trust passport scheme, and a few pints! The scheme is called Pinpoint, it is a scheme to provide rivers trusts with tools to visit farms and make suggestions on how they can reduce their cost of operating, and at the same time help the environment. It is confidential, free and it may save them a penny or two!! For example, separating roof water by repairing guttering could cost £200 but save them £2000 on spreading costs! And less spreading means less slurry/dirty water and less compaction of soil – in turn helping the rivers!
A true win win. A great week, and the chance to meet up with some colleagues from all over the country and exchange ideas and adivce had got me re-energised and enthused – feeling like I can take on the world…well maybe just the Ribble Catchment.
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