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While editing the last 39 Boundary Posts I have always been able to rely on some excellent contributors, of articles, photos and pictures; even members who have responded to my photoquiz over the years - thanks, Brian! The next editor will be able to get off to a flying start as Ray Shill is producing a series exploring some of the lesser known sections of the BCN which will last for a couple of years and Bob May is likewise preparing a set of articles - "From the Archives". As I write this I've just this minute had an E mail from another regular contributor, Ivan Cane of Fakenham College - shall I include it in this one and boost the mag to 28 pages, oh, go on then, it's the last one! I shall, of course, be prepared to offer any help to the next Editor.
In view of the forthcoming AGM I have been asked by your Treasurer, Tony Jones, to include the statement of accounts for the past year. You will find them on pages 14n - 16. My thanks to members who have sent their kind regards. I have enjoyed my time at the keyboard as Society hack but, as I've said before, fell that it is time for a new approach. Nine years is a long time - to paraphrase Tony Hancock, "it's very nearly a decade" - and I'm happy enough to follow my new found role as BCNS Burger Bar gopher. Please come and have a chat (and a burger) at the Bonfire Rally at Galton Valley. This edition has quite a bitabout the Wyrley & Essington Canal. It's had a bit of a bad press recently and your editor can't escape some of the blame for that although he was very disappointed that nobody sent in their entries for the painting by numbers bit ! I like the Curly Wyrley, it's still a bit of an adventure to cruise it but it needs to be made so that it attracts more boats........or then again, perhaps, in an increasingly sanitised world, it should be left as an example of what canals were like. Tourists could be attracted to a new visitor centre where they would experience what it was like to chuck rubbish in the cut We could supply a goodish collection of objects retrieved over he years. I saw a wonderful bit in the local paper the other day, from a cyclist complaining about the millions spent on national cycle routes, which seems to epitomise the skewed thinking currently endemic. " The existing 200 year old cycle network ot towpaths is still in very poor shape.....Thers are still too many raised bricks - even new engineering bricks are raised under the bridges on the Dudley No 2 Canal." It would be funny if it was'nt so worrying. Cheers Phil.