As part of the Trout in the Towns initiative I spent the weekend representing the River Erewash Foundation joining forces with many reps from other leading urban river restoration groups around the UK. This year the conclave was organised on the banks of the Wandle who's guardian angels The Wandle Trust played the most excellent hosts imaginable.

I'm so pleased to report a complete success,what a pleasure joining like minded folk, sending me back up the M1 fully motivated and raring to go. Volunteers from the Wandle Trust allowed us all to take part in some practical restoration work under the watchful eye of the WTT, overseeing volunteers doing it for themselves, we all relished the training while hopefully added a little experience to the Wandle crusade aswell.

I could never hope to do the event justice on here, but I feel compelled to thank Paul G (Honcho) bringing all things together and inviting us - he should be most proud of his achievements too date. Driving past the Tooting sign while setting off home, I had to smile to myself when wondering what Citizen Smith and The Tooting Liberation Front would have made of all this .
Maybe printed black berets would be appropriate Theo.

The 2011 conclave was nothing short of fantastic and moved up another level from the previous conclave, congratulations to Theo and the Wandle Trust possy who I'm sure helped raise the bar for future conclaves.

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"I will give him seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men"
http://derbyshireonthefly.blogspot.com/

Thanks Mick! - and thanks to all the rest of you 'ard northerners who came down to help us soft southerners bang in bits of rebar - we wouldn't have known how to do it without you

Seriously... a really, really great weekend... superb to see so many faces from this forum, and big thanks to Paul and Andy from the WTT for pulling it all together, both talks and the practical river stuff. We showed our local EA teams around the work yesterday morning, and they loved it, barring a few tiny riprap-shaped tweaks... what more can you ask?

I'll get a blog up asap - Paul and I were thinking about all of us sharing photos via the WTT's photo library if we can get that fired up again?

Thanks again all!

Theo

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theopike.com
wandletrust.org
urbantrout.net

Hi Wolfey (Citizen Smith)

I have a few pics to share, will use some on REF website article to update our members. The road is long and I suspect our paths will cross again soon.

thanks again - Mick

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"I will give him seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men"
http://derbyshireonthefly.blogspot.com/

So good to see people working together for a common goal! Looks like you guys had a really worthwhile day on the Wandle! Some nice photos also!

Thanks for sharing your day with us.

M