The Avon Roach Project
Annual Fundraising Event was held on the weekend of the 3rd and 4th
of October, and what an event it was...
In short.... Fab’ doo,
brill’ bunch of attendees, amazing list of auction lots, excellent grub, wonderful
atmosphere, a nice lot of money raised to ensure the future and continuing
effectiveness and, dare we say it, success of the Avon Roach Project.... and
Budgie nearly didn’t make it.
However, far be it for us to
do anything ‘in short’ so here is the long version (The very long version – even Google is going to creek at the seams...)...
Please forgive us for possibly the longest blog with the greatest number of
pictures in one hit in history, but it seems that ARP events are like busses –
you wait ages for one, then a whole pile arrive at the same time – we hope you
enjoy your ride on this one. We have.
As you will know ‘anxiety’
is our middle name. We can worry about not having enough to worry about, so
you’ll not be surprised to hear that our stress levels are in orbit leading up
to each annual fundraiser doo. This year was no different, other than being
taken to a whole new level in the final week, which we’ll come to.
In June we send out a
hundred and twenty something invites, then worry because we only get a handful
of returns and a spattering of emails; so we get to thinking - Maybe the
project has run its course, maybe the fundraiser format has run its course,
maybe everyone has moved, or maybe they have all joined the Foreign Legion just
to be rid of us.
We then get to writing,
emailing, phoning and visiting as many potential auction lot donors as we can
think of with cap in hand and fingers crossed.
Six weeks later a polite
reminder is then sent to everyone on our database which prompts just a slight
rustle of interest so we resign ourselves to the possibility that we’ll have to
make do with a dozen attendees (including us and the waitresses) and we’ll have
to buy all the auction lots ourselves......... Feeling sorry for us yet?
Then, as happens every year,
the last six weeks sees the list of attendees pile up to nearly seventy; with
some offering additional auction lots and wonderful messages saying they
wouldn’t miss the event for the world..... Phew!
Our stress levels are still
sky-high as we like to make sure everything is just perfect; lots catalogues,
final letters, fishing and parking permits, fishery maps, kitchen sinks, so the
time leading up to the doo always seems to gather speed and the list of things
to be taken care of grows faster than we can cross them off.
Then for the week prior to
the event we gear ourselves up for the final push; dotting all the t’s and
crossing all the i’s... So imagine our grief when Budgie was admitted to hospital
with chest pains on the Tuesday.
Just for the record – The
doc’s said he had suffered a ‘cardiac incident’ and assured us it was
‘miniscule’ but were taking extra precautions due to his circumstances.
Then having had all pain
removed with ‘an aspirin’ Budgie wondered why he was not simply discharged
there and then. He tried to explain to the consultants that we had a fundraiser
event to organise and being in hospital was very inconvenient and would
jeopardise our final preparations, but they didn’t see it as he did.
The long and the short of it
is that he had a stent fitted to a narrowed artery on Friday afternoon, was
discharged from hospital on Saturday afternoon and arrived home at 1:30pm; just
enough time for us to gather all the auction lots, catalogues, raffle prizes,
pens, pads and pacemakers, and get to the hotel and begin setting the room up
at 4:00pm............... Now do you feel sorry for us?
For the fishing match on the
Saturday a low, clear river meant that, predictably, the fishing was patchy,
but there were some nice fish and good numbers taken from throughout the
stretches fished, and we are delighted to be able to boast yet again that roach
featured in the catch returns for the third consecutive year. We are also
pleased to be able to say that the match was won, for the first time, with a
roach of one pound seven ounces, taken by long-time project supporter Mark
Everard. The roach is likely to be one of the remnant population and not one of
ours as even our first released will not have reached this size as yet (won’t
be long though).
We would like to thank
Southern Fisheries, Christchurch Angling Club and Ringwood and District Anglers
Association for letting us use their stretches of the Avon for our match and in
particular Chris, Steve, Ian, John and Phil for being there to welcome and
guide the anglers and help out on the day.
The evening was once again
AMAZING. The feel-good factor is off the scale, and we still have to pinch
ourselves sometimes. We’ve come a long way from the days of sponsored haircuts,
busking and bob-a-job...
The food was as good as we
have ever had and the list of auction lots was said to be probably the best
ever, with some kindly donated items being rare, irreplaceable gems of angling
history.
It’s very humbling to think
that while the core project is a local one, the people in the room supporting
us and ensuring our future are from as far afield as London, Surrey, Sussex, Oxford,
Devon and even Manchester, would you believe?
It’s always a little
worrying (there we go again) having a room full of people and a table full of auction
lots and hoping that the bidding on each item reaches a respectable level; not
necessarily for the project but for those kind folks who have donated them, and
other than a few exceptions the whole affair was quite remarkable. And seeing
almost everyone in the room going away with at least something, be it a signed
book, a rod, day guided fishing, a reel or even something from the raffle table
gives us a real feeling of fulfilment and gratitude and makes Trev’s poignant
end of evening speech a pleasure and honour to deliver.
We do, however, already have
something to set us worrying about next years’ event as when we went to sort
the menu out at the hotel for this year we tried to book next year for the
usual first weekend in October, but unfortunately had already been beaten to it
by a classic car club, and with our auctioneer Roy unable to make the second
weekend the 2016 event has had to be booked for the last weekend in September
the 24th. Guess what we’ll be thinking when we don’t get much
response from the first invite mailing?
This years’ event raised a
staggering £6,300, and it is this unbelievable generosity and support along
with the other outside donations we receive that continues to enable so much
within our project. Not only are we able to take care of all the day to day
running costs, but are able to think on a far grander scale than we could ever
have imagined. The Avon Roach Project is now far more than just growing fish
and some folks are crediting us with helping to highlight the wider needs of
rivers such as the Hants Avon.
We continue to advise and be
a leading example to a growing list of similar projects, and not only roach
related ones, throughout the country.
Closer to home, we continue
to be involved in the ongoing habitat restoration initiatives, vital for the
continuing recovery of the river, and even closer to home, we mentioned in our
previous blog posts that we have our eye on the reinstatement of the lake at
the head of our stews at Bickton.
The main excavation was
scheduled to take place in September, but we postponed this until October as we
hadn’t cleared enough of the trees and banks, which we had spent the previous
winter, spring and summer doing. However, we are pleased to be able to boast
that the diggers went in on the 8th October and a week later we had
our lake.
We gave ourselves just one
week to come up for air and catch our breath after the fundraiser weekend
before plunging headlong straight back into the thick of it.
While we maybe a pair of
‘eco worriers’ we march on with shed-loads of blinkered self belief and
determination which is fuelled each year by the attention we get at the
fundraiser doo, and fanned almost every week by the fantastic comments and
messages of support we get.
We’ll leave ‘our lake’ to slowly
fill over the coming winter, then introduce some adult roach next March.
Below is what we said about
it in our last blog post, which fits in here perfectly...
‘We will
be able to generate a full and healthy, and relatively self-sustaining,
population of roach through seeding it with various ages and sizes of our own
fish. We’ll also deposit a few adults each year
from the other stews just to keep the gene pool strong.
With luck and good management the roach should naturally proliferate in
the lake and we’ll be able to net and crop off a percentage every few years for
release into the river as they increase their own numbers, as well as
collecting considerable amounts of spawn each year for depositing and hatching
directly into the river.
As we do with our
annual releases and spawn relocation anyway, we will do the same with what we
crop from the lake and deliver to various locations far and wide, and through
adult and juvenile displacement and migration along with the larval drift from
the hatching of tens of thousands of eggs, the entire river will, over time, be
touched by our efforts, including stretches we don’t have direct access to.
This lake will add
yet another substantial string to our bow. It could turn into our very own little silver
mine..... So, fingers crossed.’
We
might have to defend against the local otters and herons, but we know we’ll not
be hindered by any snakes in the grass...
Once
again we’d like to thank our great mates at the Environment Agency for their
fantastic advice and support with this; also for choosing us as one of the
recipients of a generous donation from the ‘EA Fisheries Improvement Fund’
through rod license income to help with habitat restoration initiatives along
the river through the Avon Roach Project. Isn’t it nice to know that an element
of rod license income can be channelled directly back into the environment
through organisations such as ours. Talk about money well spent...
We’d
also like to extend our special thanks to Dickie Howell who comes along and
helps almost every week at Bickton. He is a fantastic asset to the ARP.
As
we sign off now, our next job (other than to walk around our lake a lot) is to
get the health checks done on the fish in our stews ready for another release
next March.
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Us two ‘Eco Worriers’showing almost no signs of stress – other than the glazed expressions and the buckets of sweat...
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Just some of the amazing auction lots.
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Our display stand telling the story and showing pictures of the best year yet. It is among even more auction lots.... and yes that is a ‘Light Sabre’ on the table that was given for auction. However, it came without batteries. I’ll bet Luke Skywalker always carried spare batteries.... Goodness; just what is a Jedi to do...?
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Mark steps up to receive the match winner’s trophy, but as usual Trev made sure it wasn’t a straight forward presentation.
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Then Roy kicked off the auction and our heart rates quicken – it was enough to give a man a ‘cardiac incident...’
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Trev then closes with his usual project update and list of thanks – and a very non PC gag. Still no signs of stress though, you’ll notice; other than it looks like the hotel sprinkler system has gone off all over him...
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The things we have to do to get the auction lots for these events... Every year we take an afternoon out and have lunch with our dear friend Chris Yates who has supported us since before day one, and who always gives us a typical ‘Yates’ bag of goodies to auction each year. He said if this carries on he’ll end up having to strip the wallpaper as there’ll be nothing left to give. I’m sure we’ll get a few bob for that too if he signs it...
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The habitat work on the river continues, and this is just a tiny section of what will end up a huge reopening of the braided channels, ditches and streams at Sopley; possibly some of the best fish fry and juvenile habitat work we have seen so far on the river. The work is set to continue into 2016, and will have a biennial maintenance program thereafter.
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Only through the funds raised at our annual events and the overwhelming belief and support given to us are we able to see this overgrown, tree-tangled, boggy mess as having enormous potential for growing shed-loads of roach.
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Sometimes our dogged determination and, some might say fortitude and even vision stifles any feelings of foreboding; but who in their right mind would consider trying to do anything with this – other than us two nut-jobs?
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Late winter and the tree clearance was underway. The intention is to take the trees to a manageable height and deal with them on an annual maintenance basis rather than simply leaving them to shade the lake and dump half a ton of leaves every year.
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Midsummer and we needed to get a small digger in the lake to cut drainage channels to help dry out the boggy black silt enough for the main excavation later in the year.
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Meanwhile, tree clearance continued – and we had some proper ‘boys’ bonfires. And we had our own shed delivered (top right of picture) so we can house all our stuff like tools, fish food and of course Kelly kettle, tea and biscuits.
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Then the main excavation started, but it hadn’t drained as much as we’d hoped. It was going to be very sticky.
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It was pretty gooey but the diggers made short work of it; and every second of the way we were thinking‘blimey, this is Avon Roach Project at full pelt.’
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The digger drivers from local firm ‘Groundwise Ltd’ really knew their stuff and levelled the lake bed perfectly and made sure the drainage channel was filled with good blue clay –about as waterproof as a welly...
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On the Thursday, our great mate Gerry Higham (right) was in the area taking up an auction lot he’d won at last years’ fundraiser event, which was fishing for the week at Burgate and staying at Burgate Cottages courtesy of another great ARP supporter John Stallard. He was spending the week with our good friend Hugh Miles and as the cold north easterly winds were keeping them from the river bank until the afternoon, they came along for a grand tour of Avon Roach Project world – and what a day to choose – diggers and mud action everywhere. Gerry said it blew him away.
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Of course, the visit had to include tea. Trev doesn’t need much encouragement to spill the HobNobs. And notice everyone is wearing one of our new Avon Roach Project embroidered hats.
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The diggers put the final touches to the surrounding ground and we’re almost done.
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Job done... The winter will make it look a lot messier and we have some work to do to repair some of the surrounding ground, but if we hear the old omelette and egg cliché one more time we’ll murder someone.
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These are just some of the little fellows who will be helping to kick-start this next exciting phase of the project in March 2016. And as we have said, the roach growing and spawn collection potential here is off the scale...
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