Save Our Stump

There is an old tree stump near our mooring, quite large, but it has no branches and is frankly a bit ugly-looking. I'm ambivalent towards it personally, but since it came onto the City Council's list of trees to be felled, it has become a symbol of the save the trees cause. Activists have wrapped it in chicken wire and pinned emotive notices to it. I expect it will be felled none the less, as the Council has experts to advise them which trees are just a lost cause, and this one probably is. As I mentioned before and you can see from this photo, they are replacing the trees which are being removed.

Camboaters Response to Conservancy Fee Increase Consultation

The CamCon are proposing that the people registered with an EA license under the reciprocal agreement pay more next year, and have sent around a consultation letter.

To summarise the CamCon letter:

-changes only for those registered with the EA

-they have run out of money for 'major capital works'. Apparently can no longer defer these.

-the CamCon want to either levy an additional charge on boats registered with
the EA, or scrap the reciprocal agreement.

The three options we're being asked to comment on are:

1. Purchase an additional licence from the CamCon, set at 25% of annual rate.

2. Purchase an additional licence at a flat rate of 125 pounds, regardless of
vessel size

3. Scrap the reciprocal agreement entirely, charge everyone a CamCon fee in
addition to an EA yearly or visitor's licence.

Camboaters response is this:

Camboaters would like to express our views as a community group in response to the letter sent by the Cam Conservancy regarding registration fees. Roughly 50 interested persons, all of whom boaters on the Cam, met on Monday 10th January to discuss the implications of the letter and we came to a consensus which is outlined below.

Firstly, the letter does not amount to a full public consultation. Only three weeks were given for boaters to respond, and a sizeable proportion of those at the meeting had not received the letter at all. No mention of it was made on the Yahoo Boaters usergroup (which is well used and certainly known to the Cam Conservancy), clearly showing that not all avenues of communication with boaters were exploited. Furthermore, some boaters were concerned that the Conservancy had obtained their addresses from the Environment Agency, and wish to enquire as to the powers the Conservancy has to obtain private information from other organisations without consent.

More crucially, not enough information was provided in the letter; it left boaters confused as to why they were being asked to pay more. For example, very few boaters were aware that the reciprocal arrangement between the Cam Conservancy and the EA meant that only 33% reached the Conservancy. The letter did not detail which capital projects the Conservancy wishes to invest in, or fully detail the financial position of the Conservancy. No detailed figures regarding spending were included, only vague statements. Although some detail has subsequently been obtained by some of the community, the Conservancy has completely failed to formally disseminate all the information required by those affected to make an informed choice.

Many boaters also felt that the Conservancy had been exceedingly cavalier in their attitude towards the homes of some members of the community. The Conservancy should bear in mind that while council taxes and other land-based fees have only increased with inflation, boaters’ licence fees have increased 24% in recent years.

In addition, the boaters present at the meeting were unaware that the Conservancy had considered raising their income from other stakeholder and user groups. Instead, the Conservancy was felt to be victimising the owners of powered craft, expecting them to take the majority of the burden. The Conservancy earned itself a great deal of ill-feeling because of this failure to fully communicate.

Currently, we do not feel well informed enough to make comments on the letter. We need the Cam Conservancy’s finances to be made more readily available on the website, so that we can better understand the reasons why the Conservancy feels that it needs to increase revenue. If the money was going to be used to carry out vital dredging for example, boaters might be more amenable.

Many see the Cam Conservancy as an inefficient organisation, and would need to see full accounts in order to be convinced otherwise. For example, the Cam Conservancy appears not to have the economy of scale which the EA or the Middle Levels benefits from. Both the Environment Agency and Middle Level are able to employ only one member of staff (including administrative and office personnel) for every four miles of waterway that they administer; in comparison, the Conservancy appears over-staffed, and many boaters were surprised to hear that the Conservancy wished to employ a further member of staff, tempered to an extent by the Conservancy’s apparent willingness to consider using volunteers.

One way in which the Cam Conservancy could make additional revenue would be to make the Conservancy Licence plus one month on EA waters cheaper than purchasing an EA licence. Many would consider this as an option, especially if it were possible to have non reusable day tickets to use throughout the year. This would increase the Cam Conservancy’s revenue without the boaters having to pay more.

In conclusion, boaters need full disclosure of the Cam Conservancy’s financial status and its plans for future spending before they feel able to comment on the proposals. If it can be shown that more money is in fact needed, and that the Cam Conservancy is being run as efficiently as possible, Camboaters would like to see all river users being asked to pay more simultaneously, and all avenues of potential income investigated. When such additional consultations are drawn up, boaters would like to see them as well as have other user groups see any powered boat proposals. In effect, the consultation needs to be postponed in order for all the relevant information to be provided and to allow enough time for comment. Our proposal to lower the price of the Conservancy licence to make it more attractive to those who use the EA waters could be included in this.

We look forward to hearing from you, and would appreciate a prompt response given the short amount of time available before the decision-making meeting on the 16th February.

Regards, Camboaters

What comes down...

...Must go up!

This was how the river looked this morning! Lyra isn't impressed. Nothing to worry about though, we have flood poles, loose lines and watchful neighbours.

Kayak Chaos

On Sunday afternoon, we had just come back from rowing/coaching when the boat started to move in a strange way - so much that I fel a bit seasick! I looked out the window to see hoardes of kayakers paddling furiously past, and remembered that there was to be a race that afternoon. It was actually pretty impresive to see: they are very speedy, but they don't half make the boat rock about!

New saplings on the Common

We had been hearing about the tree planting and felling proposed for the Common for a while, and here it is. The felling of some diseased and misshapen trees has been the subject of some controversy. One tree (the only oak and due to be felled) was decorated like a Christmas tree to highlight its plight. It's good to see new trees, although it will make finding a sunny spot harder now there are fewer gaps.

In other news, a meeting to discuss the Cam Con's fee changes is scheduled for Monday at 7:30. More at www.camboaters.blogspot.com. I hope we can make some useful progress in deciding our course of action but it will be interesting certainly. Most important is to make sure facts are straight and the committee have been working hard on that.

Crème Fraiche Chocolate Tart

I was pleased with the way this turned out, given it was almost completely made up. Using crème fraiche rather than cream made it really light and gave it a nice taste as well as being lower in fat. I used what i had rather than weigh things out so use this as a guide if you want to make it. Also, I used a pretty small (9 inch) enamel dish so if you want a larger one, increase accordingly.

Ingredients
2 eggs
2 large tablespoons of low fat crème fraiche
about 50g butter
about 50g dark muscovado sugar
100g dark chocolate
ready-rolled pastry (puff or shortcrust would both work)

Grease a dish and line it with pastry. Bake blind for 10 minutes while you make the filling. (I used beans to weigh down silver foil to bake this blind). For the filling melt chocolate, sugar, and butter together in a bowl over boiling water, then add the eggs and creme fraiche. Pour into pastry case and cook for 30-40 minutes on a medium heat (Gas 4 for me) until the filling has solidified, and a fork inserted comes out clean.

Happy 2011!

Happy New Year all! We had a lovely evening seeing in the new year at a houseparty with good friends, food and drink!

Apologies for the dearth of posts recently- James and I have been doing a big sort out of our stuff since getting back from seeing family, resulting in not having had time to blog. But it's been good to assess what we have, what we need and what can be given to charity shops!

We got back to where we had left the boat over the holiday (the Parish) at about 10pm on the 29th, collected an angry Lyra from the cattery the next day, and then cruised back into town.

An unwelcome letter from the Cam Conservators greeted us- a fee increase proposal which would mean we would have to pay for an EA licence and a Cam Con one! Not on. Very inefficent and penalises those who actually leave the Cam and cruise. I am hoping to organise a meeting very soon to discuss how Camboaters deals with it.

Holiday Picture Book 1: The Stort

 Some more pictures from our trip to the Stort:

Wonky barge with unusual seating!

Ankle deep

Bridge over the River Stort

The three-legged cat at our B&B

Christmas Food!

Mulled wine syrup

James and I spent Christmas at my mum's house. It was lovely - lots of great food, drink and company. One of the most successful recipes we tried was Jamie Oliver's mulled wine. It involves making a syrup of dark sugar, a little bit of wine and clementine juice, as well as clementine peel, lime peel, lemon peel, cinnamon sticks and star anise. This means that when you add the rest of the red wine and orange juice you don't have to boil it so long, and save more of the alcohol!  It went down very well.

On Boxing Day, my sister made Christmas Pudding Apple Strudel. We had a bit of Christmas pudding left, and so she used it to make this lovely dessert. First she grated Bramley apples and cooked them up with cinnamon, allspice and ginger. Then, she layed out filo pastry sheets, using melted butter to stick them together, and covered them with the apple and crumbled Christmas pudding. She rolled it up, sprinkled it with sugar and cooked it for 40 minutes. It was delicious, especially with brandy sauce!

Happy Christmas from the Ducks

Wishing all of our readers a wonderful Christmas, and a happy and prosperous New Year!