The Vole --- Customer Survey

I've always thought that bringing in management consultants is an admission that your own management is inept. Some are convinced consultants only say what the MD wants to hear. They don't get their invoices cleared otherwise! ( you are getting cynical.... Matt) .

The latest group of consultants floating around Ivory Towers are carrying out customer surveys, focus groups, interviews and the like to discover what the customers want, but more importantly, what the customers think of AV(2010)PLC. The budget for this is a cool £100k my informant in the Accounts Dept. tells me.

I would have thought standing a few selected managers by busy locks would have given them the information they seek. Many locks get 100+ boats per day through them so it wouldn't take long to get a meaningful sample of opinions.

Perhaps the reason this very cheap option is ignored is this. The last thing managers want these days is to meet customers i.e. boaters. Maybe I'm being charitable here. The lower ranks at AV have their own ideas. Some say the senior managers are chicken, others say they are afraid that a boater might stick a windlass in their hand and expect them to operate the lock!

Ms D.Vine -- Boat Sales & Moorings

I have had a number of complaints from people searching for moorings that some people are jumping the queue by buying a boat from AVML(2010)Ltd. The latter confirmed that buying a boat from their brokerage entitled the purchaser to apply for a mooring which would normally be forthcoming within 28 Days.

When I rang Hugh Baton for an official statement he gave this short answer. "So? What's the problem? People buy a boat from us and get a mooring....it's just good business as far as we are concerned."

A boater who complained didn't get any further than "If you think you have a case sue us".

(Private monopolies ! Matt)

Ms D.Vine -- Recipe of the Day #1 Sorrel Sauce

Sorrel sauce - a sharp green sauce to serve with canal fish.

First drain the pound, (a short pound speeds up the process no end..... Matt), then scoop up those fish left floundering.
Gather some Sorrel (I know its a weed, but its a good weed)
Purée a handful of the chopped leaves in butter, and gradually stir stir in a small carton of cream.
Rub through a sieve and serve with your fish. (Unseived the mixture makes a perfect stuffing for trout, or other river fish.)

Rudolph Hooker -- Declining Standards

I never buy canal magazines such as Canal World any more, but I'm occasionally given a copy by another boater with instructions to "read article xxx and tell me what you think".

The article in question usually appears to be written by someone who cannot think of anything sensible to write on a canal related topic and creates numerous column inches worth of utter rubbish instead. I sometimes wonder if this is a cynical attempt to generate "feedback" from outraged and knowledgeable boaters to fill the letters page and thereby prove to their editors that people read "their" column. I hope editors will realise this type of journalism not only brings their publication into disrepute, but makes themselves and the generators of such rubbish, look complete idiots.

Editors please note. Folk on the Cut aren't stupid so please file this patronising rubbish where it belongs, on some write-only drive on your network. Please don't waste trees or our time trying to feed us crap.

Ms D Vine -- Castlemill Revisited

Recently I found myself talking to a group of Americans, from a hire boat, who wanted to know if the boarded up site with razor wire topping at Castlemill was really the British equivalent of Guantanamo Bay as the graffiti suggested ! I was forced to recount the tale where BW closed down the boatyard, evicted the protesters, smugly claimed victory and then built the "compound" as it became known locally.

However, the protesters didn't let it rest there and did a deal with the local council to the effect that no planning permission for the site would be granted until the alternative facilities, promised by BW, came on stream. None did so the site has remained "blighted" ever since. Even the fencing, eyesore that it is, doesn't have planning permission..... it was just another example of BW over reacting.

AV(2010)PLC denies any responsibility for the situation regarding the Castlemill site, claiming it doesn't even own the site !
And so it goes on......

Rudolph Hooker -- Marina Saga II

I was having a drink in a pub the other day, when I got talking to a chap who was a retired civil servant. He reminded me one can actually do something, or one can be seen to be doing something. The two are totally different but look the same to a casual observer. I would suggest AV's marina policy falls into the latter category i.e. going through the motions but achieving nothing.

If you were seriously trying to develop marinas, you would, by now, have identified a number of possible sites around the system and entered discussions with the planning departments of the Councils involved. Has this happened ? No. Planning permission is up to the developer AV maintains. Indeed, AV has suggested sites to developers near beauty spots so there is not a snowball's chance in hell of getting planning permission for a marina. Have any old gravel pits or the like been suggested..... not likely, something might happen.

AV has also hindered development by saying "traffic surveys" must be carried out to study the impact a proposed marina may have at a given location and this takes at least 12 months.
Why? Doesn't AV(2010)PLC already know where hold ups occur? Just ask the boaters or hire boats companies . They'll soon tell you, and it won't take 12 days let alone 12 months to collect the data.

Now, why should AV behave like this?
Remember AV has the monopoly of the mooring market and it's not in the interest of AV(2010)PLC to allow that position to be weakened..... Either that or they are just incompetent. Whichever is the case, the outcome is the same. Zilch.

The Vole -- Best Scam Yet?

"The best scam yet" was the phrase use by the AV(2010)PLC's Finance Director Hamish Sidebotham when referring to the introduction of the "AV Key" "They only cost us £10 each and we sell them for £100 so that's 100% profit ( Eh?....Matt) and a cool £2.5 million on the bottom line" he said. Who he was talking to in the Executive loo was not clear. He went on "I should have done it earlier" he said, "the marinas were on to that one years ago" he explained modestly.

The Vole -- Wind in High Places

The other day I bumped into Geoff Arbuthnott from the Northern Shires Division of AV. I congratulated him on his latest success, coming third in the All England Farting Championships held in Bolton, some would say, the Wimbledon of Competitive Farting. Geoff was killing time before a meeting so I played him back a few samples of farting I had obtained from the bug I had planted in the executive loo. In Geoff's expert opinion, the best of the samples showed considerable wind, good loudness, but poor control. No real talent was his conclusion. This confirmed what many in AV had thought for a while.

(The angry boater who described senior AV management as all p!ss and wind was therefore at least 50% correct?..... Matt)

The Vole -- Rubbish

Since the government jacked up the "Rubbish Tax" canal side rubbish disposal points have become prime targets for those wishing to avoid the tax. AV Rubbish disposal points are now considered high security areas. High fences topped with razor wire proved no deterrent as locals simply lobbed their rubbish over the top. In some areas cleansing operatives couldn't even find the skips as they were buried under a mountain of contraband rubbish.

Rubbish disposal points are now to be converted to concrete enclosures ("bunkers" to old farts who remember WW2..... Matt) with high strength steel doors and, of course the new AV high security locks. Tests have shown that only plasma cutters will cut the steel on the doors, and the use of such a device will trip the heat sensing alarms anyway. 24 Hour camera surveillance with motion detection is included as part of the security package.

Breaking into AV(2010)PLC headquarters and stealing all the PC's is a doddle by comparison according to the AV security consultant.

The Vole

Matt Black -- BW Key

One of the last vestiges of the BW Canal era is consigned to history says Hugh Baton. The "BW Key" will be replaced over the next 3 months with a new high security version. The "AV key" will cost £100 and only be available from AV offices or by post. The reason for this change is that every Tom, Dick or Harry could get hold of a BW key for around a tenner said Hugh and gain access to AV facilities

Rudolph Hooker -- Drying Out?

Whilst cruising about on the Mucky Duck, like one does, I had a trip up the Ashby canal via the Coventry. As regular readers will know one of the mainstays of my life afloat is finding a good canalside pub for a pie and pint ( plural surely... Matt) at lunchtime. Logistically this is becoming more difficult and as far as I am concerned a way of life is threatened. Mine!

Many of the canalside pubs I used to frequent, the Bull's head at Polesworth, The Kings Head at Atherstone and the Horse & Jockey Congerstone (Ashby Canal) no longer open at lunchtimes. the reason for this are various.

Congerstone is now a dormitory village and there is no one there during the day. House prices are such you need (at least) two incomes to live there. Atherstone is regarded as bandit country, so no one dare moor up. The Bull at Polesworth suffered through lack of custom 3 seasons of the year. These are not the only places to suffer this fate. I fear I detect a trend here.

So there you have it, first the canals loose their commercial traffic, then they become "dry" during the day, like North Wales on a Sunday. Ye Gods.......

The Vole -- Canalside Apartments

During the middle of the last decade when BW was selling off canal side properties for residential development, (the dash for cash era... Matt), little did it realise the trouble this would bring for AV(2010)PLC in later years. A pattern has developed which appears to be common amongst all these developments.

Initially all is well, but then the original occupants move out and these incoming "2nd generation" owners object to boats mooring or even, in some cases, using the canal in front of their property. The redeveloped basin in Loughborough has had it's problems and the running of engines and lighting of solid fuel stoves has been banned following action by the local canalside residents association.

Recently an open meeting was held to discuss, an old chestnut, the Visitor Mooring at Market Bosworth on the Ashby Canal. The meeting droned on and on until a lady resident from the apartments opposite stood up and shouted, "How would you like those things (boats?) in your front garden.?"

A chappie purporting to represent ABO (Angry Boaters Owners) was on his feet like a shot and replied.. Madam I have 4 observations:-

Firstly.. You live in a flat and don't have a front garden.

Secondly... The canal was there some 200 years before your flat.

Thirdly.... I recommend that the lady really ought to employ a competent solicitor before she buys property again or at least visits an optician.

Fourthly... The fourth observation was never heard.

Pandemonium broke out and the gathered press rushed off to write their copy...

AV(2010)PLC is in a difficult position. On the one hand it would like to sell off it's property dowry left it after privatisation, but on the other it can't ignore the view of boaters. After Castlemill in 2006 boaters have been more and more prepared to use direct action. This panicked BW then and continues to alarm AV now. This type of protest could cost AV a lot of money whilst generating negative publicity by the bucket full. A lose, lose situation if there ever was one.

So who benefits from these developments ?
Primarily the developers of course (profits), then the first occupiers of the properties, who stand to make a tidy profit when it comes to selling. AV(2020)PLC directors and senior staff (bonuses), shareholders (dividends) and finally boaters.

However, boaters only benefit if the money is re-invested in the canal system and what guarantee is there that that will happen ? None whatsoever.

In the mean time boaters may lose from loss of amenities, and even loss of right of way if action is not taken.