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Friends of RTBP Winter Newsletter
February 2020
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Dear Friends of the River Thames Boat Project,
Welcome to the Winter issue of the Newsletter. As always, the winter months are a time of preparation for the coming season with work on the two boats, updating of education materials and training for crew and volunteers. In addition Kate Dodds has been organising regular events both to raise funds and to maintain focus on the charity among Friends and volunteers.
I joined Thames Discoverer for the second of the Spring cruises this week and, although the river was running very fast, we were blessed with fine weather and it was surprisingly warm inside the cabin. The trip was a pleasure both because of the early signs of Spring along the river and because it was a chance to meet other friends of the boat project.
Your comments and stories are as welcome as ever.
Kate Oatham, Editor
kate@rtbpfriends.org
From the Wheelhouse
 What a wild winter we are having!! The river has been on red boards more often than not recently and with high river levels we have been surrounded by water at the office on enough occasions for me to register with the automated flood alert service! Between the bouts of rain, there has been some lovely mild weather giving us the chance to enjoy a short January cruise - we aim to make this a year when we are cruising every month of the year.
In the meantime, volunteers Dave Murray and Richard Oatham have been busy working on repairs and improvements to both Thames Venturer and Thames Discoverer in order to get us ship shape for the coming season. Our sincere thanks to them.
We are extremely grateful to Tamesis club for allowing us to use the club riverfront for embarking passengers this year. After the pilot trips we did last year, we know how much our clients appreciate the ease of access and parking that Tamesis provides.
Our volunteers were out in force at a series of recruitment fairs in the borough which means we have plenty of new volunteers joining us to deliver our education and cruise activities. Volunteer Roy Poole has done a great job over the winter of re-writing the volunteer handbook which will help them find their feet before they come aboard.
We are blessed with a very special  team of volunteers. Every so often they leave me speechless. This was the case recently when Dave Murray showed me his handiwork onboard Thames Discoverer. He had designed and then 3D printed an emergency stop button cover to avoid accidental use of the fuel shut off valve!
If you have a hidden talent that would benefit the boat project, please let us know.
Peter Oldham, Operations Manager
Marketing News
Bookings for 2020 are already looking strong for both cruises and education days. We have just done our main mail out to cruise, education and Linking People Afloat (LPA) clients to prompt them to book for the 2020 season. Thank you to John Tamsitt and Sarah Herrick, for helping with updating our database to add new cruise and school clients. Thank you to the team of Molly, Wolfgang, Elaine and Jane who came into the office to help with the mail out.
We have a target of 115 cruise days and 80 education days for April 2020 to March 2021. If you have any contacts who would enjoy a cruise, an LPA or an education day, do let us know as we are always keen to reach more beneficiaries. We are planning to repeat the editorial activity that worked well for us in community magazines last year, so keep a look out for this in April/May/June and help spread the word about the charity.
Kate Dodds, Marketing and Fundraising Manager
Education Update
Since Zaria left the charity in November, we have been very fortunate to have our first Education Manager, Gemma Hindi, working with us as Interim Education Manager. Gemma has been reviewing and updating the Eco Venturers programme which she originally put together in 2014, to match the greater awareness of climate change issues in schools today.
Working alongside the office team and Jane Newman, the Education Trustee, Gemma also put together the recruitment package for Zaria’s replacement and the advertisement went out at the beginning of January.
We hope to have news of the appointment of a new Education Manager in time for the next newsletter. In the meantime, bookings are coming in for our local area and for Hermitage Moorings in Wapping, with teaching days starting early in March. In preparation for this, Gemma and Peter organised a training day for volunteer teachers and crew, which took place on 27th February.
Breaking news .... Sophie Owsianka (pictured here) has been appointed as the new Education Co-ordinator from 1st March.
Jane Newman, Trustee for Education
We need more Friends!
The Friends of the River Thames Boat Project was formed in 1992 and continues to  provide vital financial support to the charity, as well as organising activities and events and providing this quarterly newsletter. Thank you to everyone for being Friends! Building our base of Friends even further would be really valuable to the charity. If you know anyone who might like to become a Friend, please encourage them to do so. We also have Community and Corporate Friend memberships for organisations, so if you have any contacts you think would like to support the charity, please make the connections or share their details with Kate kate@thamesboatproject.org. You can find further information on the Friends website, by contacting the office or from the link here.
Linking People Afloat Cruises
We have seven Linking People Afloat days planned for 2020. These days are for individuals who are not supported by a group, to come by themselves or with a carer or companion. It’s a regular cruise day from 10am to 4.30pm and a chance to meet new people and share experiences. A two course lunch is included and the price is £40/pp. If you know anyone who would benefit from joining one of these days, do please pass on the information and/or get in contact with Pippa in the office.
The dates are:
Wednesday 20th May (S), Tuesday 2nd June (K), Thursday 9th July (S), Friday 14th August (K), Monday 14th September (K), Friday 18th September (S) and Tuesday 13th October (K).
(S) denotes upstream trip towards Shepperton (K) denotes downstream trip towards Kew
Fundraising Events
Christmas Cheer Afloat:  This was a new event for our calendar just before Christmas and we had a great evening onboard Thames Venturer. We enjoyed getting together with Friends, volunteers and  supporters for Christmas carols, mulled wine and mince pies. We had musical accompaniment from David on the guitar and Chris on the accordion. Father Christmas hats and a few Christmas jumpers added to the cosy festivities! Fun and fundraising with £240 raised for RTBP.
Crew Supper:  Thank you to the White Hart Hotel in Hampton Wick for hosting our crew supper. We had excellent food, plus speeches and prizes from Peter Oldham, a raffle and a fantastic donation of £500 presented by John Frye from the Rotary Club of Teddington & The Hamptons.
New Year Cruise: The first cruise of 2020 on the 10th January for Friends, volunteers and  supporters was a clear and sunny afternoon with beautiful colours in the sky. It was chilly but that didn't stop the happy passengers from being out on the bow deck of Thames Discoverer and enjoying time on the river. Tea, coffee and cakes went down well and we have another short cruise scheduled for 10th March. We'll keep you posted on any more of these dates for the diary.
Quiz Night: we held our first RTBP quiz night  on the last day of January and it was a great success! It was a dark and rainy night but our 77 quiz goers enjoyed the event with some river themed questions to challenge them, fish and chips, the bar, the raffle and the banter with Quiz Master Peter Oldham. Thank you to everyone  that supported the event and especially to Lesley Eiloart who was the main organiser. The winning quiz team was from Holly Lodge, an education charity in Richmond Park. John Frye brought a team from Teddington & the Hamptons Rotary Club and presented a cheque to RTBP for £381 for the Santa sleigh collection just before Christmas. Thank you, John and team! The quiz made just under £1,300 for RTBP which was a fantastic result.
"Sweet Thames” Film Night: it was cosy onboard Thames Venturer for our film night on 11th February. We enjoyed a film journey down the Thames from source to sea. Anna Benson Gyles produced the film and was there to give us an introduction. We had tea and cake - of course - and a chance to catch up with Friends, volunteers and supporters. Thank you to everyone for coming to the event and helping to raise £115!
Introducing our new Chair and Vice Chair
In November last year, the organisation saw Keith Knox stand down as Chair having overseen a remarkable period of change and development for the charity.
We spoke to the new “Chair team”; Jon Chapman Chair and Bob Darke Vice Chair. It transpires that the two are used to operating together, having been long term friends since their children were toddlers together.
Jon explained “Bob and I both like a challenge so over the years we’ve been dragged into all sorts of things from being the entertainers at kids parties to riding a stage of the Tour de France together. Looking back I’m not sure which was tougher!”
Bob went on to say “ because we know each other so well, we are able to get things done quickly but also challenge each other where necessary – we’re certainly not afraid of telling the other that they’ve got things wrong occasionally!”.
As for the split of responsibility, Jon tells us that this was an early and relatively easy one for the pair to agree on. “It makes sense with Bob’s commercial background that he has more of a focus on the business side of the organisation, whilst I keep an eye on operational issues and of course legal and development work”.
So what can we expect to see over the coming months? Again Jon was clear that the pair had a common view.
“This is very much a time to consolidate and bed down the tremendous development work that has gone on in previous years. We now have two fantastic boats to operate from, a wonderful new home for the office at Tamesis and a great team in Peter, Pippa & Kate so the organisation is in a really healthy place”.
Bob added; “It is a real opportunity to collectively draw breath and focus on the consistency and quality of the work we do. We know we are in a great place as an organisation and that our customers already love what we do for them but after the distractions of the last few years, this year gives us the opportunity to really concentrate on how we can do an even better job for them day in and day out.”
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