----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Haywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: [canals-list] Re: Future Waterways Organisation and Funding
> On 24/10/06, Adrian Stott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> "
>> Boatyards, pubs, and tourism sites are businesses. Why should they be
>> run otherwise?
>
>
>
> Because the canals are primarily a national heritage, not a business
> opportunity. And that is the problem with BW at the moment: they are
> treating the waterways solely as a business, and sadly, year on year, we
> see
> how this is destroying what we we value most about the cut. When Holt
> Abbot
> and the other pioneers started their first hire firms, they did it not
> just
> to earn money, but to earn a living for themselves in a way that would
> preserve a way of life and evangelize an environment they valued. When
> Tony
> Matts first came across Foxton it was a derelict site; his concern for the
> fabric of what he found ensured that it would survive when other similar
> sites across the country fell into ruin. Commitment like that deserves
> respect.
>
> Do you have no feeling for the history of cut and the thousands of people
> like Tony that have ensured its survival? Or is everything for you a
> souless
> matter of counting beans, reducible to a business plan and a bottom line?
> Are people to be disposed of after they fulfilled their purpose?
>
> I am only hoping that your view of the development of the waterways isn't
> in
> any sense an official view of SOW. My God, don't I sometimes miss that
> shambling old rock off Coronation, a waterways man with real integrity and
> understanding...
>
> Steve
I always had the feeling that Tony Matts was/is 100% businessman, even when
he was hosting events such as fund-raising evenings for charity.
Dorothy
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