On Tuesday, May 08, 2007 10:42 AM [GMT+1=CET], BARRY HOLLAND <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I shan't be busting a gut to go to Cavalcade again--it's a shame, my > on-board guest was the chairman of H.N.A. He'd never been > before & he wasn't too impressed either. I don't know why the 'zing' > seems to have gone. HNA's project manager came along on Saturday > afternoon & he told me for instance that one year the procession of > boats numbered nearly one hundred!! I think "nearly one hundred" is somewhat of an exaggeration. But it's certainly true that the number of entrants in both the Saturday parade of decorated boats and the Sunday event illuminated boat event has been on a down-trend in recent years. That's a worry to us on the committee, and if we could puzzle out why it's happening we might be able to work out what we could do to reverse the trend. One boater, actually the winner of the decorated boats trophy, said he thought it was because this year's theme was too difficult to interpret in terms of boat decoration. That may or may not be an accurate observation. But by itself it wouldn't explain what is clearly a trend over more than one year. And the glory years when we used to have about 40 boats in the Saturday pageant (out of a smaller total number of boats attending the event) were before we started having themes for the event. Any thoughts on the subject would be welcome. Mike Stevens narrowboat Felis Catus III web-site www.mike-stevens.co.uk Defend the waterways. Visit the web site www.saveourwaterways.org.uk
