Following some feedback from residents in the Lowick and Blawith area of the catchment Kath decided it was time to give an update on how the project was progressing. Chatting with one of our volunteers Anne Cleaver, we settled on an evening talk to be held at Water Year Village Hall.So the next thing to do was to decide what to talk about… Hmm…… I thought it was time to do something other than the usual 45 minute PowerPoint presentation to people sitting in rows so got to work. Mike seemed happy to try something a little different as long as it didn’t include singing or dancing or role plays so we came up with a plan. We’d give a brief PPT talk on how the project was developing, what we’d achieved so far such as protecting 110m of Torver Beck with fencing, planting 120 trees in the buffer zone along side the new channel at Thurston Outdoor Education Centre, hosting some fabulous and well attended community events and the work being done with Penny Bridge Academy. We also decided on cafe style seating arrangements with mysterious objects on each table that people had to work out what they were, how they worked and the relevance to the project!

So how did the evening go? Did anyone turn up? Well, we called it a success. Around 20 members of the Blawith & Lowick communities turned up. The talk was well received and the room positively buzzed as everyone tried to work out the mysterious objects. Mike & I talked our way around the tables explaining how a bristle board worked and how important freshwater invertebrates are in indicating water quality.

An eel pass or shoe cleaner? Fabulous freshwater invertebrates