Our 1st Kingsland Basin Christmas Fair was a big success. The atmosphere was fabulous and we had great support from volunteers, neighbours, traders, and punters. Particularly popular were our Santa Boat Tours, the Carol Singing, and the fantastic raffle. More than 500 visitors enjoyed a magical afternoon, guzzled some 50 litres of mulled wine – and helped to raise a total of £873.40! Thank you all.
more pictures here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nknw090jmyim851/FHf_DvxEkq
Come to our annual Christmas event! This year’s Christmas Fair will be held on the afternoon of Sunday 1st December. As ever there will be mulled wine, our fabulous homemade cakes, and the popular Santa Boat Tours. This year there’ll also be a host of traders, land-based and floating, providing entertainment, vintage goods, arts & crafts, and refreshments. Carol Singing at 3pm. Do come!
We at chug are so proud of Hannah (chug resident) who’s current adventure is walking around the entire recently opened Welsh Coastal Path with a donkey!
Here’s a clip from the North Wales daily post….
You can also follow her highly amusing journey on www.seasidedonkey.co.uk
Here is another link:
Woman walking round Wales…. with a donkey – North Wales Weekly News
Canoe Slalom Course at Kingsland Basin
This year CHUG are building a Canoe Slalom Course in Kingsland Basin.
The slalom course is a series of pairs of light poles suspended from overhead wires forming “gates” that the canoes have to negotiate. The paddler and the canoe (or kayak) have to travel through each of the gates (sometimes backwards) in a particular sequence – in the shortest time possible.
The course is being built primarily for the use of the many local children and young people who attend the Laburnum Boat Club just along the canal. The Laburnum Boat Club (a small charity) is a community-based watersports centre set up by local parents thirty years ago. The Club has an active Canoe Slalom Team that has been competing in events around the South East all year. They are led by one of the Club’s senior members – 18 year old Vanessa Humphries. They are all very keen and work hard but at the moment they have nowhere to practice.
This is why CHUG are coming to the rescue. CHUG are committed to protecting the waterways in the borough and enabling local people to get access to them and enjoy them. Using their own efforts and fund-raised resources they have designed, and are in process of building, a terrific new slalom course for the kids to train on. The course should be completed in the coming months, and will be a valuable asset for local children – encouraging them to take exercise, enjoy a constructive leisure time, and appreciate the canal and its environs.
Canoe Slalom is a worldwide sport and Great Britain won two medals (one gold and one silver) at the Olympics twelve months ago (watched by the Boat Club’s slalom team!).
Laburnum Boat Club are one of the best clubs for local kids, and are proud to be one of their partners. Visit their website www.laburnumboatclub.com and find out about more activities. On the news page you can also see how you can donate through shopping online: “Give as you live”. Help Laburnum buy their badly needed next fleet of kayaks, by just shopping online!
CHUG’s Wildlife and Gardening Group (WAG) has been working hard to spruce up the basin this year. Our allotment is lush and full of produce thanks to our resident green thumbs, and the rest of our green spaces are on the up!
Andy Bees Island, in the southeast corner of the basin, is home to our two bee hives and is a green focal point in the basin. It took some hard knocks after dredging in the basin last year, so the Wildlife and Gardening group is working to reestablish wildflowers for the benefit of our bees, and bring back other flora and fauna on the island.
Check out the Wildlife and Gardening group hard at work:
They even fished an old bike from the canal!
After a long, hard year of poor weather, CHUG is excited to say that our apiary is expanding!
Part of our hive swarmed a couple of months ago, and ever since, we’ve had a little colony in a temporary accommodation awaiting their own hive.
It finally arrived flat packed just last week, and after a morning of assembly by some of CHUG’s beekeepers, we were able to put them in a brand new hive of their own!
One of our favourite parts of beekeeping is doing the inspections to ensure the hive is active and healthy. Check out one of CHUG’s resident beekeepers carrying out a recent inspection:
Happy, healthy bees!
Chug had a great day at the Shoreditch festival on Hoxton Market.
Children and adults alike joined in with traditional canal painting of roses and castles on plates.
Homemade cakes looked delicious and were sold, and all donations collected were towards laburnum boat club’s fund towards a new fleet of boats. Plates made great decoration, enjoyed by the chug community at our annual party.
Come along to the next open day for more traditional plate painting.
Families came as far as Croydon and enjoyed the East End community spirit, Riley and his nan in particular. They promised to come back for the next open day and visit our lovely canal. 
We will be selling organic seedlings on behalf of St Mary’s Secret Garden, The local fire-dept may bring along their fire-engine, an exciting workshop and lots of yummy cakes and treats…
