Dear CRT Northwest,
I would be grateful if you could pass this on to the CRT member of staff responsible for volunteering.
We embarked up the Wigan flight this morning at 8:30 in company with another boat whose crew had only bought her 24 hrs before - very inexperienced! Nevertheless we made good progress up the flight and we were entering and exiting the locks in a synchronised way - which of course is the best way to do it. Everyone was working as an efficient team.
That was, until at the (roughly) middle lock, we encountered the volunteer lock keepers helping boats down. The descending boats vacated the lock and we started to enter. Just as we were approaching the lock mouth, one of the volunteers suddenly appeared on the lock bridge, shouting âSTOPâ in a loud commanding voice and holding his palm up in a stop signal.
At this point I will say that it is my understanding that it is CRTâs policy that volunteer lock keepers are not in charge and should not issue orders. They should provide assistance when requested but should not force themselves on boaters. The boaters remain in charge at all times.
Consequently I ignored this shouted order. However the steerer of the other boat, having only got his boat the day before, complied, and thus chaos ensued. I informed the volunteer in no uncertain terms that they should not issue commands and not interfere with our boatâs operation. He didnât like that.
It transpired that he felt taking two boats into the lock simultaneously was a bad idea (even though it is in fact best practice) because one of the gates tended to stick a bit when fully open.
To make his point, he and his colleague then stood by smirking and watching whilst the lady from the other boat struggled to close the gate, which she was unable to do. Our crew were still at the previous lock and it was a minute or two before they arrived - just before they arrived the volunteers made a great show of heaving and jerking the gate to close it - bad practice, gates should be operated by continuous pressure, not by yanking them repeatedly. It was clearly a âpunishmentâ metered out to the lady from the other boat, as retribution for me telling them not to interfere. Stupid, because I had no connection with this lady apart from sharing the locks with them, and I felt it was nasty behaviour.
I told them that we didnât want their help and they should help some of the other boats, which they then did.
After that unpleasantness, we left the volunteers behind and everything went smoothly until the top lock. As you will know, there is currently a major restriction on the Wigan flight in that the top and bottom locksâ paddles are padlocked and only open 8:30-9:30 and 12:30 to 13:30. This is a major inconvenience to boaters - allegedly in the interests of saving water despite the prolonged periods of heavy rain this spring summer. But it is what it is.
However, having restricted use of the flight so severely, I think it only reasonable that CRT stick to these advertised times. So it was annoying to find the paddles still locked at 13:30 and we were unable to proceed, just as the heavy rain started. The volunteer âin chargeâ finally ambled up as slowly as possible and opened the padlocks on the ground paddles at 13:45. It was quite obvious from his body language that he wanted me to know that he held the power and I didnât. He would have struggled to do it any slower.
This is the trouble with some volunteers, they think they have power to wield, and enjoy doing so. For balance I will say that of course I have encountered many volunteers who are not like that and are very helpful. However CRT seem unable to weed out the insecure âlittle hitlersâ looking for power, from the people who genuinely want to be helpful.
As a consequence, I generally prefer not to encounter volunteers. Which is a shame.
So in summary and putting aside the âhuman factorsâ I mentioned above, my complaint is that:
1/ Volunteers should not issue orders to boaters and generally carry on as if they were in charge.
2/ When CRT puts a major time restriction on the opening of lock flight etc these times should be stuck to. There was absolutely no reason why the flight could not have been unlocked on time had the volunteer chosen to do so, and this is the problem with giving volunteers responsibility for such things.
Further by way of balance the chap who was not in charge was very pleasant and helpful after we exited the top lock, explaining to my partner where the services/rubbish disposal etc were. And, well âabove and beyond the call of dutyâ, when he discovered that we were struggling to get a taxi to take my in-laws to the train station, offered to drive them there himself. Absolutely fantastic. Thank you!
This whole issue started with the volunteer shouting inappropriate orders to me. Had that not happened Iâm sure the encounter would have been quite different. It is something CRT struggles to get right with its volunteers. We have been assured that it is part of their training that they are not in control and should ask before offering help, but it doesnât seem to stick.
Until CRT gets this right, experienced boaters will continue to come into conflict with volunteer lock keepers and such boaters will be increasingly resentful of them.
Kind Regards
Nick Norman