Your river has held up really well over recent months – never receding back far above Chalfont St Peter tennis courts and always in good flow through Chalfont St Giles and across the fields below.  It looked extremely pretty during the big freeze, as you can see in the pictures below taken by Geoff Coleman.   Today, it’s almost into Chalfont St Peter village – partly thanks to a really good effort by Ray Randle and friends last week.  On the website you can find a graph which demonstrates progress in the last two years.  On 1st January 2009  the river was dry from just above Mill Lane, a km or so upstream of Chalfont St Giles; on 1st January 2010 it disappeared in the first sheep-field downstream of Chalfont St Giles and, on 1st January 2011 – still flowing over 2 km further on.

In fact, the whole section from Bottom House Lane all the way through to Chalfont St Peter is now in pretty good condition thanks to your efforts.  Exceptions include the stretch immediately N of Chalfont St Giles and one or two very local spots.  The rest appears to require just very light work at present , though this will obviously get heavier into the Spring.

Meanwhile, further preparation has been made towards the trial lining Project and topographical survey work will be undertaken in the next few weeks.  To keep the survey costs down, we have said that we will provide the “chainmen” – that is the people who carry the staffs and hold them in place – (including in the river – waders will be provided!) – while the surveyor takes his readings, holds one end of a tape measure while he reads the other, maybe clears small branches or undergrowth if in his way,  etc.  We anticipate the survey work will take a couple of days, maybe running into a third and are looking for volunteers.   No experience needed!  I would suggest we split it into half day shifts.  The likely days are Tuesday 22nd and Wednesday 23rd.  If you can help on the morning or afternoon of either day, please let me know.

For 2011,  I have posted proposed dates for Work-days and the informal pub chats, which we call “not-a-meetings”, on the Future Action area of the website.  I hope that having a plan at this stage will be helpful to you and we’ll try to keep changes to a minimum.   Details for each month will be circulated by e-mail and added to the website as usual.   Our first Work-day will be Saturday February 12th.   Very sadly, The Three Pigeons, which has made such a good base for us and hosted another excellent end-of-season/Christmas dinner, is currently closed.  We very much hope that Matt, Nikki and the team can sort out the issues and reopen again soon.   So we look forward to seeing some of you for a drink and natter at the  first “not-a-meeting” of 2011 on Thursday 3rd February from 7.45 p.m. at The Village Hall pub (Goldhill Common, Chalfont St Peter) when we will finalise Work-party arrangements for the 12th.  These will probably include a major push in the field above Chalfont St Giles and under the Pheasant Hill Bridge; some work from Cherry Acre through Water Hall; and general quick and light clearing through as much open area as we can cover.  As always, to help plan, it would help a great deal if you could let me know on or before 3rd if you expect to be able to join us on the 12th.

By the way, if anyone has difficulty accessing pages or attachments on the website, please advise me.  I was using someone else’s computer the other day and found they could not see the graphs on the “Facts & Figures/Quick View” page.  Is this a common problem?