Saturday 12 September 2009, Start time around 10.00am.

Following the success of last year's event we decided to give the boat pull another go but with a twist. This year the theme is TRINITY. We hope that we will get a lot of support from the congregation and the local community, businesses as well as individuals, in our efforts to beat the £1700 raised last year.

We are raising funds for Holy Trinity, Old Hill to fund vital repairs to the roof, windows and boilers to enable the church to continue to function in its role as a cornerstone to the local community. And so the Trinity theme continues.

This years boat pull event will comprise of: -

• Three boats: The boats will be Atlas & Malus, a working pair of motor boat and butty, along with Leo another working boat. It is likely that one, or all three boats will be carrying a cargo in keeping with their original working purpose. The use of these boats has been organised for us by members of Coombeswood Canal Trust, Birmingham Canal Navigation Society and British Waterways and they will also be providing operational crew for the boats on the day.
• Three methods of motive power: Man-Power, Horse and Motor. A team will use their muscle power to pull the one of the two motor boats, Atlas or Leo, and leg it through the tunnel whilst a horse called 'Prince' will pull Malus (pictured top right and right) with a team ready to leg the boat through the Gorsty Hill tunnel as well whilst the horse is walked over the top. The remaining boat will be powered by its own motor. This represents the three methods of propulsion used on the canals during their long history and links in with the establishment of Holy Trinity Church in Old Hill to the modern day.
• Three methods of fundraising: Donations, a 'Name the Boat' Competition and a 'Guess the Time to Complete the Course' competition. Donations can be made via the sheets available at the church or from any member of the fundraising committee or member of the active participants on the day. The two competitions will have their own sheets available through the same sources. The Name the Boat competition will conclude on Sunday 6 September 2009 when the draw will be made and name plates will be attached to the boats on the day to identify the winning entries. The Guess the Time competition is a test of your powers of judgement of time and movement. You can estimate the time taken by each of the three boats travelling the course distance and will conclude as the first boat departs Hawne Basin on the actual day.
• Name the Boat Competition Winners: -
  Horse drawn Boat: Lord's Prayer
  Motor-Powered Boat: Serenity Princess
  Man-Powered Boat: Skippers'tale
  
  The names were drawn at Spring Meadow Social Club on Sunday 6th September at 8.30pm. Thank you to all those people who kindly brought names and the winners will be notified of their prize by their seller and thanks also to the Social Club for allowing us the use of their premises.

With grateful thanks to the Coombeswood Canal Trust, all the boats will leave from their Headquarters at Hawne Basin, Halesowen and travel the 2.5 miles to the Black Country Boating Festival at Windmill End in Nertherton on Saturday 12th September 2009. We aim to start the first boat off at around 10.30am with the other two boats following at approximately 20 minute intervals. The Festival organisers, Coombeswood Canal Trust and the Birmingham Canal Navigation Society have all kindly backed this event in various ways and all three are helping to raise its profile within the canal community and for this we thank them very much indeed. We would also like to take the opportunity to thank The Horseboating Society for their kind use of 'Prince' and promotion of the event through their own website along with Jane Bradley for bringing Prince along on the day and organising the driver. The society chairperson, Sue Day, has kindly provided the horseboat harness to be used by Prince in pulling 'Malus'.

We hope that this event will not only raise many thousands of pounds but also keep the Repair & Regeneration Fund in the public eye of the local community because the money required to complete the necessary work is huge. The full support of the local community, and that from wider afield, even overseas, is essential to the success of the Project and events such as this boat pull have the added advantage of publicity as well as the ability to raise money to make the work happen.

If you wish to make a church donation to this event, or any other event, then please forward your cheque, or cash (in person only) to the Rev. Martin Hancock at the address located on the Friends Page. Every pound received will be very gratefully received and wisely spent on this Regeneration Appeal project.

The competition and donation sheets are now available from the church and anyone wishing to help raise money for this event should contact me via email or any member of the fundraising committee. You can also use the same link to ask any questions about the event, just make sure that you include contact details for the reply. Thank you.

What the press said...

The Times: We received national recognition of our effort to raise money with the boat pull event with an article written by Sue Corbett, headlined 'Heave-ho along the canal at the Holy Trinity boat pull'. The article has also brought in much needed funds for the Repair & Regeneration Fund by the kind donations made by readers of the newspaper.

Express & Star: Headlined 'Boat pull with a difference to raise funds' the story made the newspaper on 21st August 2009.

Halesowen News: Headlined 'Boat pull for Old Hill church' the story made the newspaper on 1st September 2009.

Narrowboat World: Headlined 'Three way boat pull' the story made the magazine on 24th August 2009.

A Wonderful Day...

We had a great day pulling the boats and the weather was glorious and certainly made the event even better and we hope to have reached a total around the £2400 mark for the Repair & Regeneration Fund. There is still penty of time for anyone to make a donation to the funds so please dig deep and help us push the total even higher.

'Prince' pulled Malus containing 17 tonnes of hardcore roadstone and made it look so easy. This is probably the first laden working boat to be pulled by a horse to move across this stretch of canal for over 50 years! If anyone knows different then please get in touch. The motor boat, Altas, was also fully laden with a cargo of 15 tonne of coke and this was followed by the man-pulled boat, Leo, which, whilst it was unladen as far as a cargo was concerned, did carry water ballast to lower it down into the water. Leo pulled beautifully and was a pleasure to both pull and leg through the tunnel at Gorsty Hill.

Pictures of the event will also be posted here when they are available from the various sources used to record the event.