SCARS Round-Up

Society Matters

Our Officers:

Chairman:
The Revd. David Long
St. Mary's Vicarage, 240a Warrington Road,
Lower Ince, Wigan WN3 4NH
Tel: 01942 864383 Email: david@scars.org.uk

Secretary:
Peter Keen
18 Standish Drive, Rainford,
St. Helens WA11 8JY Tel: 01744 88 4000

Treasurer, Membership Secretary & Sales Officer:
Cynthia Greenall
16 Bleak Hill Road, Eccleston,
St. Helens WA10 4RW Tel: 01744 731746

Work Party Organiser & Sales Officer:
Colin Greenall
16 Bleak Hill Road, Eccleston, St. Helens WA10 4RW
Tel: 01744 732031 (Daytime) /731746 (Evenings)

Membership

Renewal forms are being sent out with this issue of the newsletter.

WEBSITE NEWS

The SCARS website has a new Webmaster - Lynne Klein of Pennsylvania, USA. Our Chairman responded to email requests on a List for people with local genealogy interests (which he was monitoring in the hope that connections with the Sankey's Engineer, Henry Berry of Parr, might appear) and that resulted in Lynne volunteering to update the site. It's one of the remarkable things about the Internet that it makes no difference whether information is sent across the room or across the Atlantic, it can be processed just as quickly (or slowly!).

Lynne's first work for us is the posting of the Autumn Newsletter. It would have been up online sooner, except that Lynne took a trip to England in November to search for ancestral links. Her itinerary allowed time for a trip along the Sankey so that she could get an impression of the waterway for herself. Now that Lynne has broken the codes used by the Chairman's son Philip when he was Webmaster, updates to the site should be more regular and timely than we have managed so far. Welcome aboard Lynne.

If you want to send items for the newsletter, please use the Chairman/Editor's email address: david@scars.org.uk, and if you haven't yet looked at our website, get to a computer and find: http://www.scars.org.uk

A PROJECT OFFICER FOR SCARS

Our Executive has long felt that progress towards restoration would be greatly improved if we had our own Project Officer. We are presently drawing up final plans to do this, and hope to have a part-time post funded by mid-February. We have some funds to put towards this ourselves, and the IWA has also made a grant of £3,000. More news in our next issue.

STOP PRESS:

St. Helens' Council has received funding through the Single Regeneration Budget to fund a new, detailed study into the feasibility of restoring a further stretch of the Sankey in the centre of St. Helens.

A 250 metre length between the restored canal beneath the Corporation Street bridge and Church Street, running between the railway and the Salvation Army hostel, and including the site of the former abattoir, is the subject of the £25,000 Study. Also to be investigated is the section between the technology campus and the other end of the restored Standish Street to Corporation Street section.

By restoring the canal the Council hope to provide a focal point for the regeneration of the eastern area of the town centre. The waterway will enhance its setting and attractiveness and thus attract further inward investment.

Also to be funded are improvements to the surroundings of the St. Helens Hilton Hotel and the World of Glass where they border the Canal. Museum visitors, shoppers and hotel guests will benefit from safety and art works to be carried out in the area.