IWA Annual General Meeting

Sir Robert Atkins has had a long and varied political career, serving as MP for nearly 20 years and MEP for North West Region of England for 15 years. He was knighted in the 1997 Dissolution Honours List in recognition of his service as a Member of Parliament, as Minister of State for Northern Ireland and as Minister of State for the Environment.

Sir Robert has served as an IWA Trustee since 2017.

As well as being a keen boater and narrowboat owner, Sir Robert was President of the “Ribble Link” Canal Campaign.

John Butler is a retired chartered accountant. After John qualified, he worked mostly in the retail and leisure industries, but also spent time in manufacturing and publishing, both as an accountant and in more wide-ranging managerial roles.

John was co-opted as a Trustee in 2020 and is currently IWA’s National Treasurer.

John has, in the past, served on IWA’s Promotions & Communications Committee, Events Committee and Marketing Committee, and has been Chairman of both Events and Marketing committees. John was also previously an IWA Trustee from 2014 to 2017. He has been involved in organising festivals since 2013, and was on the organising team for IWA’s Festival of Water 2021, held in Worcester.

John is a keen waterway photographer and enjoys walking and cycling the waterways, as well as getting afloat on his narrowboat when he has time.

Rebecca is an experienced marketing and fundraising professional actively working within the not-for-profit sector.

She is currently employed at the wildlife charity and membership organisation Butterfly Conservation where she leads on individual giving, marketing, and commercial partnerships.

Despite joining at the start of the pandemic, Rebecca has created some of the organisation’s most successful fundraising campaigns, as well as developing a range of new revenue streams for the charity.

She has also been responsible for significantly increasing income into the commercial arm of the charity, including through the signing of new sponsors.

Prior to this she worked for the national governing body and membership organisation Table Tennis England. As Customer Engagement Manager she was responsible for leading the marketing and communication team and restructuring its membership offering to widen its customer base.

Before moving into the not-for-profit sector, Rebecca was the European Marketing Manager for a global manufacturing company. As part of her role, she helped the company modernise and adapt to the digital world. This included the creation of a digital marketing strategy that led to record levels of sales during her time there.

She has also worked as a marketing consultant for several businesses helping to develop their online presence to ultimately increase sales.

Rebecca has a particular interest in digital marketing and has a series of professional qualifications, including a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing from the University of California, a CAM Diploma in Digital Marketing, and a Certificate in Professional Marketing (Digital) from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Prior to working in marketing, Rebecca was a journalist. She began her career working for Kent’s largest media organisation, the KM Media Group, and wrote for several publications including the Medway Messenger, Dartford Messenger, Gravesend Messenger and Kent Online. She also worked as a freelancer for national publications and has had stories published in both broadsheets and tabloids, as well as on Radio 4’s Today programme.

Rebecca’s interest in waterways developed after she began stand up paddle boarding in 2013. She has been involved in the sport for the past eight years and has written for several publications including SUP International. Her favourite waterway to paddle in England is the Basingstoke Canal, while abroad it would have to be the iconic canals of Venice in Italy.

Through paddleboarding, Rebecca developed a keen interest in the protection and restoration of waterways and became actively involved with cleaning up rivers with Plastic Patrol (now known as Planet Patrol) in 2018. She is also a member of the IWA.

Hannah Sterritt has been a liveaboard boater since Autumn 2020, based on the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal in South Wales. Her decision to move onto the waterways was both a way to counteract rising property costs and to complement her passion for the inland waterways lifestyle and heritage.

She first got into boating only a few years ago, when her partner’s family set up a small boutique narrowboat hire company, Cafwin Cruises, based out of Droitwich Spa Marina. After the first holiday, she was hooked! One of Cafwin Cruises’ boats was recently transformed into a spaceship for the CBeebies programme, Stargazing, and Hannah had a cameo as a ‘helpful lock lady’ alongside supporting all logistical aspects of the filming of the programme on location on the canal around Bromsgrove.

Hannah will soon complete a MSc in Sustainability Planning and Environmental Policy at Cardiff University, focusing her final dissertation on the liveaboard boating community on the UK inland waterways. This is a contrast from her first degree in Music but she has managed to find plenty of space for various instruments onboard to carry on this passion as well.

Hannah currently works for Cardiff University, responsible for alumni, staff, student and supporter engagement and community fundraising, planning and delivering several internal and external engagement and partnership initiatives which improve the overall student journey and provide a lifelong relationship with the university.

She has previously held a Trustee position for Cardiff University Students’ Union when she was a Sabbatical Officer, an elected position acting as one of the Union’s primary student representatives, championing the views of 30,000 Cardiff students. This role has provided many transferrable skills to the IWA Trustee role, ensuring the interests of the 260 student-led societies facilitated by the university as well as responsibility for organisational governance, business management and strategic development of the organisation.

Hannah has just completed a four-year term as a Local Authority Governor at a Cardiff Primary School. This has been an invaluable experience, as alongside the huge challenges of COVID-19 for the school, she has seen a change in leadership during her term, as the Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher and Chair of Governors all retired at the same time. For the school, this change of leadership has coincided with the new Curriculum for Wales implementation.

She has recently become a volunteer lock keeper on the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal, assisting primarily hire boaters through the series of five consecutive locks in Llangynidr, near Crickhowell in the centre of the currently navigable stretch of the canal. The canal only has six locks in total so it can be a daunting prospect for hirers on their first holiday!

As a younger member of the community, Hannah seeks to utilise her experience to secure the next generation of passionate IWA members.