Bill Philip's Report on the Annual Gathering of the Conservation of Precious Water & Woodland Trust

(Bill was unable to perform this as part of the concert at the Kintbury summer week, as those travelling by public transport had to leave a day early due to the train strike)

This report on the proceedings of the CPWWT was over shadowed by the crisis of management of the organisation. Considerable carbon has been expended by social media Apps as to whether the name should be changed so as more to express the nature of the work. Should we save printing ink by abbreviating CPWWT to CPW? The reasoning behind this move was the acute shortage of water on the first night of the conference and the subsequent complete absence of mention of water in the resultant agenda. Whereas trees featured prominently. Indeed, in recent discussions following the pollarding of the society through the loss of the chair and in keeping with historical arboriculture, no less than three main shoots now occupy the crown.

Following the catastrophic restrictions on flushing toilets and toothbrushes, to say nothing of showers, our conference president, hereinafter known just as Bobbo, hatched a plan for willow baskets to be made as he had heard that overflowing baskets with rocks created the correct environment for water to flow again. Some of the elders felt that he had misunderstood the meaning of WELL -being. For some reason, not clearly understood these had to be made in almost complete darkness with no electrical lights showing at all.

As none of the assembled had any experience of weaving willow, the baskets were not exactly watertight, would not have held water even if there had been a well to hand, and the remainder of the week passed with no sign of rain.

There were those who, on seeing the bundles of willow wands, thought immediately of facisti and feared a rightward swing to the group.

To neutralise this possibility many, in a move towards Laudato ‘Si and the Celtic mother earth roots were seen to be making what looked like a four pointed stars made from wicker. From what was overheard it sounded as if they were trying to Bridge-it a cross but what the bridge was and what they were trying to cross remains a mystery. It may have been connected to a shooting star seen the night before. There is a theory that some space objects are made of ice and could be captured in a wicker cross net.

Genny produced an alternative solution that the trees were the key and that everyone, bearing in mind that the roots stretched out for water, should lie in the shade of the canopy trying to detect the slightest evidence of water. Some, would be M!5 agents, may have just been listening in to the trees communicating with each other! This cult appeared to take hold strongly for the rest of the week. It even led to some sort of sacred rubbing of bark patterns to see if the future could be foretold from them.

A fundamentalist sect, not wishing to abandon the water worship set up a tank in the grounds and ritually immersed themselves in this, and projected streams of water from sacred pistols onto the unbelievers in the hopes of obtaining conversions. When these had been seen to fail, they betook themselves to a sacred lake known as the Aqua Park and followed complicated rituals of scrambling from one floating object to another to achieve some sort of sacred goal through effort. A sort of Doing before Becoming

They bought this practice back to the Centre and in spite of the lack of water carried out the same ritual only on wires, ropes and planks hung from trees convincing themselves that if they fell off, they would drown or otherwise plunge to their deaths. The ritual had developed in the transmission for, whereas  at the water park most had removed the majority of their garments to demonstrate their faith, here, their conviction falter4ed and they protected themselves by wearing helmets and heavy shoes. Only the elect appeared to possess these but some took Compassion on those without and worked together in a form of Mutuality . It was a clear indication of how a simple faith becomes formalised by an elite who them control the ritual.

High priests kept, what they called tallies of how many departures from the rituals had been committed.- These failures of rubric ensured that rain was withheld, so at the end of the week it was agreed that water would be removed from the programme (replaced with alcohol?) and that the society would carry the initials CPW and that the management structure would be based on a pollard tree.

The discussion of the roles of root and branches would have to wait for another time.

Context:

Para 1. WhatsApp discussion on the subtitle of CPW (Holidays with a Difference)

The resignation of Anne Dixon being replaced with three co-chairs

Para 2. Power cut on the first evening meant that there was no water since Kintbury pumps its water from its own borehole

Bobbo had ordered a huge bag of willow wands for basket making, as he thought it was easy or that someone 9in the group had made wickerwork baskets previously. (I was in fact the only one who would admit to having made a basket 70 years ago). We made them that night in the dark with torches.

A committee led by Louise Cook made something looking like a lobster pot because Bobbo had not explained the size! I got fed up with all the ‘experts’ and made my own 300mm basket which, though I say it myself, was not bad. A bit lopsided maybe.  Next day Bobbo was talking about Wellbeing and use the big basket to hold the stones which were then put into the small one (mine) until the last stone fell out. Illustrating the last thing that tips us from the rational to the raging.

Para 5. The following afternoon I amused myself by seeing if I could make a St Bridget’s Cross from willow as there was heaps of it left. We used the cross I made for the liturgy on Monday and I was asked by several if I would show them how to make them. So Tuesday and Thursday afternoon I ran a workshop.

Para 6. Our Speaker Genny, was talking of trees and wellbeing and got us doing odd things.

Para 7. Was a large paddling pool that was set up at the back of the house A lot of people went to the Aqua Park and enjoyed the assault (?) course.

Para 8. Kintbury had a low wire trail where spaces had to be crossed without touching the ground, by means of ropes and wires. People worked in teams to see who could get round with the lowest number of faults but had to be kitted in stout shoes (which some did not have) and helmets. The key words came from a talk by Tachel, a hermit.