The Rivers Trust May Newsletter

Welcome to latest issue of The Rivers Trust newsletter for May 2021


We'd like to wish you a warm welcome to the May issue of The Rivers Trust newsletter. This is a newsletter for all staff in the Rivers Trust movement. If you have news to share with the membership, please get in touch. 


Exciting upcoming communications plans


We are looking forward to sharing some exciting developments with you over the coming months.


New branding – coming for summer


Firstly, we have been incredibly lucky to have received pro-bono design support from Emperor, a creative consultancy specialising in creative reporting, digital, engagement and brand communication, who have refreshed our Rivers Trust logo. We will be sharing the new design with member Trusts in the coming weeks and offering member Trusts brand assets that they can use alongside their own logos.


New website – on a screen near you in July


We are working with design agency Made in Kind to redesign our website. All being well, we hope to launch this in the first week of July alongside our new brand. We will be in touch with a cross section of members to help us inform the design.


Summer Campaign – it’s going to be a river revival 


Following on from our brand and website redesigns, we will be launching a summer campaign to help celebrate all the joy that our rivers bring and the wonderful work of our member Trusts.

Through the campaign we’ll be suggesting 3 stages of support: 

• Show your love for your river - when you're at the river this summer, share with us what you love most about it. 

• Donate to the river revival - consider donating or fundraising to your local Trust or RT. 

• Pledge your love for river – what can you do at home to help rivers (adapted from Eden's pledges) 


To kick off the campaign, we would love as many of you as possible to arrange activities over the weekend of the 16th, 17th & 18th July. From volunteer days, to fundraising events, to project open days - anything that could help us create a buzz of activity around rivers. Please let us know if you have anything that might work.
Rambling about rivers by the Rivers Trust

We're pleased to bring you two new episodes of our podcast, Rambling About Rivers.

Episode 11: Recently, we updated our Sewage Map with 2020 data. In this episode, Dan and Jayne are joined by Christine Colvin and Anneka France to discuss the data behind the map. Looking to the future, the team discuss the bigger picture of sewage pollution in rivers. 


Episode 12: The latest episode of Rambling About Rivers is all about the return of the Twaite Shad on the River Severn. We speak to Rosie Croggon from Severn Rivers Trust and Charles Crundwell from the Environment Agency, and find out how Unlocking the Severn will restore 158 miles of river

As many of you will be aware, there is a huge interest at the moment from both Governments and businesses around tree planting and carbon offsetting to meet net zero targets. This interest is likely to grow, and provides significant opportunities for the Rivers Trust movement in terms of delivering our charitable objectives, restoring the health of our rivers and the resilience of catchments, whilst potentially generating some income (or at least properly covering costs).

Following support from the Fishmongers Company and the Missing Salmon Alliance, we are in a position to help build the tree planting and carbon registration capacity and capability across the movement in England, Wales and Scotland in order to accelerate the planting of the right trees in the right places, and in turn capitalise on the opportunities around carbon offsetting.

To ensure that we provide you all with the support that you actually need, it would be really helpful if you could spend five minutes to complete this short survey, as your feedback will help inform the type of support that we provide and how we can best to provide it. 

Does your role involve communications? Would you like to join discussions with other communicators in order to share experiences and advice? Our Slack channel and monthly meetings are the perfect space for this. 

To receive an invite for our next monthly meeting, please email us. The next meeting will take place via Zoom on the 2nd of June from 10 am - 11:30 am. Join our conversation on Slack.
Source to Tap Rivers Trust information and blog

The Source to Tap team was enthused to see the UK government making a serious commitment to peatland restoration as part of its amendment to the Environment Bill. As the world slowly wakes up to the importance of preserving and restoring peatland, the island of Ireland will be firmly in the spotlight.


Caitlin Kennedy, Communications Officer for Source to Tap, has written a new blog about the importance of peat across Northern Ireland and Ireland. Read the blog on the picyture link.

Lunch & Learn


In a Lunch & Learn first, the next session will be led by a guest speaker, as we're joined by Rob Harrison, Principal Ecologist at Harris Lamb Commercial Property Consultants for a talk on Biodiversity Net Gain. The event takes place on Thursday 27th May, 12-1pm.


Rob joined Harris Lamb's Environmental team in September 2018 and brings expertise in freshwater ecology and extensive project management experience with conservation bodies, such as Natural England, Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales.


In a talk organised by our new Regional Development Manager for the South, John Brewington, and in association with The Wye and Usk Foundation, Rob will introduce us to the world of biodiversity net gain and Defra's Net Gain Calculator. He will also explore how biodiversity net gain projects can form the link between the development sector and Rivers Trusts.


Harris Lamb was established in 1992 to provide commercial property advice on a regional and national basis, offering a range of property services with specialist departments advising and acting for clients. Find out more here.



Introducing our new staff members


We are very pleased to welcome five new staff members to The Rivers Trust. Find out a little bit more about them below.

Caitlin Kennedy

Caitlin leads communications on the EU Source to Tap project which is based in Ireland. As communication officer for this project, Caitlin is responsible for developing the communication tools and collateral required to engage with a wide range of stakeholders across the project area (Erne and Derg catchments), as well as shape elements of the final project deliverable–a web-based Sustainable Catchment Area Management plans (SCAMP).


Debbie Rowlinson

Debbie is our new Executive Assistant here to work with the Directors and Trustees on the everyday functions and governance of the organisation, she now also manages the HR administration. She has a background in Project Management, Income Generation and Corporate Partnerships within her 17 years in the charity sector, mainly in environmental. She would love to hear from any other people working in similar EA / PA roles in the member Trusts to form a support group to share best practice and support each other going forward. In her spare time she is a pet portrait and wildlife artist and loves the sea and hiking up hills in the Lake District.


Ukwuori Fadayiro

Ukwuori is the Project Manager for the Water for Tomorrow (WfT). This is an EU Interreg France (Channel) England project which will develop and test innovative decision-making support systems, management tools and processes in water resource management. The project will run in 3 catchments in East Anglia, and water management areas in Brittany and Hauts-de-France. 


John Brewington

John is our new Regional Development for the South and will help increase our movement's capacity, effectiveness and commercial offering. For example, John is exploring the development of a manual for the design and operation of Constructed Wetlands and will be establishing a hub for Chalk Streams. John and Anna (our Regional Development Manager for the North) are here to help member Trusts grow, so do get in touch with your needs or ideas. 


Constanze O'Toole

Constanze is the new Ireland Development Manager. She will secure funding and contracts to maximise the delivery and capacity potential of trusts across Ireland. She is here to support all trusts in her region with the development of their business models, governance frameworks and project management processes. She will also facilitate co-operation between groups of trusts regionally, to capitalise on strategic opportunities, delivery of training and sharing of best practice.



Discount on water monitoring equipment

All Rivers Trust members can get a 25% discount on all water monitoring equipment (use discount code: RIVERSTRUST25). In-Situ are also offering Trusts the opportunity to trial and test new kit on a loan basis. Interested? Get in touch with ksmith@in-situ.com.



Don't forget, this newsletter is exclusively for staff in the Rivers Trust movement - please share with your colleagues and ask them to sign up. 


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Our mailing address is:

The Rivers Trust

Rain-charm House, Kyl Cober Parc

Stoke Climsland

Callington, Cornwall PL17 8PH 

United Kingdom


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