You’re invited to the Abbey Theatre! 15th May

Our volunteers working hard to keep the River Ver in the best shape possible for today and well into the future and we’d love to have your support.

We are delighted to have been awarded an exclusive ‘charity night’ by the Abbey Theatre St Albans on Thursday 15th May, 7:30 – 10:15pm. (Tickets £15 plus booking fee). Please book your tickets here: https://bit.ly/3PwKPh7

Ticket receipts are going towards the Society’s water quality monitoring programme which has been growing in size (and requires an increasing budget), especially with Markyate STW now discharging sewage into the Ver for the fifth consecutive month.

It would be wonderful to have a theatre full of members, friends and supporters, so please make every effort to support this event and invite your friends too! Topically, the play – Henrik Ibsen’s, An Enemy of the People – features intrigue, PR spin, whistle-blowing and divided opinions, all over poor water quality. Sound familiar?

There are nearly 50 members of our Society involved in keeping an eye on the Ver’s water quality including our River Bailiffs (aka River Watchers) who visit all stretches of the Ver’s 18km; the Riverfly monitors who sample invertebrate life at 18 spots every month; our water quality monitors who sample at 14 locations every quarter; the MudSpotters who go out in the pouring rain and the testers who go visit the worst spots and send samples for independent lab analysis. For the full story see here: https://www.riverver.co.uk/volunteering/

The costs of running this volunteer VVS team soon mount up; torn Riverfly nets to replace; consumables such as phosphate and nitrate test kits to keep topped up. Comprehensive independent laboratory testing of water and silt samples sets the Society back £200 per test. Plus, there are extendable poles, waterproof phone covers, thermometers, Secchi tubes and similar pieces of equipment. Next month we will be testing for E. Coli up and down the river too (more on that soon.)

Please support our efforts and enjoy an entertaining evening with a sterling performance from the Company of Ten, a raffle of generous prizes and what’s more, the bar will be open before, in the interval and afterwards, allowing plenty of time for socialising.

Don’t delay, book today! https://bit.ly/3PwKPh7