Celebrating 25 Years of the Chilterns Chalk Streams Project

FESTIVALS, FAMILY EVENTS
AND CONFERENCES
ACTIVITIES
The first Chilterns Water Festival was held on 22 June 2002 and was attended by 2,500 people, including
300 school children. Following the success of the event, annual Family Water Events were held on the Wye
until 2007. Over the next few years, these events morphed into Family Fun Days at Hughenden Manor with
dragonfly making and stream dipping activities.
The Annual Chalk Streams Forum was the main mechanism for disseminating project milestones and
celebrating project activities from 2003 until 2015. Over the years, the Forums were held throughout the
Chilterns: at Henley and Hambleden in the Hambleden Valley, Berkhamsted and Box Moor on the Bulbourne,
at Latimer on the Chess, on the Rye in High Wycombe and at Wooburn Green in the Wye Valley, at Benson to
celebrate the Ewelme Brook, and at the Maltings Theatre in St. Albans to showcase the River Ver.
In 2018, on joining the ColneCAN partnership, CCSP co-hosted the first ColneCAN annual conference.
The second annual conference in 2019 showcased latest projects from the Colne catchment, including the
Chalk Streams in Crisis initiative and a water observatory for the River Chess. In 2022, the third ColneCAN
conference took place at Latimer Place on the River Chess and was a welcome and engaging in-person event
after a prolonged period of online-only activities due to Covid.
Recently, the results of our work have been showcased at wider conferences such as the European
Geosciences Union and British Ecological Society for scientists, and the Geographical Association annual
teachers’ conference.
The first Chilterns Water
Festival was held on
22 June 2002 and was
attended by 2,500 people,
including 300 school
children.
FESTIVALS, FAMILY EVENTS AND CONFERENCES | 29