PLIRB is Now Static Trader’s Chosen Charity

As our supporters know, the pandemic has had a serious impact on our ability to fundraise to meet our running costs. But we have some exciting news! Rye Harbour-based company, Static Trader has chosen us as their charity to support for the next 12 months. What’s more, they have made a donation which will help out with both costs and fundraising!

 

Byron Whiteside, General Manager of local company Static Trader is no stranger to some of the volunteers here at the PLIRB – two of our team work at Static Trader! After chatting to these volunteers, Byron realised how the pandemic has affected our charity. In particular, as a businessman, Byron recognised that there’s a real problem when there are costs to pay but very little income since our major fundraisers in 2020 were cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.

Byron was keen to help, not only by choosing our rescue boat as Static Trader’s local charity to support, but also by taking care of one of our costs for us .. with a sponsorship donation of £1,000.

This very welcome donation is to fund the costs of printing our promotional merchandise, informational materials and posters. It will also help towards administrative printing costs.

“Giving my time is something I would have preferred to do, and something I’d love to do with Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat – I recognise how valuable their work is through my colleagues who volunteer with the boat. But although I can’t give my time in the same way they do, what I can do is give a donation and a helping hand to the charity.”

A donation, and then some …

This support is extremely timely for us, coming just in time to allow us to be able to have some charity greetings cards printed up. These have proved a popular fundraiser in the past. At the time of the discussions, the Ocean Ceramics Mad Hatter’s event was just around the corner as the only fundraiser event on our behalf all year! Thanks to the Static Trader donation and a quick printing turnaround, we were able to provide friend of the PLIRB Marian Mason with some of our cards to sell on the day. And sell she did, you can read all about that here!

Because it’s in this way, that Byron’s donation does more for us than ‘just’ help meet costs. Without this donation, we certainly wouldn’t have been able to create merchandise to sell over the coming months and into 2021, which would have been yet another fundraising source lost to us.

What’s more, having the cost of printing covered by the donation means that every penny one of our items is sold for comes straight back to us as funds raised. In turn, this will help us meet other running costs. Something our Treasurer, Stella Dunn is delighted about:

The treasurer’s role in a charity is always a fine balancing act – we need to raise funds continually and promote our services but often the cost is prohibitive. The sponsorship of our promotional fundraising goods by Static Trader is most welcome and generous, especially in this most challenging year when other avenues and opportunities have been so limited.”

Whilst it hasn’t yet been possible for Byron to come down to the boathouse for a formal thank you, a visit soon is on the cards (see what we did there?). In the meantime, Static Trader customers will have access to the donation pot which is now in the business’s sales office and PLIRB supporters will be able to look out for our brand new items for sale.

Sincere thanks to Byron Whiteside and Static Trader, from everyone at Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat

Whilst you’re here …

As an independent charity providing rescue services, we are run solely by volunteers. We receive no government or central funding, so we have to fundraise every penny needed to buy and maintain our equipment.

We also fundraise to pay our considerable running costs. Since the start of 2020, these have increased to over £10,000 a year.

If you like the work we do and would like to support us, your donation would really be appreciated.

Anything you can spare will help us to help those in danger on our local coastline.

Thank you so much, from the volunteers at Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat.