Community Archives - Page 5 of 16 - Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat

Beach Cleaning Support for Strandliners

May 8, 2021

Lockdown has lifted just enough for us to help out a community beach cleaning project.

Yes, we’re happy to share that on Sunday 9th May we’ll once again be helping Strandliners CIC in a major beach cleaning project. As the main photo above shows, the volunteers at Strandliners have been working hard to clear rubbish and pollution from the Cliff End and Fairlight Berm areas.

As regular readers of the blog will remember, Strandliners organised a similar clean-up of the huge amount of plastic pollution, polystyrene and general rubbish at the berm last September.

This is a hard-to reach area of the coast which, because of the tidal flow, does tend to be a drop-zone for water-borne pollution. Once stuck behind the rocks though, it tends to stay, having a major impact on the wildlife and environment around the Berm.

So, once it’s all bagged up, there’s only one way to get the rubbish out of there …

Our volunteer crews ready to launch for the clean up last September

Bringing the rubbish from the boat to the slipway is all part of the clean up task.

The easiest way to remove the bagged up bulk is by boat. So, weather and ‘Shouts’ permitting, on Sunday 9th May around 11 am, we’ll be launching one or both of our boats, to go across to the berm. Once there, our crews and Strandliners volunteers will load up the boats with the rubbish and our crews will bring it back to the Pett Slip.

From there, it will be picked up by Rother Council, and there’s sure to be a lot of it, as the amount of bags from last September shows …

Get involved in beach cleaning …

This will all take place as part of our Sunday training and maintenance session at the boathouse. Some of the volunteers from StrandlinersCIC will also be at Pett Slip, so please do come and talk to them about their work and how to get involved in local beach cleaning – either as a volunteer with the group or as an individual.

As before, it’s important to mention that this beach cleaning project hasn’t just involved picking up rubbish and pollutants. Every single item being removed has been counted and sorted before being bagged up for removal. There’s more information from Strandliners in the poster below …

If you’d like to get involved at whatever level suits you as we come out of lockdown, please do pop down.

Andy of Strandliners (pictured below from last year’s clean up) should be available to talk about the work of Strandliners. He’ll be at the boathouse end of the slip, outside and socially distanced, of course. Andy and Strandliners volunteers will be happy to explain how even the smallest clean up is welcome, and why the recording the rubbish and pollution along the coastline is a vital part of the campaign to clean up our coastline.

We are very pleased to be able to assist with beach cleaning community project, and to help preserve our local beaches. Check back for updates and photos this Spring’s rubbish retrieval soon!

If you would like to know more about Strandliners please visit www.Strandliners.org or follow on Twitter at info@strandlinerscic.

Poster credit: thanks to StrandlinersCIC

Donations are very welcome, thank you.

Whilst you’re here …

As an independent charity providing rescue services, we are run solely by volunteers.

We receive no government or central funding and have to fundraise every penny needed to buy and maintain our equipment and to pay our considerable running costs.

Since the start of 2020, our running costs have increased to around £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.

PLIRB Charity Events – Save The Date

Apr 12, 2021

A quick update on our return to the ‘new normal’ as restrictions start to ease and we all follow the roadmap.

Although we’ve stayed rescue-ready throughout all lock downs, it’s certainly fair to say that now restrictions are starting to lift, our volunteers are glad to be back to more of a community and boathouse presence.

As such, it’s time for a quick update on future plans and catching up with our charity events!

Open Day on the way?

Although we’re a bit sad that, for the second year running we can’t hold our May Open Day, we remain hopeful to be able to do so later in the year. The provisional date is for Sunday 29th August 2021. Please do save this potential date, which will be subject to any restrictions at that time.

Hot Tub Grand Draw

Our plan has always been that the fantastic Homewood Leisure Hot Tub Grand Draw would take place at our Open Day. So, in line with the change of date, please be aware that the draw will now take place on Sunday 29th August also.

Barbara’s Charity Shed

Barbara’s charity shed will be opening up as soon as possible once restrictions for non-essential shops are eased from 12th April. However, it’s proved a very cold Spring so far, so opening may be limited to those warmer hours of a Sunday.

Ongoing fundraisers

Without our community fundraising and running our own charity events, resources have been very stretched for us. For the time being, our ongoing fundraisers include:

The Homewood Leisure Hot Tub Grand Draw, with tickets available from our boathouse, from Fairlight Stores and Post Office, from The Old Butcher’s, Pett and of course from the generous donor, Homewood Leisure.
Our 2022 calendar photo competition. Like the raffle, the launch of this fundraiser stalled with the New year lockdown. However we’re hopeful that, now people can be out and about a little more safely and a little more often, the photograph entries for this competition will start coming in!
Our participation in the Weather Lottery. This lottery has been a bit of a lifeline in generating a little regular income for us over the last two lockdowns. We’ve set a goal of achieving 100 players in 2021, so the Weather Lottery are organising some new flyers for us (free of charge) and we hope to do a leaflet drop in the local area next month once restrictions ease further. If you’d like to find out more in the meantime, please visit our page at the Weather Lottery.

We look forward to updating you further as things open up a little more. In the meantime, #staysafe and #beachaware out there.

PLIRB Boathouse and the New Normal

Mar 17, 2021

As restrictions start to ease, here’s a quick update on our return to the ‘new normal’ at the boathouse.

Although our volunteers have been #rescueready 24/7 throughout the pandemic, our presence at the boathouse has been minimal. This has helped us to keep everyone safe, and to also so that we’re complying with general restrictions. As such, we’ve been limiting our visits to the boathouse to just those sessions necessary for keeping the equipment serviced and ready for call-outs.

However, the government’s ‘road map’ now guides us all towards a restart. So, we’re pleased to share that a phased return to our Sunday sessions will begin on Sunday March 28th. To start with it will still be just a few of our volunteers but we’ll gradually build things back up as restrictions lift further in the coming months.

A busy new normal

Being back at the boathouse means we can start carrying out our other essential work on equipment and around the base. It also means our crew training sessions can restart, in readiness for the beach getting busier. After all, with overall restrictions lifting off the back of the Easter break and just as spring is in full bloom, we’re expecting visitor numbers to the beach to increase in much the same way as they did once restrictions were lifted last summer. It’s important to us and to the general safety of the area that we’re ready to assist when the new normal means an extra busy beach.

Our volunteers are very glad to be returning to the community with a more active presence. We certainly look forward to having friends, supporters and the public pop in to visit us at the boathouse once it’s permitted in a couple of months’ time.

Until then though, and particularly whilst mixing is still very limited, our new normal means the boathouse is only open to our volunteers. If you’re passing on a Sunday morning, perhaps just give us a wave or a thumbs up in greeting, so we can all continue to stay safe for as long as necessary.

THE PANDEMIC HAS HAD A SEVERE IMPACT ON OUR INDEPENDENT RESCUE BOAT CHARITY.

IT HAS BEEN IMPOSSIBLE TO FUND RAISE OR ACCESS GOVERNMENT GRANTS

TO HELP WITH OUR £10k A YEAR RUNNING COSTS.

If you would like to make a donation to help us meet our running costs, then you’ll be actively getting on board with us to save lives – you won’t be in the boat, but your donation will be keeping us afloat and rescue ready.

Thank you so much!

DONATIONS ARE PARTICULARLY WELCOME AT THIS DIFFICULT TIME

Our 2021 Charity Raffle is Afloat – Thanks to Homewood Leisure

Jan 9, 2021

With the pandemic continuing to keep our fundraising closed down, our volunteers are working hard to keep our self-funded charity afloat. And it’s fair to say that at times like this, help from the community and local businesses to meet our £10k a year running costs is much appreciated.

Which is why we’re very pleased to share that a local company, Homewood Leisure, have made us a very generous prize donation to enable us to run a fundraiser raffle for the first half of 2021.

Stuart Homewood, pictured with the Tonga Hot Tub and PLIRB volunteer, Tornado Helm Sarah Harris.

Homewood Leisure is a Rye-based company, specialising in hot tubs, swimming pools and spas. After reading about our fundraising problems in the Rye News, owner Stuart Homewood decided to help with the launch of a special single-prize charity raffle fundraiser and has donated the star prize of a family-sized hot tub. We shared this wonderful news with Rye News just before Christmas and are now pleased to fill in some of the details here …

As cousin of one of our volunteers, Tornado Helm Sarah Harris, Stuart already has an interest in our charity. He also has a fishing boat down at Pett Level. Stuart’s also a member of the Hastings Winkle Club and as such he’s become very aware of the problems faced by local charities as a result of the pandemic.

“I was reading that it costs around £10,000 a year to fund the rescue boat so I thought, why not pop one of these out there?

It’s a £5,000 model so if we can sell enough tickets we could raise £10k, keep the boat funded for a year and give our support locally.”

Stuart Homewood, Homewood Leisure

Hot tub charity raffle details

* PRIZE HOT TUB * This amazing prize is a family-sized Tonga, 200cm x 200cm x 89cm, with electronics, cover, cover lifter, steps and chemical starter kit. This popular model usually retails at £4,999.00.

* PRIZE EXTRAS * Delivery and installation usually cost £250 each. However, if the prize winner lives within 20 miles of the Homewood Leisure retail space just outside Rye, delivery and installation could be included with the prize. This offer is subject to a site survey which would need to confirm a straightforward delivery and installation process. More complex deliveries, involving a hiab or other crane unit, would be subject to additional costs.

* TICKETS * Tickets cost just £2.50 each. They have been printed in books of 4 and can be sold in any combination. 1000 books have been printed, with the overall goal in mind of selling 4,000 tickets to help Stuart meet his aim of keeping our rescue boat afloat with a whole year of costs covered!

* TICKET SALES *Although the exciting plan for this raffle includes launching the raffle and selling raffle tickets from the PLIRB boathouse and from Homewood Leisure, the new year lockdown has of course made this impossible for the time being. However, in the meantime, a couple of essential local shops which are still open have offered to sell tickets for us. These are:

Fairlight Post Office & Stores
The Old Butcher’s Shop – Pett

* VOLUNTEERS * Tickets can also be obtained from our volunteers, so if you know a volunteer please ask!

* HOMEWOOD LEISURE * Tickets can also be obtained from Homewood Leisure – look out for them on social media!

* ONLINE TICKET SALES * To get things started in a safe way, we’ve set up an online system for ticket sales, using Give As You Live. Please visit the dedicated ticket sales / donation page for more information on how to buy your raffle tickets online.

The Grand Plan for the CHARITY RAFFLE Draw

The original grand plan was to draw this raffle at our Open Day in May. However, as a result of the prolonged New Year lockdown, the May date has been cancelled.

Instead, the draw will take place on Sunday 29th August 2021, the provisional date for a rescheduled open day.

If an outside gathering of an Open day is not allowed in August, Stuart will instead visit our boathouse on Sunday 29th August and make a socially distanced draw to find the lucky winner of this amazing prize, which we will Live Stream direct on social media.

Everyone involved with our charity is completely bowled over by Stuart’s generosity and would like to say a very big thank you to Stuart, as our charity’s Chair, Kev, explains:

“Along with lots of other charities this year, we’re struggling to raise funds to cover our operational costs.

This amazing prize donation has potential not only to raise the money we desperately need, but also to raise awareness of our charity’s work and of the costs involved in providing these life saving services.”

Kev Nuttall, PLIRB Charity Committee Chairperson

Would you like to help us with this very special charity raffle?

If any local retailers, companies, venues and social groups would like to sell tickets on our behalf, this would be very welcome.

Please email PLIRB fundraising volunteers at plirbfundraising@gmail.com

Or, message us via any of our social media platforms to express an interest.

If you’d like to help by sharing – please download the featured image at the top of this post and share on social media!

Thank you so much!

Support Our Charity with a Movement for Good Nomination?

Nov 9, 2020

Lockdown or not, we’re moving to that time of year again! It’s no secret that this year has been a real struggle for everyone and, as a self-funded charity, we’re definitely facing a challenge when it comes to staying afloat.

But if our friends and supporters don’t mind, there’s an easy way to help us with a little christmas giving that won’t cost you a penny …

How to help us with charity nominations

Ecclesiastical’s Movement for Good 12 days of Giving awards are now open for nominations. Like the scheme Ecclesiastical ran back in May, charity nominations are now being invited. Each nomination is entered into a Christmas Giving draw, with every charity having the chance to win £1,000.

As a registered UK charity, we’re eligible to be in the draw … so here’s our request. Please could our friends and supporters nominate us for the 12 Days of Giving opportunity? In the spirit of having to be in it to win it, it’s literally the case that the more nominations our charity receives, the better our chance of being selected to win one of the £1,000 awards.

It’s quick and easy to nominate Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat online. The set up this time around means that typing our full name into the search bar and clicking search should bring us up as an option to click, along with our charity number 286891.

Nominations are already open and can be placed online at movementforgood.com. Votes can be made until Monday 21st December 2020. The 12 Days comes into play for an exciting round of random daily draws from December 7th to 22nd, when 10 deserving charities a day could each win £1,000.

Please support our community charity

As our friends know, we’ve remained rescue-ready throughout the pandemic, and across both lockdowns. All of our planned fundraising activities for 2020 have not been able to take place, so our income is significantly down whilst our costs have been rising.

Our financial year ends on 31st December 2020, so the Movement for Good draws taking place across December means the chance of winning £1,000 before the year end would help breach the worrying gap between our income and our outgoings in 2020.

Mark Hews, Group CEO of Ecclesiastical, says:

“As a commercial company with a charitable purpose, giving back is at the heart of our business. Our annual 12 Days of Giving Christmas campaign will help charities change lives for the better and we know that for many charities, £1,000 can make a real different. We’re encouraging everyone to nominate a cause close to their hearts this Christmas, to be in with the chance to win a festive financial boost.”

Costs for maintenance and equipment continue even though income is low …

a broken winch here, fuel pump there, it all adds up and any support for our running costs is always appreciated.

So, if you like what we do and are able to take a moment to nominate us over at Movement for Good (ensuring our charity number 286891 shows) we would really appreciate it. To be honest, it would make a huge difference to us at this current time.

If you’d also like to share this blog post and publicise this opportunity using social media, that would also be grand!

We look forward to updating you when the draws start taking place next month, and of course we also look forward to seeing everyone properly again soon too! In the meantime, #staysafe and #beachaware out there.

50p to Park Can Support A Charity, Thanks to Elm Tree Bootsale

Nov 1, 2020

Everyone here at Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat is pleased to say a heart-felt huge thank you to Kit and Jan McLean, of Elm Tree Bootsale for their extremely welcome donation of £1,000 to our charity.

In this awful year, it’s been hard for us to fund raise in the community and it’s also been hard for the community to support a charity. However, the parking fee contributed by visitors to the local Icklesham bootsale has meant life-saving support to us.

Of course, the Elm Tree bootsale itself has also been challenged by the pandemic. The prolonged lockdown and the restrictions on gatherings means that across the bootsale ‘season’ as a whole, bootsales were only able to take place 7 times at Elm Tree, instead of the usual 14.

But as Kit and Jan are aware of our particular challenges this year, so they were keen that their annual donation to support a charity which is completely self-funded should still go ahead.

After all, Kit and Jan have particular empathy for charities run by volunteers, where the donations are used to directly support the cause. So, when visitors to the bootsale contribute a 50p parking fee, Kit and Jan donate this directly to local causes. As a result, across the 20+ years they have been running the Elm Tree Bootsale, Kit and Jan estimate they have raised and donated in the region of £100,000 to local charities.

“We try to do quite a bit for Five Villages Minibus, The MOPPs and the POPPs – our donation buys a Christmas dinner for local pensioners – Friends of the Conquest Hospital, Fairlight Playgroup, Rother Responders and other local charities.

We’re happy to be making this donation to support a charity like the PLIRB because it’s a local charity and it all helps local people. I was in the PLIRB crew many years ago and if we save one life, it’s worth it.”

Kit McLean

Our Treasurer, Stella Dunn, pictured with Kit and Jan McLean, said:

“We’re extremely grateful to Kit and Jan McLean for their continued support. The unexpected situation this year has caused us significant difficulties with fundraising to meet our running costs. This donation will really help to breach the real short-fall caused by not being able to hold our annual Open Day Fundraiser, due to lockdown. Specifically, this donation will be used for essential equipment repairs and replacements.

We’d also like to say thank you to the people who support the bootsale, either as a seller or a customer, as not many people realise that the parking fee at the bootsale helps to support community charities such as ours.”

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