Support from the Community – Rother Police Property Fund

Feb 3, 2020

We value all charity support received from local community services and businesses, and on Sunday 2nd February 2020, we were delighted to have another visit from local Rother Police Community Support Officer Daryl Holter.

 

 

This isn’t the first time Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat has received charity support from the local Sussex Police, through the Police Property Fund. In 2019, we received funds to help us buy hardware including helmet cameras, so that we can record our activities and create training videos for our crews, plus a laptop, projector and portable screen, vital hardware for our sea safety and awareness presentations in the community.

On this occasion, PCSO Holter presented us with a cheque for £90 which will be going towards our Reserve Launch and Recovery Vehicle fund. We still have a shortfall of several thousand pounds, which is needed to help complete the repairs and reconfiguration needed before the vehicle can be finished and ready to use.

The Police Property Fund is made up of monies the police receive when items that have been confiscated by order of courts and are then sold on. All monies in the Police Property Fund are then passed on to community causes and charities. As such, PCSO Holter is our community link for the fund, and shared: “I am delighted to have been able to help the Pett Level boat, based between Hastings and Rye. Its rescue work is crucial and supporting these lifesavers is the least we can do”.

As ever, everyone at Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat is grateful for this type of charity support. We really couldn’t do without it, as it not only helps towards our running costs but also enables us to replace and update our equipment as needed. Thanks so much to Sussex Police. 

PCSO Holter is shown in the photo, along with crew members Ethan and Martin (at either end of the group) PLIRB Chair, Fiona Johnson and Trustee John Pulfer.

 

Asda St. Leonards Green Token Scheme Success

Nov 27, 2019

Here’s a follow up to some of our previous posts about the support we’ve been receiving from Asda St. Leonards and in particular from their Green Token Scheme.

Asda’s Green Token Scheme involves shoppers receiving a token, which they can choose to put into one of three collection points. Each of the collection points is for a different charity. At the end of the campaign, each charity receives a cash donation from Asda, depending on where they finished in the competition. Throughout this Autumn, one of the charities nominated was Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat.

Asda hosts the Green Token Scheme as part of their regular charitable giving for community causes, and we were pleased to be runners up for this Autumn, with a prize donation of £200 from Asda.

The photo shows PLIRB Trustees John Pulfer and John Brooker receiving the donation on behalf of the Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat.

Overall, we’ve received some amazing and very generous support from Asda, St. Leonards and its customers this year … and it’s not over yet. Just as they did back in the summer, Asda have invited us back up to the store on Saturday 7th December to host a donation collection point. This time around, as well as spreading the word about sea safety we’re also going to be spreading a bit of Christmas cheer with our calendars and cards for sale, so please do come and see us to say hello.

Once again, we’d like to say a huge thank you so much once to Asda, the staff at Asda St. Leonards and to everyone who has supported us through Asda’s charitable giving schemes – this support from our local communities is much appreciated.

Support from the Community – Several Thank Yous!

Nov 25, 2019

We’ve been humbled by the level of community support we’ve received lately, to boost our fundraising, so this post is dedicated to updating our followers on recent donations and events.

It’s amazing really, because much of our fundraising takes place in the summer, but throughout this Autumn the community around us – from local organisations to local branches of national companies – have continued to hold events and to raise funds for us.

Independent by name, but we do depend on being able to raise funds to stay afloat

As an independent rescue boat, we have to raise all running costs ourselves and do rely on donations and support. With just a small team of our own fundraisers (many of whom double up as boat and base crews) it’s fantastic for us when others run fundraising events on our behalf.

This kind of support has really taken off this year, including throughout the past few weeks, so we’re very happy to share what some of our supporters have achieved for us:

 

  • Elm Tree Bootsale have donated £1,000 raised from their regular bootsales over the 2019 season.
  • Old Town Street Traders in Hastings have raised £5,000 for us across summer events in Hastings Old Town (as seen in the photo above).
  • We’ve received £200 thanks to Asda and their Green Token Scheme, where shoppers voted us into the runner up position as a chosen local charity.
  • Local branches of Co-op in Ore Village and Winchelsea Beach have raised a significant amount for us thanks to their loyalty scheme and through donation pots in their stores.
  • We’ve also received over £200 thanks to Dominic Varley who signed his employer up to Payroll Giving on behalf of the Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat.
  • Ye Olde 1066 Charity Group (part of the 1066 Bikers) held a fundraising quiz for us and raised £69 (photo below of the PLIRB team in action).

There are also several more fundraisers coming up before the end of the year – the next ones being the Ocean Ceramics Open Studio event in Winchelsea Beach next week and another in-store fundraiser at Asda, St. Leonards on 7th December 2019, so it’s not too late to get involved in supporting us by coming along to a fundraising event.

As ever, we are extremely grateful for all amounts raised – whether small or large, every penny counts. And of course, the support we’ve received throughout 2019 is much wider than those listed in this post. Our dedicated thank you page is coming soon but to everyone who has supported us this year, a heartfelt thank you.  

For a Limited Time, It’s Now Possible To Support Us When You Shop at Asda

Jul 12, 2019

Good news, good news! For a limited time this summer, it’s possible to support us at no extra cost to yourself. How? Simply by shopping in-store at Asda St. Leonards!

Because the great news is that for the next three months, we’re one of the charity donation nominees at the St. Leonard’s store.

As a nominated rescue boat charity, the Pett Level Independent Rescue boat is in with the chance of gaining a fundraising boost through Asda’s Green Token Giving scheme.

Each store has three prizes of 1st place: £500, 2nd & 3rd place: £200 each. In each case, the donation is made by Asda, to the charity.

 

The token system

 

How it works is that qualifying purchases made at the Asda store mean you’ll be offered a green token when you pay at the checkout. Then, on the way out of the store, there’s the choice of placing your green token into the token collection point. At this point, you’ll have a choice from three charities – only one of which can win first prize.

At the end of the 3 months, the tokens are counted up and the winning charity gains the 1st place prize of £500, with the runner up charities each receiving £200 from Asda.

The other chosen charities alongside us for this fun competition are the Hastings Sea Cadets and Surviving the Streets. Both of these charities do amazing work in the local area, so please take a look at their websites and the work they do.

Doing this in advance of your shopping at Asda means you can make a well-informed choice about where to pop your green token! Of course, we’d love it if you could support us  – by the way, ours is the blue collection pathway, just like our shirts – but we’d also like you to be aware of your options – we’re all great local causes after all. As such, we’d also like to wish both the Hastings Sea Cadets and Surviving the Streets all the very best from this fundraiser too – it’s great to be sharing this opportunity with them, thanks to Asda.

 

See you there?

 

To help raise our profile, funds and sea safety awareness, Asda has also given us permission to run our own donation-day fundraiser up at Asda St. Leonards on Saturday 17th August. We’ll be up there for most of the day, complete with our Tornado boat, so it would be great if you could come along and say hello. Please do also come along and talk to us on the day if you’d like to know more about volunteering with us – it would be great to tell you all about it.

As an independent lifeboat charity, we do all of our own fundraising to pay our running and training costs.

We’d really like to say thank you so much to Asda for their support in helping us to raise these vital funds. Thank you!

A Visitor & A Big Thank You

Jun 5, 2019

This weekend we had a lovely visitor! Tony Heath came along to receive a big thank you from the PLIRB.

An enthusiastic sailor, Tony Heath recently retired his boat . Tony’s wife, Diana, suggested he might want to donate some of his equipment somewhere it would be appreciated and, thankfully for Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat, Tony chose us. And it’s true to say that we are really feeling the benefits from his decision and from the wealth of equipment he’s donated to us, including ropes and a small Zodiac boat, complete with oars.

This Zodiac boat has especially been a great extension to our training. It’s perfect for the crew to use in rescue training scenarios. Trainees can use it to row out to sea then, once offshore, the oars are taken out of the water to simulate a ‘drifting’ vessel. Crews then practice safe rescue of this smaller-sized vessel. In fact, we carried out this type of rescue last year, in particular a group of persons drifting out to open sea from the Camber area.

At the height of the season, inflatables drifting out to sea is a common call-out for us in our efforts to keep the public safe at the beach. A ‘drifting’ Zodiac is a good approximation for an inflatable of various sizes and shapes, so it’s great to have it for additional practice.

Our eagle-eyed supporters may also have spotted that the Zodiac was used in this way for the sea display last weekend at our Open Day.

This weekend it was Tony’s turn to be part of the team, when he joined crew on our Pulfer boat for a pre-training excursion. This involved a trip along the water to Cliff End, plus some interactions with the smaller Tornado boat. Tony’s wife was also able to enjoy spending time with the base crew, watching from the Look Out area of the boathouse.

Tony Heath, equipment donation, boat visitTony Heath, equipment donation, independent rescue boat charityTony Heath, equipment donation, independent rescue boat charity

We’d like to say a very public thank you to Tony for his equipment donations. These have made a big difference to us in terms of training. By supplying equipment we might otherwise have had to pay for, Tony has also saved us a significant amount of funds. Thank you so much, Tony!

Thanks to Robin Hood Bonfire Society, Icklesham

Mar 14, 2019


Recently, we were delighted to receive an invite to the Robin Hood Bonfire Society’s presentation and quiz night up at the Robin Hood in Icklesham. So on Wednesday 27th February, off we went …

Kevin Wall, RHBS Chairman & Shaun O’Hara, PLIRB Helm

Several charities and local causes, including ourselves, were invited to the presentation and we all benefitted from the extraordinary amount of work carried out by the Robin Hood Bonfire Society. All of the funds were raised at 2018’s fabulous bonfire display and from their Christmas raffle

After a brief talk from RHBS Chairman, Kevin Wall, presentations and donations were made as follows:

  • £500 to the Armed Forces Bikers, who marshalled the event.
  • £500 to the Sussex 4×4 Response team, who supported the procession and the event.
  • £500 to the Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat, who staffed the First Aid tent at the event.
  • £450 to Snowflake Shelter – a special donation for a hard-working local cause, with funds raised from the RHBS Christmas Raffle.

Then it was time for a surprise presentation highlight – £1,000 donated to Icklesham Primary School. These funds were donated specifically to help with the running costs of the school pool, and to subsidise the cost of swimming for families. The cheque was presented to Jo Barry who works at the school and manages the swimming – and also happens to be PLIRB secretary and member of the PLIRB crew.

Members of the PLIRB team enjoying the donation!

ctivity then moved on to refreshments and a Music Quiz evening, with a cash prize up for grabs. Of course, the PLIRB crew performed with great enthusiasm and effort – plus a not too shameful extent of knowledge across the team – and finished in 3rd place. Our favourite was the lego album covers round, by the way!

First place and the cash prize went to one of the RHBS teams (one of whom is also a member of the PLIRB). The warm and sharing nature of the evening was really reflected in the fact that this team immediately split the prize between the causes who had come to the event – a wonderful gesture and a brilliant extra donation for us.

Everyone here at Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat would like to say a very big thank you to everyone involved in the Robin Hood Bonfire Society – this local community support is sincerely appreciated and makes a considerable difference to us.

What’s more, we also appreciate having the chance to support the Robin Hood Bonfire display – it’s such a fantastic community event. Thank you for having us – to the presentation and to the bonfire and we’re already looking forward to 2019’s event going with a bang!

On that note, a date for the diaries is Sunday 3rd November 2019, when the next Robin Hood Bonfire Display is scheduled to take place.