Newquay Voluntary Beach Lifesaving Patrols

Aim

Lifesavers are needed on the beaches of Newquay in the summer of 2020. Due to Covid-19 there is a reduced roll out of the paid lifeguards.

Lifesavers are needed on the beaches of Newquay in the summer of 2020. Due to Covid-19 there is a reduced roll out of the paid lifeguard service and many beaches will be left without lifeguards. We hope the volunteer lifesavers of Newquay Surf Life Saving Club will be able to help, but they need your support! 

Why do we need lifesavers? 

Newquay is well known for its beautiful beach resorts and recreational watersports. The space of our beaches is a fundamental outdoor area for a wide range of recreational sports, which allows individuals to participate in both team and individual activites. But from our winter patrols we established many members of the public will not enter the water and undertake activity in the beach environment without lifeguards in place. 

Our lifeguards and lifesavers will be covering beaches that are normally covered by the paid lifeguard service and therefore we will be providing patrols in an area where, individuals were less likely to undertake crucial activity and sports, ranging from watersports to exploring the South West Coastal Path. These patrols will encourage members of the public to participate in sports and activities. 

In addition to making sure individuals can undertake activity on the beaches with the confidence of being observed by lifeguards, we have a challenging coastline that includes, large surf, rip currents, tidal cut offs and large tidal movement. A combination of these factors leads to many people requiring the assistance of lifesavers every year. Within the Newquay area there are 9 beaches that would normally have lifeguards in place, but currently only four of them are planned to have lifeguards this summer. This year the beaches are still thriving and likely to have further influxes as the government reduces the Covid-19 risk. Volunteer lifesavers are having to step up and provide additional support to make sure we can provide advice, prevention and rescue on as many beaches as possible. 

Our lifesavers have already dealt with two incidents over the past week; one involving the rescue of two teenagers, and the other a reported near miss where if our members had not provided immediate preventative intervention further rescues would have been needed.

The Plan!

Our volunteer Club trainer and assessors have been working hard over the last two weeks to prepare our volunteer lifesavers for the new risks associated with Covid-19. They have been undertaking Beach Warden Training with the National Governing Body and from this weekend you should see our volunteers providing Beach Warden Patrols.

The Beach Warden Patrols are an advice and prevention service and our initial response to the sudden demand for volunteer lifesavers. They will be visible, in their orange high-vis uniform, on beaches that do not currently have lifeguards as a point of contact for advice and guidance on beach safety. Education leading to prevention is a key step in reducing rescues. The Beach Wardens will also provide observation of Newquay's beaches and can provide valuable and accurate information to the coastguard if an incident occurs. Although, it is key for the public to be aware this initial response is not a full operational lifeguard service. 

In our second phase, as the government eases restriction, we hope with your support that we can return closer to a normal way of working when providing a lifesaving service. We aim to target key un-guarded beaches at peak times and days as well as monitoring the surf and weather to provide the best service we can to the Newquay Community. If restrictions and volunteer commitment allow this will include fully operational lifeguard patrols being started in July.

We Already Know How to PATROL!

Newquay Surf Life Saving Club was founded in 1958 and we aim to reduce coastal drownings in the Newquay area, through education, prevention and rescue. In 2019 we provided voluntary patrols throughout the winter and therefore delivering what we believe is the first all year round lifeguard service for Newquay. We were voted by the local community for the Outstanding Group Award by Newquay Town Council for our voluntary work, where we provided 552 face to face voluntary hours and over 700 preventative actions!

How will your funding help?

Our previous patrols have been funded by Club fund raising. However this has come to a sudden stop as our normal fund raising methods are affected by Covid-19 and now we are being called upon by our community, national governing body and volunteers to provide support.

We have provided voluntary patrols during the winter. However, the additional summer patrols are due to the covid-19 situation and we would not normally provide vital summer patrols and therefore this is an extra demand on our service and funds. 

This campaign will help us support our lifesavers and lifeguards. We have reviewed what we need and have identified two levels of funding that will allow us to achieve different levels of community engagement. The more support we have the more our volunteers can give back! 

The Basic Needs! £4000 Target

The Club aims to raise a minimum of £4000 from this campaign to cover basic and essential costs for our volunteer lifesavers. This will ensure our lifesavers have the core support and qualifications they need to provide basic lifesaving services over the summer 2020.  We have over 20 lifesaving volunteers that need support. This includes some of the following costs:

• Insurance
• Training & Re-qualification fees
• Suncream/ Sun Protection
• Whistles
• PPE
• Alcohol Gel/ Hand Wash
• First Aid Supplies
• Uniform
• Portable Megaphone
• Beach Safety Signs
• VHF Radio's

An extra lifesaving service for the Summer of 2020! £6,500+

We would like to provide our lifesaving service across as many of Newquay's beaches this summer. The main town beaches join together from mid-low tide and we want to make the most of this. When this space joins all together we hope for our lifesavers to be roving along the main bay, this will allow them to cover a greater area, provide further advice and make more rescue's if required. To acheive this we need to be able to maintain and invest in the appropiate equipment for our lifesaver's to provide these roving patrols. If we reach our stretch target we would look at the investment in an ATV and utilise the additional funds to maintain the extra wear and tear we will experience on our current watercraft, 4x4 and the needs of having additional volunteers on shift to cover the roving patorls. 

The Future...

The support you provide now will carry the club's lifesaving team into the future. We are carrying out this campaign due to an immediate need for lifesavers and lifeguards on the beaches of Newquay. However, we want you to know that the money you contribute will continue to save lives for many years. The vital equipment we require for this summer will be serviced and maintained to support our future winter patrols and summer evenings when full-time lifeguards return to all our beaches in the coming years. 

Thank you!

I would like to thank you for reading the campaign and for your support of our volunteer lifeguards. Please visit our social media pages for updates on our lifesaving initiatives and patrols!

Nic, 

Newquay SLSC Life Saving and Training Officer

Our lifesaving experience rewards

We have several lifesaving experience rewards on offer, including Nipper, Sandhopper and Surfer Safety half day sessions. These will be delivered by our qualified level 2 coaches and lifeguard trainers. We will deliver them at a Beach at Newquay based on prevailing conditions. Most of the sessions will be delivered at Fistral Beach. It is recommended participants have a wetsuit, however we can provide advice on where to source them locally for half the day if required. We hope to run the sessions during the summer school holidays of 2020, although we are constantly having to review our beach activities due to Covid-19. If you have any questions regarding these rewards please get in touch. 

Sponsorship opportunities for businesses in providing our lifesaving service!

In addition to the above we are working hard to get our lifesavers into personal lifeguard kit. Previously they shared high vis lifeguard jackets. However, with Covid-19 the sharing of clothing is not ideal and therefore we would like to equip each of our volunteers with their own uniform. If you would be interested in sponsoring an item of our lifesavers uniform please get in touch! This includes, jackets, T-shirts, shorts, trousers and hats!

This project successfully funded on 3rd July 2020