Sailors Creek CIC - Flagship Projects for 2023

Aim

We need your support to raise funds for our exciting flagship projects this year - Innovation with Waste & A Festival of Workshops.

In 2023 we hope to raise money to support the development of our two flagship projects focussed on innovation with waste and explorations in land based art & science.

1) Innovating with waste - Sailors Creek will be a haven for boats in transit once again, and will offer the river community a low impact mooring solution.  There is a zero discharge policy at Sailors Creek for boat users.  This may seem ridiculous when sewage outflows are regularly discharging mains sewage into the Penryn River and leisure boat users are regularly and legally pumping out grey and black water into inshore waters.  The solution we have is to build a floating reed bed system for the processing of grey water and to offer compost loos and a bunded composting system for black water.  This is innovative work and we are working with the top experts in the country to develop an exemplar zero discharge project.

We need financial support for the following:

• Assembling the floating reed bed systems in order to achieve an exemplar zero discharge creek
• £8000 will enable us to start assembling our 50ft prototype floating reed bed which will ensure all grey water is processed effectively from the boats moored at the creek.  
• A bunded compost loo system will ensure that all black water is contained and our zero discharge policy is maintained for all vessels.

2) Community building through art & science - Building on our fantastic BioArtBlitz! held in May 2022 we recognise the vital importance of engaging the local community in responding to the natural environment through the scheduling of creative workshops and species identification.  This year we would like to increase the number of participants in our land based community building activities and we don't want anyone to feel priced out of the experience of coming together in nature with leaders in the fields of arts and science.  

From May to October 2023 we will hold one whole day workshop (10-4pm) per calendar month at Sailors Creek.  These workshops will cover creative activities such as Sycamore spoon making, foraging, charcoal making and drawing, grass foraged baskets and natural dyes and will be available for up to 10 people per workshop.  We want these workshop days to be available to the whole community so we are asking for contributions towards the cost of running these workshop days so we can offer them out on a sliding scale 'pay as you can' format.

We need financial support for the following: 

• Raising funds to ensure that we can offer a series of 6 excellent and high value monthly workshops available to all.  Workshops will be offered on a sliding scale fee structure, fully funded places will be available.
• £3000 will pay for the cost of the workshop leaders including artist residency days and materials.
• A student of illustration form the local university will be invited to document all the work unfolding at Sailors Creek over the summer months.  This will be a paid residency.

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Here is our story so far:

Since September 2021 Sailors Creek CIC has been working on the galvanising of a volunteer community for the clearance of the shoreline at Sailors Creek, the galvanising of a volunteer community for the creation and care of a forest garden and pathways within an established brash and woodland ecosystem adjacent to Sailors Creek, and the CIC has been working on the visibility of the CIC’s work and story online.  

There is now a regularly updated website (sailorscreekcic.org), an Instagram page (@sailorscreekcic_penrynriver) and a regular newsletter and blog sent to subscribers and members.  By the end of September 2022 Sailors Creek CIC had 70 paying members of the CIC. Membership is available through the website or can be facilitated any number of ways for maximum accessibility. Members and subscribers of the CIC are found both locally and nationally, over 100 people have subscribed to our newsletters and blogs.  

As the creek has been cleared, approximately 5 tonnes of rubbish until September 2022, paid beach moorings have slowly become available. The moorings are of a basic nature.  Mooring traffic during the year of September 2021 to September 2022 included:

one boat over-wintering in transit to Europe; 

two vessels abandoned, identified and sold to the CIC;

one vessel bought by the CIC;

six new boats arrived in the financial year.

Volunteers and members helped with the planting of almost 200 trees and bushes in the late winter of 2022.  This was demanding work and involved wrestling with bramble, gorse, blackthorn.  

Other important milestones in 2022 included:

• An eco beehive (treehive) was purchased and attached to one of the large 300-year-old Oaks, it was swarmed very quickly, and the community take great interest in it.
• A rigorous canvas shelter was purchased for volunteers and members to take shelter from the elements.  It will be used for future workshops and activities.
• A community BioArtBlitz! was held in May 2022 covering 24hours of art and ecology in the area of Sailors Creek with the kind support of representatives from BTO and Budding Nature CIC.
• Regular water testing of the creek in association with Westcountry Rivers Trust Citizen Science Initiative has been a success and continues.
• Sailors Creek CIC held its first AGM in April 2022 at the Sailing Club in Flushing with open invites to all members and supporters.

This project closed unsuccessfully on 12th June 2023