Links further afield:
Penhaligon's Friends:
Penhaligon’s Friends is a Cornish charity supporting bereaved children, young people, parents and carers throughout Cornwall. Services include telephone advice, one to one support, Teens Groups, Family Groups and Memory Days. Penhaligon’s Friends offer children and young people the chance to meet others and share their experiences as well as practical resources for children and parents.
The charity is based in Redruth, but works across the whole of Cornwall. As well as a core team of 10 staff, 5 of whom are full time, there are 80 plus trained volunteer support workers. The charity is happy to receive enquiries from individuals who wish to give their time as volunteer support workers, as well as from individuals and organisations interested in raising funds. Further information can be found on
www.penhaligonsfriends.org.uk or call 01209 215889.
BUDE SEA POOL: at the heart of our community
Launcells Parish Council has kindly supported Bude Sea Pool, and many people who live in the parish are members of FoBSP, the volunteer-run charity which funds and manages this historic tidal swimming pool.
The Sea Pool at Summerleaze Beach was created in the 1930s to provide safe bathing, away from dangerous rip currents which still represent a hazard in the open water today. The Pool is open access from the beach and is free for all to enjoy. The sea-water Pool is nearly 100m long and is topped up twice a day at high tide. Very few tidal pools of this type still exist in the UK: there are now just a handful that are still open to the public.
In recent years, Bude Sea Pool was run by Cornwall Council, but funding for the pool was withdrawn leading to its possible closure and demolition. A volunteer, not-for-profit community group, the Friends of Bude Sea Pool, was formed in 2011 to secure the Pool’s future.
Responsibility for the Sea Pool was formally passed to FoBSP in 2012. In their first year, FoBSP raised over £90,000 towards the Sea Pool’s running costs and successfully completed Phase One of crucial structural repairs. Phase Two (the new watergate) was completed in early 2013, and £25,000 has been generated to fund the first section of the sea wall repair, scheduled for autumn 2013. A further £25,000 will be needed to complete the urgent sea wall renovations in 2014.
Some 30,000 people visited the Sea Pool in the summer of 2012. It’s being used even more in 2013, with a series of community events – the SLSC Beach Safety Day, the Eden Project’s Big Lunch, a Raft Race for local schools, and the ASA’s SwimSafe lessons being given free throughout August for children age 7 to 14. The Sea Pool is one of the town’s vital visitor attractions, and also provides a valuable community space for local young people to enjoy. Some of those young people then go on to become lifeguards working for FoBSP at the Pool!
FoBSP must raise around £30,000 each year to cover lifeguarding and basic running costs. This money comes from donations, membership, business sponsorship, grants and fund-raising. FoBSP annual membership costs £10 for adults, £5 for under-16s, £25 for families.
Further information about the Sea Pool and the work of the FoBSP can be found at http://www.budeseapool.org or http://www.facebook.com/budeseapool or http://www.twitter.com/budeseapool
Cleaners Seas:
Following the talk given by Ian Saltern at the June meeting on 'Cleaner Seas' please find this link through to the Beach Live website.
The Cleaner Sea Forum is a partnership sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) with the aim of co-ordinating activity to maintain and improve bathing water quality in the South West.
Members include the Environment Agency, South West Water, Surfers Against Sewage, local authorities, public and private sector beach managers, the Marine Conservation Society, the National Trust, Natural England, the RNLI and tourism bodies including Visit Cornwall and Visit Devon.
Conferences are normally held twice a year in June and November at bathing water resorts in the region. The Forum discusses bathing water quality results, risks to quality, possible remedial options, communication issues and promotes better working relationships between the many different bodies who share responsibility for water quality and beach management issues.
In 2010, the Forum helped develop a Bathing Water Pilot project in Cornwall to examine the viability of giving more 'real time' information on overflows from the sewerage network. This has been extended in summer 2011 to 16 bathing waters region wide with a new website for the public – BeachLive.co.uk