Surfers Against Sewage
Motivocean Report
Motivocean
Huge success as hundreds of youth volunteers join SAS for the 20th Anniversary beach clean & sports tour.
In the last week of August, Surfers Against Sewage, in association with the myGames (powered by v) & the Quiksilver Foundation, hit the road with the biggest beach clean tour in our history. Since 1994, the volume of marine litter on UK beaches has increased by 146%* and SAS is helping combat this tide line of trash through its beach cleans and ongoing environmental campaigns. ‘Motivocean’ was SAS’s most ambitious beach clean tour to date and calling in at 23 major UK beaches and waterside locations across the nation, including 9 locations in the south west and even undertaking a beach clean on the river Thames.
We were delighted with the turn out to these events, with over 700 youth volunteers participating across the UK to date, and well over 1000 volunteers getting involved overall. We removed hundreds of bags of litter, which contributed to more than 5 tonnes of marine litter that SAS has removed from beaches around the country this year alone.
The tour saw some good weather and bad, and some hugely impressive turnouts, not least at Croyde, Sennen, and St Ives. We were blessed with some great weather and waves, and some less good days… We has a fantastic community spirit at all of the locations; it’s always nice to bring together our members, volunteers and supporters to take direct, grass-roots action at our beautiful beaches. The atmosphere was fantastic at each of the dates, and we really got a sense of our volunteers making a collective and positive difference to the environment everywhere we went. It was an uplifting experience all round.
Everyone was welcomed to the events however, thanks to the major support of the national youth volunteering charity v through its mygames programme, SAS was able to offer youth volunteers surf lessons as a reward for volunteering for a couple of hours to clean the beach. The sea and coastal environment are vital components of so many sporting activities from sailing to surfing, and SAS hopes to further build awareness about coastal conservation by linking beach sports to the protection of the environment.
We still have a number of beach cleans to hold as part of Motivocean Beach Clean initiative before the end of the year. If you are a school, youth club, university or just an interested youth volunteer, please do get in touch with hugo@sas.org.uk. We can cover all youth volunteer expenses, including surf lessons. We hope to attract over 1000 youth volunteers (16-25 years old) through the scheme this year alone, and are confident of hitting this target, with your help.
The mygames programme calls on young people to undertake exciting volunteering projects in the community that promote and celebrate the values of the 2012 Olympic Games. Values that include friendship, respect, excellence, equality and determination.
The nationwide mygames programme is providing wide-ranging volunteering opportunities for 10,000 young people. Projects will focus around the themes of Education, Culture, Environment, Health and Sport. SAS is in discussions to continue our involvement with the programme into 2011 as we write this issue.
A few words of thanks must also be said. Firstly THANK YOU to all our volunteers who did an amazing job (if you haven’t received your Motivocean volunteering certificate yet please email- info@sas.org.uk), WELL DONE to all our regional reps who helped organise events, thanks to Thames 21 who we couldn’t have worked without in London, thanks to the surf schools that worked with us, thanks to Richard Gregory for filming at Croyde, and to all the other people that helped us out at events. Not forgetting a huge thank you to v and to the Quiksilver Foundation.
For more details please visit www.sas.org.uk
*Marine Conservation Society Beach Watch statistic.
Pull out quote:
‘We removed hundreds of bags of litter, which contributed to more than 5 tonnes of marine litter that SAS has removed from beaches around the country this year alone.’
