Sea Trust News – on Porpoises and Volunteers
This article is taken from the Sea Trust Spring Newsletter, available online at: Sea Trust – Local marine wildlife conservation
If you have been watching our social media recently, you may have noticed that we have stepped into the world of online fundraising. We have joined Local Giving and currently have two donation pages. The first is Sea Trust’s page, where you can donate to the trust; your donation will go towards the daily running of the charity, including the maintenance of our catch and release aquarium. https://localgiving.org/charity/seatrustwales/
The second page is dedicated to our Porpoise Photo-ID Project. All donations from this page will go directly to the porpoise project, funding porpoise surveys, equipment and the recruitment and training of volunteers. https://localgiving.org/charity/seatrustwales/project/porpoise_photoid_project/
We have already had great success with Local Giving thanks to our first-ever online appeal. The appeal was set up to raise funds for the Porpoise Photo-ID Project. Due to the closure of our aquarium and then the restrictions on visitors because of the pandemic, the project lost a big chunk of its funding. The project was in danger of ending due to lack of funds, so the appeal would give us a chance to continue with our porpoise surveys and continue using our volunteers throughout the summer months, giving staff some much needed time to look and apply for more funding. The appeal ran for two months between February and March and had a target of £3,000. Within a month we had met our target and by the end of the appeal we had raised a total of £3,638. We would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who donated, shared, and fundraised to make the appeal such a success.
We are hoping to open the Ocean Lab back up to the public along with some of the aquarium and shop. This is a great and much needed source of income for Sea Trust. With the opening comes some more volunteering opportunities. We will need more front-desk volunteers to join the amazing Marilyn and Cerian. This would involve welcoming guests, taking money, managing bookings, and manning our small gift shop. We will also have opportunities for some aquarium volunteers, this would involve designing aquarium layouts, maintaining aquariums, catching and releasing species, and hosting the public If this interests you, contact Lloyd at lloyd@seatrust.org.uk.
