Latest News from WightSAR

 

January 2023 News …………

 

Happy New Year to all our followers and supporters.

 

WightSAR volunteers had a busy fundraising run up to Christmas with store collections in both Asda and Tesco Extra (Ryde).  Thanks to all those customers who stopped to say “hello” and put some pennies in our buckets. We are even more grateful for those donations given the difficult time everyone is experiencing with the current cost of living crisis. A donation however small is so much appreciated and goes towards our own increasing operational costs. We often hear “sorry no change”, so we do now have a card machine for any donation amount available to use. 

 

Many of you would have seen our “what3words” Christmas Tree at the IOW Pearl Christmas Tree Festival and thank you for all your lovely comments. It is always fun to decorate and show the tree each year with the different themes. 

 

We ask a lot of our volunteers, being on call 24/7, training twice a month in any weather to maintain their search skills, both individually and as a team, plus regular fundraising and online mandatory training including safeguarding. Additionally, our volunteers pay for their own “kit” and their own fuel expenses to get to training & call outs.  Each & every one of them gives this freely and enthusiastically and the WightSAR Committee is grateful for their support and dedication. Please be assured that 100% of your donations go towards our operational costs & live saving searches. WightSAR received no statutory funding, so we totally rely on grants and donations. For more information on how you can support the team, some at no cost to yourselves, please visit the Fundraising page on this website. 

 

Becoming part of WightSAR remains popular and we are delighted to have a new group of recruits who will start their “Safe to Search” training at the end of this month, culminating in a weekend of practice & assessment in April.  Our grateful thanks to PGL at Little Canada for again hosting this weekend.  

 

It’s AGM time again and the WightSAR AGM will be held on 26th January 2023, when a new Committee is voted in and as a team we get to reflect on the past year.

 

We will be sharing some other exciting news with you over the next two months so keep an eye on our website & social media platforms.

 

In the meantime, stay safe, dry and warm. 

​

October 2022 News …………

 

September saw our new recruits undergo their initial training programme which included Navigation skills, search techniques, radio communication, casualty care and working safely as a team.

 

The intensive training programme concluded with a two day assessment, including a night search, following which all 5 new Search Technician recruits were assessed as “Safe to Search” and could become operational members of WightSAR. They, along with the rest of the operational team will continue to learn and develop their skills on continuous training & live call outs.

 

Congratulations to our new members who bring a wealth of experience to the team.

 

WightSAR are extremely grateful for PGL (Little Canada at Wootton) for “hosting” the assessment weekend once again and providing us with such fantastic facilities and meals.  This is the second assessment weekend PGL have provided for us, and we thank them for their continued support, allowing us to deliver training & assessment on the Island instead of having to send new trainees to the mainland at additional costs. 

 

We will soon have very exciting news regarding our new Incident Control Vehicle, as the delivery date finally arrives. The hard work of converting a basic van to a mobile office, Communication Hub and equipment store will begin!  This includes the transfer and fitting of our 12 metre radio mast.  Keep an eye on our Facebook page for updates!

 

Funding remains a constant challenge for the team, especially with the increased operational costs and the additional vehicle. All members are expected to undertake a minimum of 16 hrs of fundraising per year, as well as regular training & being on call.  Many members give well over & above this amount and we are extremely grateful for their continued commitment & enthusiasm. 

 

We have two exciting fundraising activities taking place during October.

• Carl Rye is running the 10k Great South Run on 16th October & raising money for us through sponsorship towards the new Control Vehicle re fit.  We are extremely grateful to Carl for supporting us. If you would like to sponsor Carl here is a link for our Local Giving Page: 

https://localgiving.org/Runforwightsar

 

• We also have a Charity Football taking place on 23rd October at Plessey Ground, Park Rd. Cowes. Kick off at 14:00 between IOW Retail & The Fire Fighters! Please pop in to support the players and raise some money for WightSAR at the same time. There will be a Raffle & some local Craft Stalls. 

 

As the weather changes please stay safe and remember the benefit of using What2words in case of any emergency. 

https://what3words.com/pretty.needed.chill

​

​