Opening of Sunbury Ferry signals a triumph of community co-operation
Opening of Sunbury Ferry signals a triumph of community co-operation
Following coverage in this magazine and on the LoSRA website, it is only right that a brief update on the Sunbury ferry should be includ-ed here. The publicity and appeal for volun-teers quickly amassed over 60 local residents willing to help run the ferry service. Thirty two were selected, including those with years of boating knowledge and experience through to others who had little experience but wanted to learn and support the project. Amongst the volunteers are a head teacher, an airline pilot, cabin crew, a retired police chief inspector, a Surrey councillor, a film editor, a boat survey-or, NHS workers – indeed from all walks of life. As soon as lockdown allowed, formal training took place at Queen Mary’s Reser-voir to enable twelve volunteers to qualify to a national standard and become skippers on the ferry. The rest of the volunteers have trained as crew.
Despite all the obstacles along the way, not least Covid 19, Sunbury Ferry Ltd, a not-for-profit community company, launched the new service on Saturday 3rd July. Operating week-ends 10am to 5pm through to late summer, the service is proving to be an overwhelming success. Over two thousand passengers used the service during this July, even though there was heavy rain most weekends! (figures for August await). Check out the ferry website for more information: sunburyferry.co.uk
Previous articles have given a brief overview of all the hard work put in by numerous indi-viduals and organisations over the past three years to make this much needed project such a success. Thanks are due to all those in-volved, especially the volunteers and official supporting organisations.
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Many readers of this magazine will have received our latest printed newsletter and it’s great to be back in print to supplement our website news service and e-bulletins. It’s not been practical during Covid restrictions to ask our volunteer dis-tributors to go door-to-door to deliver them, so this is our first one for 18 months. We’ve been meeting virtual-ly, and it’s been busi-ness as usual behind the scenes, but with no newsletters, and sub- scription-collecting opportunities like out Annual General Meeting, plus the Regatta (x2) and Christmas Fair not happening, our paid-up membership has fallen off considera-bly.
It is worth remembering that all the Commit-tee members of our Association give their time and expertise entirely free; and are happy to do so for the benefit of the community.
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