In 2012, more than 3,500 volunteers from almost 80 organisations participated in the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore. They removed, categorised and counted 173,574 items of marine trash from almost 20km of shoreline.
Volunteers put all this away in 2,880 trash bags which weighed about 20 tonnes – and all in two hours!
After the last cleanup was over in October, the data was submitted to the Ocean Conservancy which manages the international data to educate and advocate for positive action.
And now its time to prepare for 2013!
So the Zone Captains joined me for the first planning meeting of the 2013 programme – we’ve begun much earlier this year!
We worked out the calendar of events and decide on our procedures and strategies for the year.
This year’s plan promises to be a much tighter operation than last year. This is certain to give me much less grief although its still going to be loads of work.
Weiting aka Civetgirl, my Deputy in charge of getting Year-Round Cleanups off the ground last year, will be responsible primarily for recruitment. It would help if I have a couple of side-kicks, who will learn valuable skills along the way. But they will have to be really alert to keep up!
This year plan, registration will be conducted earlier, there is a cut-off date for registration and site allocation results will be announced after an single-day exercise.
Organisers will be reminded about their responsibility for the safety of their participants, the need to conduct risk assessments and a recce trip to their site.
We will offer a joint recce, small group weekday night workshops (instead of Saturday) with experienced zone captains, and the ICCS lecture.
We have already identified all the specific dates as well as meetings.
- Fri 01 Feb 2013 – Planning (ICCS Otters only)
- Fri 22 Mar 2013 – Allocation Exercise (ICCS Otters only)
- Fri 28 Jun 2013 – Workshop Prep & Allocation Exercise II (ICCS Otters only)
- Wed 03 – Fri 05 Jul 2013 – Workshop Sessions 1-3: 7.00 – 9.00pm (With Organisers)
- Sat 27 Jul 2013 – Joint Site Recces (With Organisers)
- Sat 03 Aug 2013 – ICCS Lecture (With Participants)
- Sat 10 Aug 2013 – National Day Cleanup (With Public)
- Sat 21 Sep 2013 – ICCS (0557- 0.62m; 1811- 0.48m) (With Participants)
I run the risk of having fewer people on the beach but it is better to focus on committed, alert groups and work towards a holistic programme.
The ill-prepared Organiser and unmotivated Participant wear the committed volunteer Zone Captains down.
I need to protect my Captains and myself because we are in this for the long haul. This is my 16th year and it has already been a decade for some of my Captains.
I wonder how we keep going each year but its no mystery, really. Chris Jordan summed it up with his Midway trailer. The soul of the albatross whispers to us.
Otterman speaks... 