Join Us At Paddle Round The Pier #20!

We are delighted to announce that we’ll be heading to the 20th Anniversary Paddle Round The Pier beach festival as one of their three nominated charities this July 2nd and 3rd in beautiful Brighton.

Like SAS the “Paddle” emerged from very humble beginnings. In 1996 a small group of surfers, decided to bring together the surfing community in a social seafront event which would raise money for charity at the same time. From the 50 people who attended the first event, it’s evolved into what is now regarded as the world’s largest free charity beach festival, with average visitor numbers of 50,000+ people!

So why is it so important that SAS are there!? With an ever growing list of water-sport events from the serious elite level competition of long distance SUP races and open water swims to inclusive events for people of all abilities and the sublimely ridiculous inflatable races and much more the “Paddle” owes its ongoing success to the ocean and surrounding coastal environment. 50,000 people are drawn to the 60,000m² festival site by this incredible offering of water-based activities and retail, exhibition and entertainments whose ‘selling point’ is their connection to an ocean lifestyle.

However clear the skies and blue the waters are in Brighton the health of the marine environment that the festival relies so heavily upon is under threat. As with the entire UK coastline and beyond, issues such as poor water quality and the marine litter crisis are putting our marine ecosystems under huge pressure. Whilst also being affected by these issues, fantastic community events such as “Paddle Round The Pier” offer an incredible opportunity to engage people with the solutions to these problems!

Looking to the future, we intend to be in Brighton on a sunny July day in 2036 to celebrate their 40 year anniversary, which is why we’ll be asking each and every one of the 50,000 people who attend the event to help us to protect the very environment that makes this event so special, our oceans, waves, beaches and wildlife. Whilst of course having A LOT of fun!

For many of the festival goers this may be the first time they’ve been asked to stop and think about the health of the beaches that they love so much, so as always we’ve created a great programme of engaging activities, from record breaking beach cleans to thought provoking lectures, that we hope will encourage them to join the SAS family this summer in making the connection between the enjoyment of and protection of our precious blue spaces. So if you’re headed down to the Paddle Round The Pier beach festival this July 2nd and 3rd please come and say hello!

Here are just a handful of our ‘SAS @ Paddle Round The Pier #20’ activities;

• The launch of our huge annual SAS Raffle
• Record Breaking Beach Clean
• SAS Marine Litter Campaign Challenge
• SAS Ocean Talks – Short, engaging talks and films from the SAS team about what we do and how and why you can hello.
• Marine Litter Monsters Art workshops – Strictly for the Groms! There’ll be glue, googly eyes and giggling
• Trasher Hunts – Strictly for the Groms! We’ll need ‘Marine Litter Pirates’ for special missions

The “Paddle” 2016 is going to be an awesome party, we’ll see you there.
Team, SAS

For more deatils on  Paddle Round The Pier 2016 visit http://www.paddleroundthepier.com