Dear Friends,
It was a fabulous week. We had a record attendance of 43 members this weekend. School has re-opened and we conducted 6 Assembly Talks with a total of 4,512 students: Nanyang Primary School (1,200pax sponsored by NWCDC), Unity Primary (1,000pax sponsored by NWCDC), Ahmad Ibrahim Primary (1,300pax sponsored by NWCDC), Queenstown Secondary School (300pax sponsored by Pratt and Whitney), First Toa Payoh Primary School (700pax sponsored by Pratt and Whitney) and Woodlands Secondary School (12pax sponsored by NWCDC). There was also one Waterways Watch Explorer (WWE) programme done at Yishun pond for Woodlands Secondary (12pax). Compliments must go to Ahmad Ibrahim Primary School for their dedicated teachers and students in their effort to promote recycling and introducing an Internal Award Criteria for classroom competition. However we do have concerns with Woodlands Secondary School as the talk and WWE program had extremely low participation. We have shared this concern with the respective sponsor (NWCDC).
During the week, we also participated in an exhibition booth at NUS Symposium on Futures Sustainability (5 members) and our CEO, Eugene Heng also visited the Final Year Project (FYP) Exhibition. In addition, we also conducted two talks for CLC (70pax) at Punggol Office, a presentation to Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic lecturers (25pax) under their Service Learning Module in Engineering session. There were a total of three safety boat support roles during the week. This is quite an achievement in a week with the highest engagements with students for WWS even without any Kayaking activity.
During the week we also engaged a few groups of fishermen (Total of 15pax). Those engaged outside our premises always respond by saying “no sign was displayed”. We advise PUB to relocate the positions of the fishing signs to be facing the entry point of the jetty area. There were three other sightings shared with PUB but not engaged as the group was too far opposite. We has a total of 85 anti-littering engagements done during our weekly Sunday patrols. Our Sunday patrol had two groups of bike patrol and two groups of boat patrol. There are a total of 43 members over this weekend at both Marina (37pax) and Punggol (5pax). There were four new junior members doing their bike orientation this weekend.
We continue to monitor the litter situation. We are still concern with the amount of litter collected especially plastics. A media interview was done by Lianhe Wanbao, where it is observed that litter collected in a short period of time have 8 out of 11 items made of plastic. Our WWS Garden Team also had some gardening work done after patrol on Sunday. During the week, there were three new members doing orientation and we are pleased to report that right after the WWD Family Carnival, we had 4 new applicants received within the next three days. Otters were again sighted around our beach-front and at Punggol Office during the week. We understand from Acres that the Barn Owl has been cured and released back to Marina.
We are still awaiting feedback on our proposal for Punggol under the OCBC We Care Funding. We have also submitted the powerpoint presentation to MPA for their approved sponsorship partnerships. We also hope to finalise our bringing in of NParks donated boat soon. We relocated one of our buggies to Punggol as the sola-powered shed has been completed.
It was unfortunate that we have to cancel and withdraw our interest in the LTA Safe Cycling Programme as the vendor has been very inefficient as the service provider.
