Dear Friends,
Last week we did not have any program due to the COVID-19 situation, but we focused on developing virtual programs for members and the public during this semi-lock down period. We also took this down period to train our volunteer leaders and skippers. On Saturday night, we held a boat training session and 34 members attended. On Sunday night, we hold another meeting to discuss the launch of our Google Ads.
On Tuesday, 3 members did boat maintenance and asset checking for audit purposes at Punggol. Over the weekend, we had members volunteering activities at minimum scale and members advised and encouraged to take own transportation. On Saturday morning at Marina, 2 members did a simple bike patrol, 2 pairs of boat skippers did training plus observation patrol and one member came for gardening. Lots of litter was found around regular hotspots: embankment in front of the Singapore Flyer, embankment under Benjamin Sheares Bridge near Passion Wave and embankment along Kallang River ABC site (see photos). A total of 10 pax of illegal fishing, in 4 groups, were spotted around the Marina area.
For Sunday morning, another 2 members did bike patrol around Marina Reservoir, 4 skippers drove 2 boats plus 3 members did gardening (see photos). The bike patrol went towards Sports Hub and Geylang River. They found litter and one abandoned shared bike near the Kallang Water Sports Center. Litter and masks were also found near the entrance of Kallang Wave Mall and along Geylang Park Connector (see photos). Near the car park behind the indoor Stadium, much litter was found under the bushes (see photos). Litter picked up was mostly food packs and drink bottles, probably due to the no-dine-in regulation. In total, the bike patrol group picked up 3kg of litter and 8 masks. The 2 boat training pairs plus patrol groups reported that Geylang River and main water of Marina Reservoir was generally clean. In Singapore River, the Boat Quay area was clean but some litter was floating in Clarke Quay area. The garden crew spent the whole day at WWS doing Gardening and also cleaned the members’ pantry as well (see photos).
There were 2 members who also did a bike patrol at Punggol on Sunday morning. The park was clean and the people in the park were in seen complying to the two per group. At Jurong, 3 members came down to do maintenance and asset checking. 2 public dropped by office, did a brief intro about WWS, mission and activities. Members passed them a WWS brochure and invited them to further look up the website and to sign up if interested.
Currently, our new campaign “Protect our waterways – Starting with baby steps” waw last launched 6 days ago and reached 20% of target as of 30th. May.. In addition, one member decided to run a campaign in June on her own website, to help raise funds for WWS. We greatly appreciate all the support from our dear members and friends!
