Charitable Trust

THE CHARITABLE TRUST IN 2009

 

Members will be well aware of the success of the Club's Charitable Trust  in supporting fishermen in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Southern India after the tsunami over Christmas/New Year 2004/5.  Subsequently we worked with Trinity House to help in rebuilding a lighthouse in Galle, Sri Lanka and to install new navigation aids.

In 2008 and 2009 we have concentrated our efforts nearer home, helping disadvantaged younger people by giving them the opportunity to go to sea on sail training vessels.  We have selected candidates to go sailing with

• - Jubilee Sailing Trust
• - Rona Trust
• - The Sea Cadets

In 2009 we approved a total of 14 bursaries with these three organisations, although not all have been taken up and some may be carried forward to 2010.

We have also provided some funding for a potential sailor in the 2012 Olympic Games.

Feedback

During the last two years we have asked for reports from those we have supported, but have been disappointed by the most recent response.  The best was a DVD covering the video-diary kept by one crew member, which we cannot easily show here.  We plan to insist on much more comprehensive feedback in the future.

Do you know anyone we should be helping?

If Royal Thames members know anyone who would benefit from going to sea on a sail training vessel, do let the Chairman of the Trust, John Stork, or the Club Secretary know - click here (email goes to js@stork-may.com, or possibly a new address Chairman.RTYCCT@royalthames.com).  We will see if they fit our fairly broad criteria, but they should not, of course, be related or otherwise connected to the member concerned.

Supporting Top Sailors

The Trust can also help successful sailors go further in their careers, possibly those in the early stages of an Olympic campaign, or to develop team/match racing skills by using the Club's fleet of J80's.  Donations can be designated for specific purposes along these lines, but if they are to benefit from tax relief there are restrictions.  If you have any suggestions do contact the Chairman or the Club Secretary.

Maritime Disasters

If you read the Trustees report you will note that the other function of the Charitable Trust is to be ready to support relief efforts when there is a maritime disaster when Royal Thames involvement can make an appreciable difference.  A number have been considered over the last four years, but none have been judged appropriate.  We hope that no such disasters arise, but stand ready to help if they do.

New funds for the Trust

During the last eighteen months the Royal Thames has had two very successful fund-raising events for our Charitable Trust.  They have also been great fun for the members who attended them.

In May 2008 there was the May-Day Charity Ball, which was a great success and also renewed many members' interest in the Trust.  It raised nearly £15,000 with which we can do a great deal of good work. 

In May 2009 we had an enjoyable Horse Racing Night in the Club in Knightsbridge, when many of us lost our shirts, but the Trust benefited by another £1,300.

In 2011 we will a Charity event in the spring or early summer.  Ideas are welcome! We are planning another May Ball in 2011.

Donations and Bequests

We welcome one-off personal donations (which can be kept confidential) for which the Trust can usually gain the benefit of additional tax relief.  We are particularly interested in members making bequests to the Charitable Trust in their wills, and we are happy to wait many, many years for the money!

One additional form of bequest may arise if you have an ‘Alternatively Secured' Pension Fund. If you have no living partner, the residual funds will be taxed at 82%, but they can be passed on to the Charitable Trust tax free.  It is easy to make the arrangements and we would be glad if you would do so.  In due course the Trustees will be able to put the funds to very good use.

For more details contact any of the Trustees or your professional advisers.

The Trustees

John Stork - Chairman

Andrew Collins

George Ehlers

Rufus Gilday

Peter Haslehurst - ex officio

Bernard Kinchin

 

More Details about -

Jubilee Sailing Trust

The Jubilee Sailing Trust is a unique charity that owns two specially designed tall ships; the Lord Nelson and Tenacious, both of which are barques. The ships are purpose-built to enable both physically disabled and able-bodied people to work and live alongside one another on board. The ships have special facilities on board, from speaking compasses to vibrating pads in the bunks, with flat wide decks and lifts to enable wheelchairs to get around easily. The ships spend the winter months island-hopping in the Canaries and Caribbean and then back to the UK in the spring for voyages around the UK and Northern Europe.

Website: www.jst.org.uk

 

The Rona Trust

The Rona Trust - London Sailing Project.  Every year the Project takes around a thousand young people to sea for a week of offshore sailing adventure and teamwork in three purpose-built sail training yachts. Most have little or no sailing experience. The Trust puts particular emphasis on helping young people from the inner cities develop by experiencing life afloat

Website: www.ronasailingproject.org

 

The Sea Cadets

The Royal Thames has a long association with the Sea Cadets, who provide cadets for some of our special events, and we have had a very useful link with them when running races in London Docklands

The Sea Cadet Corps is a nationwide voluntary uniformed charitable youth organisation, open to all young people aged 12 to 18.  There are also Marine Cadets for young people aged 13 to 18 and Junior Sections are open to those of 10 to 12 years of age. It is Britain's most successful nautical organisation for the development of young people with units run by enthusiastic adult volunteers. With its beginnings dating as far back as 1854, the Sea Cadets probably has the longest continuous history of any youth movement in the UK.

Website: www.ms-sc.org

PREVIOUS CHARITY NEWS

 

In 2008, following a very successful Charity Ball in the Royal Thames Clubhouse, the range of organisations where young people will be supported was extended to the Rona Trust (London Sailing Project) and the Jubilee Sailing Trust.  We look forward to working more closely with these organisations in the future, while still keeping our links with the Sea Cadets.

Each year the Trust reports to the members.  The latest report is copied below.'

 

2007/8 12 Month Review

The charity has now finished it’s two projects in Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The final details of the activities completed and the visit to Phuket are set out below.

We continue to work on the provision of 11 fishing boats in India, in conjunction with the BISS, and hope to complete that project in May or June. Through a Thames member, Peter Bainbridge, we have recently identified the need for funding, by Trinity House and the Northern Lights, for the repair and replacement of lighthouses and navigation buoys, in the Galle area of Sri Lanka. We have allocated funds to both groups, and the completion of these two remaining projects will result in the charity having disbursed all the funds raised.

The remarkable and noteworthy aspect of our Charity, is the degree to which it’s success has stemmed from personal contact and activity by Royal Thames members. The story of Tsunami Aid has been a mixed one for many, well meaning, organizations who have either struggled to find suitable projects, or become bogged down in the murky world of local graft and corruption. Tales abound of fishing boats being sold on, or abandoned and the engines used to power generator, houses being sold, and local politicians getting rich from their cut of infrastructure spending. It is gratifying to report that, thanks to the participation, on the ground, of Royal Thames members we have been able to avoid these difficulties.

At the outset, the Club decided that we would concentrate on small beach launched fishing boats, and related marine activities. Two of our chosen projects in Galle and
Phuket, were small enough to be under the radar of local governments. We are working with trusted entities on the other two projects, and are satisfied that they are able to navigate the funds directly to the end users without any significant “leakage” en route.

Members of the Royal Thames, and those who supported the Charitable appeal, can feel
a justified sense of pride that our Club was able to quickly raise a significant sum, and
relying mostly on Club contacts, send the money directly to targeted individuals, who are now back fishing and supporting their families and communities without the need of
further aid or support. This is Charity as it ought to be.

Sri Lanka: Galle

Friends of the South - Olivia Richli

As previously reported, We donated at total of £8,000 to Friends of the South, a local charity based in Galle. Olvia Richli, is the daughter of Thames members Philip and Diana Bown, and is the Secretary of the charity set up to provide assistance within the local area. She was instrumental in directing our efforts in the right direction, and we provided two moulds, complete with RTYC logo, to enable
fibreglass boats to be produced.

Philip Bown, was recently in Galle and visited this Royal Thames boat,on the beach.

We paid for a number of boats to be built and purchased a quantity of nets. On Olivia’s advice, we funded building and equipping with machinery, an engine repair facility, as part of Mr. Jayathilaka’s boatyard. In Sri Lanka the boats are powered by outboard engines, which are expensive to buy new, and the nearest repair facility for damaged engines, is in Colombo. This entails considerable expense and delay for the fishermen, so we agreed that as an ongoing project this would be a useful way to assist. Once the engines damaged in the Tsunami have all been repaired, the facility will be run on a commercial basis, but a portion of the profits will be returned to Friends of the South to provide ongoing support for their charitable activities. Olivia informs us that all boats required in the area have now been produced, and the fishermen are back at sea. Her Charity continues to provide funding and support for the ongoing reconstruction and repairs and we would recommend members planning a visit to Galle to contact Olivia, at the Aman Resort. Bernard Fison has been there to visit and was most impressed with all that had been achieved.

Thailand: Phuket & Nai Yang

Barry Cager & Somrudee Amatayakul

In Thailand, Barry Cager provided an invaluable link by finding two very satisfying projects for us to fund. Barry was greatly assisted by an energetic and determined Thai Lady named Somrudee Amatayakul, known to her many western friends as Cookie. Between these two we were able to provide direct assistance without using any middlemen, or suffering ‘management’ costs. Cookie was very generous in providing a welcome Dinner in Phuket for the entire visiting Thames cruise, and a splendid dinner and day out at a fabulous private garden in Chiang Mai, for those Thames tourists who traveled North. Everywhere we went in the Phuket area, the good works of Barry, Cookie and the Royal Thames, were known and appreciated.

In Phuket, we paid for the repair of 15 fishing boats, and provided new engines and nets. Total cost £8,800. The Nai Yang fleet was back on the water in time for a visit by our Commodore in April 2005, and continues to flourish. A group of Thames members led by Vice Commodore Stork and Rear Commodore Gilday, visited them in February 2006 and met with the fishermen who had all stayed ashore for the day, so we could see the entire fleet on the beach, or at anchor. It was a marvellous experience to see them looking slightly weather-beaten, and obviously well used.

Up the coast at Kao Lak, we had funded five brand new boats, together with engines and nets, for a cost of £7,000 have been completed and four are currently afloat with the Club ensignia on the bows, and numbered 1 to 5. We visited the very impressive boatbuilding facility at Cape Pakarang, and met Scott the Manager, who presented the Club with a lovely wooden model of a fishing boat. We also went to the local village and met the owner of Thames 3, who had just returned from a fishing trip and was unloading his catch. He had put on a new shirt for the occasion and proudly showed off his vessel, which looked sturdy and well used. At both beaches, the fishermen were back in business, and we felt very proud to have been able to assist in their return to normal life after trauma of the Tsunami.

In addition to the beach boats, the Charity also funded building a new Squid boat for
A fisherman called Jaroon, who had fallen between the bureaucratic cracks, and was
left boatless on the beach. His plight was discovered by Barry Cager who felt that this
was a worthy cause, and we agreed to fund the boat, total cost £7,500 thus enabling Barry to devote more resources to his activities of funding the education of orphaned schoolchildren on Koh Yo Yai Island, which had been hard hit by the wave.

India Andhra Prakesh

We recently met with the Rev. David Potterton of the British International Sailors
Society, and received an update on our joint project in India. In addition to the damage inflicted by the Tsunami, coastal fishing villages on the Bay of Bengal are regularly beset by tropical storms. The BISS are funding an experimental village, with 30 raised houses built of brick, instead of bamboo and palm thatch. It will be set back from the beach on slightly higher ground and the boats will be firmly tied to the houses.

They have nearly completed building the houses, despite many hair raising encounters with the fabled Indian Bureaucracy. In order to avoid some of the pitfalls encountered by other charities, whose good intentions were undermined by local sharp practices, they have set up a co-operative which will own the houses and, ultimately, the boats. We have agreed to provide fibreglass boats, which are built locally by a commercial boatyard, and, apparently transported sideways, on the back of pickup trucks. BISS have a representative on the ground who is monitoring progress, and so long as they are satisfied that the structure of the project is sound, we have undertaken to provide funding for 11 boats, and outboard engines at a total cost of £16,500. The estimated date for this to take place is May/June. If the BISS are unhappy about the details of the boat ownership and advise us not to proceed, then the earmarked funds will be transferred to the Trinity House project outlined below.

Sri Lanka: Trinity House & Northern Lighthouse Board

In Sri Lanka Trinity House and the Northern Lighthouse board, have undertaken the
repair of two lighthouses, the Great and Little Basses, and replacement and repair
of coastal navigation buoys, in the Galle and Trincomalee areas. We have agreed
to allocate the remaining balance of the funds available to our Charity to assist
with this very worthwhile endeavour. A cheque for £10,000 was presented to
Trinity House at the recent fitting out dinner held at the Royal Thames Club.

 
That will complete the work of the Royal Thames Yacht Club Charitable Trust
On behalf of all the fishermen, and their families, who we have already assisted, or are about
to assist, thank you very much for your generous support. We will post the Annual Report
of the Charity on the web site, once the final payments have been made.

The Trustees: Rufus Gilday Andrew Collins George Ehlers

THE CHARITABLE TRUST IN 2009

The latest report of the Trustees of the Royal Thames Yacht Club Charitable Trust is available on the website.  To access it click here.

People we have helped