Hi I'm Theo Mills, and I was student-leader along with Kathy Stanley-Quist of the 2015 Thames River Clean, as part of the Sports Volunteering Steam. We were supported by Volunteering Projects Design and Development Coordinator, Sarah Dutton.
I started scuba diving back in September of 2013 and have
fallen in love with the sport. The club brings together an amazing group of
people and one of our biggest events in the calendar year is the Kingston Thames River Clean.
Originally thought up and masterminded by fellow diver and
Kingston alumni Chris Elliot, 2015 was the 4th consecutive year that
the river clean had been held. Having sadly missed last year’s river lean this
was my first year attending and also helping to organising the event with other
members of KUSAC and the Students' Union (SU).
I joined the committee just before Christmas of 2014 and was
amazed by the amount of work that actually goes into making this event
possible. Just for a one day event there is so much work behind the scenes that
goes into making it possible. This involved applying for grants, contacting
people to attend the event and general organisation of location and equipment.
After careful consideration on much deliberation we settled on the 30th
of May as the date for the clean. In order to secure the date, The
Environment Agency gave us the go ahead, closed off one of the arches of
Kingston Bridge, provided us with a river barge for rubbish, and informed all
river users of the activity. We also had to organise insurance, recruitment of volunteers from all over the community, timetables, lunches, health and safety briefings, risk assessments and much more. It was exhausting but amazing to see so many get on board including, KUSAC, KUBAG, KU Kayakers, KU Mountaineers, Kingston Council, Environment Agency, Metropolitan Police, RNLI, Thames 21, Aquanauts and Capital Clean Up.
The hard work paid off and the river clean was an amazing
success. In total we pulled out over 460 items from just a small stretch of the
river. This included 31 trollies and 7 different push bikes. All the volunteers
did an amazing job on the day, and made it and exciting and enjoyable day for
the public and everyone involved.
Next year I will be heading up the committee, and I look forward to helping keep this wonderful project going. It
is clear we are helping to improve the environment around Kingston and this is
an event that bring a number of different people together for a good cause.
