Donations – Wealden Sailability

New Safety Boat

Donated to WS by Lee Hawley of Vertex Ltd. following on from our award of Disability Charity of the Year. Lee is a member of Chipstead Sailing Club and his business generously supports a local charity each year so we are honoured and delighted that he has chosen WS. WS and CSC will use the boat. Her name is Should’ve Reefed.

New Sails for 3 Stratos

West Kent Grand Lodge and the Masonic Charitable Foundation continues to support WS. This time they have generously agreed to donate 3 sets of sails for the Stratos boats. The generosity of West Kent Grand Lodge and the Masonic Charitable Foundation now means that all the 303’s and Stratos boats will have had new sails over the past and coming season.

Recently we’ve been delighted to receive donations through Just Giving. As we have a business account with Just Giving, we are unable to ascertain the names of donors. If you’d like us to know of your generosity please contact Mick Johns, Trustee & Treasurer, mick.wealdensailability@gmail.com. A few of our proposed projects are listed on our ‘Supporters’ page. To all our donors THANK YOU.

Great news! The Dragon Boat company has donated £1218.20 to us as a result of the dragon boat race festival on August 28th.
The same amount was donated to the Leonard Cheshire Home. An extremely generous donation.
See photos of the event on our gallery page.

After the success of the Drascombe Lugger which had been donated to Wealden Sailability by one of our long term sailors, it was decided after several discussions to buy a 2nd Drascombe, but this time a brand new Drascombe Longboat.

When they found out about it, the Friends of Pepenbury said they were very keen to help, so we were more than pleased, at the official launch on the 9th Oct, to name the new boat “Friends of Pepenbury”.

Pepenbury friends and clients at the launch

Just about to make the first official launch

Friends of pepenbury sailing away

It was also quite appropriate to see the new Pepenbury boat sailing alongside the original one, that had been donated in the very early years of Wealden and has been a great part of the fleet ever since.

Pepenbury old and new sailing together

Old and new Pepenbury boats

Earlier in the summer Wealden Sailability manned a stall at the Chelsfield Village Fair. We could hardly not do, seeing as the Fair committee had selected us as their nominated charity for this year…a great honour..!!

We were recently informed that despite the fact that a certain football match on the same day significantly reduced the footfall at the fair this summer, the committee have managed to donate the princely sum of £1,225 to Wealden…absolutely fantastic..!!

Here’s a photo of the stand with one of our Hansa 303’s set at a jaunty angle…expertly setup and manned by several willing volunteers from Wealden (including Nigel & Maria Lamb, Meg Warren & Mike Coleman) and ably supported throughout the day by several other Wealden volunteers..

On the 13th Sept, Wealden officially launched the wheelchair accessible boat named “The Spirit of Freemasonry”.
Along with the regular Wealden volunteers and clients, the event was also attended by many local Mason’s with over 20 guests, including wives and family from Knole Lodge, Holmesdale Lodge and Coulsdon Lodge.

Officers from the West Kent Masonic Province, who sponsored Wealden in the Masonic Charitable Foundation Tercentenary grant competition, also joined the party including Mark Eyles-Thomas, Deputy Provincial Grand Master from Province of West Kent, one or two Assistant Provincial Grand Master’s, our Provincial Grand Charity Steward Roland Stokes and Fred Haligan.

Mrs Maria Martyn, widow of the very recently deceased Master of Knole Lodge, Ross Martyn, attended and very kindly agreed to “Cut the Tape”.