Sailing youth charity Oarsome Chance has a new patron in the person of Toby Marris, skipper of the 1913 Pilot Cutter Jolie Brise.
Toby is Sailing Master at Dauntsey’s school in Wiltshire as well as being chairman of Tall Ships International, an RYA examiner and on the board at ASTO. He joins Oarsome’s other patron, international Hugo Boss sailor Alex Thomson, with a remit of promoting the charity worldwide.
Oarsome Chance is a charity that works with disadvantaged youngsters in Hampshire and last November it moved into a new premises in Gosport, Hants, with a workship based on Forton Lake. This has a fully equipped boatbuilding and carpentry workshop, together with a sailmaking canvas workshop with three industrial sewing machines. The arrival of highly experienced sailmaker Tracey has led to the creation of a range of bespoke products, including key rings and holdalls for Alex Thomson’s team (Alex has donated his old sails to the project), as well as fantastic ‘directors chairs’, using wood from the upcycled boom gallows of the Jolie Brise, covered in the jib sail material she flew during the Tall Ships race.
Students get training in design and sewing skills as well as learning business insight as the enterprise grows.
Canvas works has now made deck chairs, wallets, bags, windbreaks, key rings, pencil cases, repairs, covers and more! There’s nothing we won’t try and Canvas Works has truly become a social enterprise capable of combining business and training in a unique and appealing way.
Social enterprise is close to the heart of Oarsome Chance’s mission and the team will be exploring other social enterprise opportunities as the programme develops. We are always keen to extend links to potential business partners and supporters as the programme grows.
In June, CS ran a story on the charity’s StAyles gigs challenge, the Portsmouth Pull event – where teams competed in a lap of the Portsmouth naval harbour taking in Spinnaker Tower, HMS Victory, Portchester Castle and Gosport’s Millennium Bridge.
The event was a such a huge success (see the news reports here) that due to popular demand Oarsome is running the it again on 28 September.
Places are limited, so if you’d like to enter a team (no previous rowing experience required!) then get in touch ASAP:
events@oarsomechance.org | Tel: 02392 504492