Getting Organised for Beach Keeping

Inform and invite other groups right from the start!

Your project can help rescue one of our most precious and special resources - our beaches. To be a real success, it needs to involve many different segments of your community. Experience in other areas has shown that if you let others know about your plans to improve the beaches, and invite them to participate, you'll have a greater chance of truly making a difference.

Beach problems, especially littering and pollution, often come from sources far away from the beach itself so they can't be solved without involving people from a wider area. You can either start with a strong council leadership seeking local volunteers or you might begin with a grass roots local group that seeks government and public support. Local groups are essential to taking care of the beaches as they live close to the beach and can see changes on a daily basis. They can conduct surveys and observe unpredictable events that may help identify and correct problems.

The best approach is a team effort where everyone can benefit from the shared experience and resources of a wide range of interested people and organisations.

• Hold a public meeting and invite the environmental officers or representatives from City, District, and Regional council, the local Fisheries office, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry for the Environment, and local Iwi. Students can help prepare and send letters to these organisations.
  

• Invite local groups. Conservation clubs, like Forest and Bird, and youth groups like the sea scouts, and girl guides. Invite Church groups and community business groups like the Rotary or Lions Club or businesses that depend on the beach for their customers. Not everyone will want to participate, but people will be more likely to take your scientific work more seriously if they are informed and included at the very start.
  

• Find key people. What you are actually seeking are the few people in every community who have the interest and are willing to donate time and resources to caring for the environment. When you find them, they will be invaluable in helping get things organised and keeping the project a fun social activity. It is not set up to be an "opposition" group to fight for the rights of the environment. It is a support group to strengthen community involvement in a lifestyle that enhances our living resources.
  

• Setting your Goals. Include, on your agenda for the public meeting, such questions as "Which beach shall we study?" "What are people's major concerns about the use of the beach?" What has already been done in your area on mapping, photographing, or studying the beaches and coastlines?" "What are the community goals for the beaches?" These goals should be stated in a quantitative way, if possible. "What will we call our organisation?" "When and how often shall we do our census activities and beach clean-ups?" "What other activities should we do (such as water quality measurements, beach sand movements, replanting of dunes, water current studies).
  

• Keep Records and produce Reports. Have students act as reporters for the meeting and jointly write a report on the findings. They might ask biologists or other professionals that attend the meeting to send any relevant papers, aerial photographs, or other helpful materials to include in the report. This report will set the stage for the entire research programme. Throughout the programme publish a regular newsletter and special reports. Keep the local media involved with interesting stories. Take plenty of pictures, put up posters in the local shopping centre, make beach signs and a public outdoor information display of your scientific project and its results.
  

• Organise activities. In addition to your major scientific projects, your organisation should also host information days, beach walks (with biologists), Beach Care Awards, displays at local shopping centres and shows, membership drives.
  

• Link up with other groups. Stay informed of what other beach care groups are up to and include this information in your own newsletter and media articles. Trade ideas and support openly and enthusiastically. Help train each other, share speakers, organise a conference.
  

• Learn from the successes (and failures) of others. Students could research the history of another community improvement group established to improve some environmental condition. They present a report evaluating the impact of the activities of the group.