Ever noticed how surfing and cake always seem to go together? Well there was plenty of the sweet stuff to be had at last weekend’s Surfers Against Sewage Training and Celebration Event. And a good job too, as it was such an action-packed couple of days for some of the iSea team.

As the South Pembrokeshire region reps, we were invited up to Surf Snowdonia for SAS’s annual get together where we got to catch up with the SAS team, meet other reps and take part in a weekend of team building, learning and celebrating.

Road trip
We packed up our little yellow iSea surfwear van with wetsuits, boards and our warmest iSea hoodies, and took a slightly longer than anticipated drive north (thanks Sat Nav!). The journey was soon forgotten when we saw the amazing camping pods that we got to sleep in, and a BBQ meet and greet provided the perfect welcome.

Teamwork
Over the course of the weekend we took part in loads of workshops and team building activities, the aim of which was to help us find effective ways to educate beach users about environmental concerns around the coast and wave protection issues. We loved learning how to make animations with eco messages on the stop motion workshop – you can see some of these here –  https://www.facebook.com/SurfersAgainstSewage/ – they’re a really cool tool for teaching in schools and for getting social media spinning into action. The stepping stones team-builder was a fun challenge, where we had to navigate blindfolded members of the group through a watery maze in a bid to clean up the ocean. We were really interested to hear Alice (Scotland rep) speak about her nurdle-catching invention and loved the talk by Patric (The Wirral rep) about two artists who built New Brighton’s Black Pearl – a full-size pirate ship made entirely from driftwood and things washed up on the beach.

Best grom!
We packed in surfing, yoga, hill walking and lots of eating. It was great to try the surfing at Surf Snowdonia where Jaz picked up some great tips from the pros on how to catch the waves, as they are quite different to surfing in the ocean. But our highlight of the weekend was the awards ceremony on the Saturday night where reps are rewarded for great service. We were super-proud when iSea’s own Jaz won the Grom Award. As SAS’s youngest ever beach clean leader and only child rep, it was a very special moment to see her dedication to keeping our coast clean being recognised and rewarded. With such a great win in the bag, we danced the night away to the fabulous Sunset Sons who were excited to congratulate Jaz on her award and all insisted on shaking her hand!

Sea people
We set off for home on Sunday afternoon full of enthusiasm and ideas and cake! One of the most inspiring things about the whole event was just being in the same space as other people who are on the same wavelength – people who are passionate about the environment, the sea, art, animals and doing good. It was a very uplifting experience and one we hope to replicate on our own Beach Clean event, which is coming up soon. We’d love you to join us – find out everything you need to know here https://www.facebook.com/events/928087897294105/ and https://www.facebook.com/events/115821405619997/

Links
For more information on the iSea team, what we’re up to and our latest range, visit www.iseasurfwear.co.uk.

For more on Surfers Against Sewage and how you can get involved, go to http://www.sas.org.uk/ we would like to say a massive THANKS to all the lovely folks at SAS headquarters for making this happen!

This event was sponsored by  postcodelocaltrust. Thank you!

Rock out to the amazing Sunset Sons – https://www.facebook.com/SunsetSons/

Find out about the pirates who created The Black Pearl at https://www.facebook.com/pg/TheBlackPearlNewBrighton/about/?ref=page_internal

And lastly check out the amazing https://surfsnowdonia.com/ – a revolutionary world-first inland surf lagoon and the UK’s most compelling outdoor adventure destination, in North wales.

For more information and pictures check out  #regionalreps, #plasticfreecoastlines and @postcodelocaltrust.