Isle of Wight Pearl Dive in aid of the Waterside Community Trust
It was the 18th August and it was the first Pearl Dive that Isle of Wight Pearl or the Waterside Pool had ever done. The idea was born out of marketing meetings between the two companies, where talk of the original Pearl Divers and pearl extraction methods were the topic of conversation and hence the idea was born. The Waterside Pool had water and the IOW Pearl had pearls. With Waterside Pool being a registered charity, IOW Pearl were keen to support the pool with a fundraising event so the idea quickly went from paper into action.
We had seaweed and diving toy decoys and the idea was that every twenty minutes six oyster shells, one containing a real pearl would be dropped into the pool and customers would have the chance to dive down and retrieve an oyster shell. The signal that shells had been dropped were the dulcet tones of “Sebastian the Crab”singing the “Under the Sea” themefrom Disney’s The Little Mermaid over the loud speaker. Even if an empty shell was found the customer could still keep the shell and had a consolation prize. However, on the night from the real pearls found some were of the value of up to £150. In our later session a lucky husband and wife found a pearl each and were thrilled having just moved to the island themselves.
We also had a grand prize draw with incredible prizes donated from: IW Steam Railway, Wightsight, Rosemary Vineyard, Isle of Wight Distillery, Hillbans Pest Control, PC Consultants, IOW Pearl, Tesco, Three Buoys Restaurant, Koko’s Bear Shop, Grace’s Bakery, Barrow Boys,DW Jarvis Family Butchers, Harwoods Garage, Tapnell Farm, Sue Paraskeva Designer Porcelain, The Garlic Farm, Busy Bee and Georgina Bottriell Photography. Prizes were drawn after the event at IOW Pearl by IOW Pearl Manager Lizzie Wade and Trustees Keith Gentlemen (Chairman) and Peter Taylor.
All in all, the event was almost a sell out and raised nearly £1000 for the Waterside Community Trust. We were so thrilled that this first time event raised so much. We are incredibly grateful to Lizze Wade, Rossanne Burfoot& Charley McAllister of Isle of Wight Pearl for their support and there is already talk to do it again next year. So watch this space ! www.watersidepool.co.uk www.iowpearl.com
