The last weekend of July saw the arrival of the annual Sunderland International Airshow. Despite the gale-like conditions, ORCA volunteers were out in full strength to man the charity stall and tent.

Sunderland Council had decided to make this year's show as carbon neutral as possible and chose to instigate several offsetting projects across the city. Their ‘Green Village’ section of the show field was very popular with visitors and ORCA was delighted to be situated in this special area. As an organization, ORCA is relatively new to this area so we were extremely pleased that we attracted so much interest in both the work ORCA does and the local involvement of its volunteers. One of our supporting partners in our data collection programme, DFDS Seaways, the ferry company who sail locally out of Newcastle also provided us with some advertising literature. This literature proved invaluable to us in explaining our projects, essentially being invited aboard vessels of all sizes for data collection and analysis. DFDS are also working in collaboration with ORCA in their joint project of short wildlife cruises in September and October. For further information please visit their site at http://www.dfds.co.uk/DSW/EN

The Airshow also provided a great opportunity for ORCA volunteers who regularly travel the regional route to Bergen to meet up and take time out to make new friends and renew old friendships. As team leaders and volunteer observers, they travel several times a year, but it’s always nice to be able to meet up with others you may not have travelled with, but who share a special interest in both conservation and wildlife.

Several air show visitors expressed interest in becoming an ORCA volunteer and our staff were only too pleased to tell them about their work and in some cases adventures while travelling with us. ORCA welcomes a wide variety of volunteers, from those who are inexperienced or academically unqualified in the conservation or marine fields to those who already work in the field professionally. New volunteers are trained in surveying methods and cetacean identification and there are always other opportunities for volunteers to help ORCA; including administration, data analysis, fund-raising, recycling and working on the stall on education and awareness information days. ORCA appreciates all the time and skills our volunteers bring to us.

ORCA would like to thank all the volunteers who helped out on the stall both Saturday and Sunday: Simon Laing, Sarah Madder, Andy Tait, Mary Whowell, Hannah Bradford, Peter McCutcheon, Colin Tetley and Nicola Everitt. It was great to see everyone having such a good time and ORCA appreciated all your efforts.

To read the full report about ORCA at the Sunderland Airshow, click here