A charity organisation has been providing boat rides for community groups for more than a decade. The Newark Crusader is a 60ft boat that has been taking disabled, elderly and disadvantaged groups of people on river cruises near Newark since the 1990s.
The boat operates as a charity run entirely by volunteers who provide pre-booked River Cruises on the River Trent from Newark Marina. The organisation specialises in providing trips for care home, special needs, community and educational groups.
One of the group's trustees, Maurice Flemmings, has been a volunteer since 2016. He said: "The boat was one of a series built for St John's Ambulance in the early nineties and from what I can gather, they couldn't manage to operate them and they were being sold off. The one in Newark was rescued by a couple of business men who set it up as a charitable association about ten years ago.
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"We provide a service for a range of groups, we don't take individual bookings for the boat. We do care homes, special need groups, community groups, educational groups ranging from people aged four years old to 92. We're doing well, we carried 750 passengers last summer and we are targeting a bit more this summer if we can."
The boat has around 28 volunteers who are mostly retired. Maurice added that volunteering "keeps us busy and off the streets in retirement" and they "get a lot of fun out of it."
He explained that most of the volunteers had no boating experience beforehand, and are building it up as they go, but some volunteers have been with the boat since it was owned by St John Ambulance service. Maurice continued: "We take 12 people at a time including carers, and for this year we have about 50 bookings which is 500 plus people.
"We have been very careful, we are doing what we can to keep our costs constant, as it's difficult enough for this type of group. We try and keep the cost down if we can."
Whilst the boat is a charity and all the volunteers are unpaid, groups are charged for the trips to help cover the running cost of the boat. The group have calculated that it costs around £100 to run a trip, and so charge £6 per person.
Owner of the boat, James Wilkinson, added: "I'm just proud that we have got it in a good place and the team that are with us are doing a fantastic job. We've got it in a nice location now, in good order and we have a fantastic team of volunteers that are just doing a sterling job.
"It's just a pleasure to see them going out with people and beaming as they go along."
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