The educational charity on the tidal Thames.
About Thames Explorer
The river Thames is the greatest of English rivers, rising in Thameshead in the Cotswolds and flowing for 315 km to the North Sea. The Thames Explorer Trust, founded in 1988 is an educational charity who promotes access to the Thames from source to sea. . We provide activities to increase access to the river. Safety is paramount so we raise awareness of working beside rivers and to manage risk. With the Port of London Authority we are the authors of the Health and safety guidelines to the Thames foreshore. We work with many different Thames related bodies and have a role as an umbrella body bringing groups together to increase the educational potential of the Thames. The Trust is run by a committee of 8 members, who oversee the 2 full time and 9 freelance staff and a small pool of volunteers.
What we do
• Education programmes all along the Thames for schools, adults and family groups. We have 11 Thames side venues from Greenwich in the east to Hampton in the west where we deliver award winning schools programmes.
• Training in Thames related river studies for teachers, schools, teacher training colleges and other groups.
• Educational materials, providing a wide range of resources for schools, Thames resources are available for schools to buy or use for free by downloading from our website.
• Project work, We are currently an active supporting charity of the Thames Discovery Programme, the foreshore archaeology group funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
• Summer holiday activities for playschemes. Every year we take well over 1000 children on a boat trip along the Thames.
• Conferences and talks which we organise and participate in. We are members of many river related organisations where we are active participants. The Thames Educational Network, the Thames Estuary Partnership, the River Thames Alliance and the Thames Landscape Strategy.
• Information, consultancy and advice on river related matters and support for environmental education, community facilities, and charity management.
