As many supporters of the life-boat service will be aware, the R.N.L.I. had a serious deficit in 1967. Expenditure amounted to over £1,921,000 and receipts to just over £1,500,000. This has left a gap of more than £410,000. With the major programme of reconstruction and modernisation on which the Institution had to embark a few years ago, and with a sudden and disturbing decline in the amounts received from legacies—not in the numbers of legacies—a deficit last year was inevitable.

It was, in fact, by far the largest deficit the Institution has incurred in any one year. Indeed the deficit itself was not much less than the total cost of running the service a little more than twenty years ago. In 1946, the first year of peace, total expenditure on the life-boat service was £450,597.

Energetic steps are, of course, being taken both to control expenditure and, equally important, to increase revenue. A new system of financial control has been introduced to ensure the most effective possible expenditure of all moneys collected. Among projects for increasing revenue are the holding of a lottery or national competition; and a drive to obtain more support from those to whom the life-boat service is of most direct and immediate benefit, particularly boat owners and insurance companies. The possibilities which a competition offers were indicated by the remarkable achievement of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Steward, who staged a competition last year. As a result of this competition Mr. Steward was able to hand over a cheque to the Institution for £7,320. Many of the branches of the Institution did, of course, co-operate in this scheme, but the administrative work was done entirely by Mr. and Mrs. Steward with limited secretarial help.

Branches of the Institution will, of course, be kept informed of these and other plans for increasing revenue, and their help will naturally be sought.

BUSIEST YEAR EVER The year with the biggest deficit was also by far the busiest year the life-boat service has ever known. R.N.L.I. rescue craft were launched 2,141 times in 1967. The previous record figure, which was set up in 1966, was 1,784. Lifeboats were launched on service 1,103 times compared with 1,054 in 1966, and IRBs 1,031 times compared with 730 a year earlier. When it is realised that iRBs first came into service in 1963 the fact that they are now launched almost as frequently as life-boats gives some indication of the tremendous expansion in the work of this arm of the service.

Many more lives were saved in 1967 than the year before. Life-boats saved 644 people compared with 492 in 1966, and IRBs 492 compared with 328.

NEW CHAIRMAN Admiral Sir Wilfrid Woods, G.B.E., K.C.B., D.S.O., has been elected Chairman of the Committee of Management of the Institution. He succeeds Captain the Honourable V. M. Wyndham-Quin, R.N., who has retired after serving as Chairman since 1964. Captain Wyndham-Quin remains a member of the Committee of Management.

Admiral Woods, whose home is at Burley, Hampshire, joined the Committee of Management of the R.N.L.I. in 1966. He served in submarines and on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean, during the last war. He was Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet, and N.A.T.O. Cpmmander-in-Chief, Eastern Atlantic, from 1960 to 1962 and Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, and Allied Commander-in-Chief, Channel, from 1963 to 1965. He was First and Principal A.D.C. to the Queen from 1962 until he retired in 1965.

In 1963 he became Commodore of the Royal Naval Sailing Association.

Captain Wyndham-Quin joined the Committee of Management in 1936 and became Deputy Chairman in 1956. He succeeded the late Earl Howe as Chairman eight years later.

In recognition of his outstanding services, his colleagues on the Committee of Management recently decided that the new Clacton-on-Sea life-boat should be named Valentine Wyndham-Quin. Captain Wyndham-Quin worked tirelessly throughout his period of service as chairman, visiting many stations, taking passage in new life-boats and continually and energetically seeking to raise funds for the service.

Air Vice-Marshal Sir Geoffrey R. Bromet, K.B.E., C.B., D.S.O., D.L., and Commander F. R. H. Swann, O.B.E., R.N.V.R., remain Deputy Chairmen.

REVIEW OF LIFE-BOAT REQUIREMENTS In 1965 the Committee of Management set up a working party to make recommendations on the future deployment of the life-boat fleet. Many factors had to be taken into consideration. Among the most important of these were the introduction of the inshore rescue boat and the increased speed and greater range which new forms of design and construction had made possible in lifeboats.

A detailed analysis was made of every service carried out at every lifeboat station over a period of eleven years. The first meeting of the working party took place on 13th September, 1965, and its work continues. Some of the results of this detailed and exhaustive review are now beginning to emerge. A new life-boat station is already in being at Lochinver, and the Harwich station has been reopened after nearly 50 years. The No. 2 life-boat was withdrawn from Cromer and an IRB placed at the station. It was also decided to withdraw the Liverpool-type life-boat from Clovelly, where the 70-foot steel life-boat is stationed and where there is an IRB.

It has now been decided to withdraw the life-boats stationed at Boulmer and Holy Island in Northumberland, and at Criccieth in Caernarvonshire. The IRB is remaining on service at Criccieth, and the life-boat house at Boulmer is being retained against the possibility of providing some other form of rescue craft at the station at a future date.

These changes may be seen as part of an historic process. Earlier in this century the number of life-boat stations exceeded 300, but with the greater power provided by the internal combustion engine it was possible for many of the pulling life-boats to be withdrawn without any decrease in the efficiency of the service.

NEW FORM OF JOURNAL Because of the huge increase in the number of services carried out by life-boats and IRBs, and in the interests of economy, a major change has had to be introduced in the contents of the journal. Hitherto all effective services have been reported in full, but in order to do this it was found necessary to produce a 90-page number in December, 1967. From now onwards reports will be limited to those services in which lives were saved.

NOTICE All contributions for the Institution should be sent either to the honorary secretary of the local branch or guild, or to Stirling Whorlow, O.B.E., Secretary, Royal National Life-boat Institution, 42 Grosvenor Gardens, London, S.W.I.

All enquiries about the work of the Institution or about this journal should be addressed to the Secretary.

The next number of THE LIFE-BOAT will be published in June, 1968.