A new member of the Fishponds branch of the R.N.L.I., Mr. Martin Rowe, organised a 'Guess my weight' competition, plus a skittles evening, at the Railway Hotel, Fishponds, near Bristol—and raised over £27.

Captain John M. Elgar, R.N.R., who is a senior partner in a firm of Salisbury solicitors, recently offered—and his offer was accepted—to have his firm's letters franked with the 'Help the Life-boats'' mark.

Rhona Brown, aged 7, daughter of the honorary secretary of the Paisley ladies' life-boat guild, organised with her two friends, Christine McAlphine (8) and Eleanor Pritchard (10), a coffee morning. Alone and unaided they made buns (for which they sold the recipe), provided the coffee and ran a raffle, making a profit of £5. Rhona''s grandmother, the late Mrs. T. J. Brown, was also a keen R.N.L.I. worker.

Mr. S. F. Leaver, chairman of the Enfield, Middlesex, branch, writes: 'My branch has found another novel way of raising money. We collect Green Shield stamps which we are able to cash at the rate of 12s. per book. If members or their friends receive such stamps for goods or petrol and don't collect them we are open to receive them.' Mr. Michael Elder, of Edinburgh, who edits The Scottish Story of the Life-boat, gave part of his 1969 professional fee for this work to the R.N.L.I.

The Bristol office of the R.N.L.I. late last year received a cheque for over £37, being the proceeds of a sponsored all-night basket-ball marathon which was staged by members of the East Town House of Clifton College, Bristol.

A group of Dunbar, East Lothian, youngsters asked the Dunbar ladies' life-boat guild if they could have a stall and sell shells. Their 'lovely polished shells' brought in £5 13s. 5d. They even made their own poster to advertise the event.

A miniature working circus, consisting of over 200 figures and more than 50 vehicles, conceived and built by Mr. Roy Gumbrell, of St. Dionis Road, Fulham, London, not only earns money in the way of donations for the R.N.L.I. when it is on public display but part of the hire fee is given to the life-boat service by Mr. Gumbrell.

Every time the maroons calling out the life-boat are fired at Bridlington, Yorkshire, the Mayor and Mayoress put a shilling each in a collecting box at their home. It was pointed out that if 1,000 people did this, and the life-boat was launched 18 times a year, the total collected would be nearly £1,000.

In enclosing a cheque to the R.N.L.I. for £5 5s., a supporter explained that it was part of the fee he received for a photograph which a yachting publication had intended to use but which was subsequently lost. However, the publication paidhim, and he added:'/ have admired the work of the R.N. L.I. many times each year in the Solent and along the south coast, and hope you can make similar good use of the very small tribute to the magnificent efforts of your Institution'.

Mrs. Lewis, the energetic proprietor of the Seaspray Cafe, Burnham-on-Sea, stacks all her chipped cups beside an R.N.L.I. mechanical collecting box. Customers who want to buy them cheaply are asked to contribute.

On the same day as the Apollo 11 was launched the Rocket Club, of Birming- ham, which was founded in 1897, presented the R.N.L.I. with a cheque for £300 as a result of an appeal by the president of the club, Mr. G. Collins-Jones. During the past three years over £900 a year has been distributed to charities, and since 1914 a sum in excess of £20,000 has been disbursed.

Michele Tiernan, of Burn Bridge, Harrogate, Yorkshire, in sending the Institution £2 14s. 7d., said: "Recently my friend Sally Newton and I held a garden fete. It was not a very nice day so we held it in the garage. ... 7 hope you will be able to make use of our small donation.'' The Jersey Pottery, Gorey, Jersey, Channel Islands, have for some years been asking visitors who were not charged to look round their work premises todonate something to charity. The contributions are collected in giant pots, and last year when the Bailiff, Sir Robert Le Masurier, smashed the huge pots with a sledge-hammer, £1,850 in coppers, silver and notes poured on the ground. The share given to the R. N.L.I, was £500.

When in July, 1969, the Weymouth life-boat had to have her hull cleaned there was no slip available at the time. Arrangements were therefore made with a local skin diving club and five of their members who are divers scrubbed the hull.

Their charge for the operation was £5, which only covered them for the air used.

The work itself was done free of charge. The club, whose chairman is Mr. R. Parry, has put on a number of displays in the past in aid of the life-boat service.

In thanking the R.N.L.I, for their co-operation in arranging demonstrations at Llandudno, Rhyl and Blackpool last summer, Mr. R. J. Powell, publicity manager, Daily Express, Manchester, said: 'There is no doubt that this was a great exercise appreciated by holidaymakers and residents alike in all the three resorts. . . . We have written to the individual secretaries . . . and are arranging for a cheque for £50 to be sent to each station.' When a Klondyke treasure hunt was arranged in September, 1969, on Barry Island, Glamorganshire, run by Barry Corporation and John Collins Pleasure Park, hundreds of people took part in the 'dig' and close on £190 was given to the R.N.L.I.

In 1868 Messrs. Harland and Wolff built a ship called the Star of Greece for Messrs. J. P. Corry. Last year—100 years later—a three-foot-long model of this vessel turned up, and Mr. Brian Corry asked a local amateur model enthusiast to repair it for the firm's board room. Mr. Michael Bailey, of Knockdarragh Park, Belfast, repaired the model and donated the fee—£25—to the R.N.L.I.

Miss E. G. Hutchins, of Chadwell Heath, Romford, Essex, sells rooted cuttings from her small garden in aid of chanties. Last year she selected the R.N.L.I. and sent a donation of£l 10s.

In August, 1969, three Reading, Berkshire, boys, Alastair Barrow, David Bowell and Jeffrey Dray, who had just left the George Palmer Junior School, held a fete in Jeffrey's back garden in aid of the R.N.L.I. Aim was to raise £10 for the life-boats but the amount made exceeded £18. In a covering letter, the boys said: 'We think the R.N.L.I. is a jolly good cause and we are glad to help'.

Form 5M of the King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth, Lincolnshire, raised £1 by washing cars used by the staff.

A Mrs. Thompson and a Mrs. Smith, supported by friends who all live in Hull, decided to couple their holidays with some worthwhile project and undertook a sponsored walk from their home town of Skegness, Lincolnshire, pushing their prams and taking the family with them. They looked after their own arrangements and a Hull business man offset expenses incurred en route. About £500 was raised for the R.N.L.I.'On the 14th of May some of our class went down town 10 buy some seeds and they grew into plants that we sold for a penny and then we grew some cuttings and we sold them for 6d. and9d. and when we had got five pounds for the infants we started to save for the R.N.L.I. . . .'. So ran a letter written by a small girl at the Woodlands Junior School, Tonbridge, Kent, describing part of the programme arranged at her school in support of the life-boat service. The amount collected was £4 12s. 6d.

Since 1963, when Commander J. H. Bowen, of Wareham, Dorset, started to collect for the Swanage branch, he has raised over £730 by collecting from custo- mers to his studio. Money is collected by means of a life-boat box and from an adjacent fountain. Commander Bowen estimates that to date some 100,000 coins have been thrown into the fountain. An idea of the success of the fountain as a collecting agent was indicated in a letter received from Commander Bowen in July last year. He said that a mechanical collecting box on the stall table during Life-boat Week produced £4 2s 3d., a larger 'boat' £3 7s. 8d., and the fountain 2,677 coins worth over £18.

While on holiday in August, 1969, at Pontins Holiday Camp, Selsey, Sussex, a children's fancy dress competition was held at which Tommy Hamilton, aged 17 months, of West Wickham, Kent, was dressed in his yellow mackintosh and sou'wester. Then he went on stage with an R.N.L.I. collecting box. He won the competition and, in going round the hall, collected £5—possibly a record for such a youthful collector.

In sending £1 2s. to the R.N.L.I., Elizabeth Austin, aged 10, Robert Austin, 9, and Andrew Bourne, 6, of Banbury, Oxfordshire, said: 'To get this money for you we picked fruit and sold it at our garden gate'.

While on holiday at Fleetwood, Lancashire, Jane Addison, aged 8, of Slough, saw the life-boat go out on duty twice. When she returned to Slough, and without telling anyone, she selected toys and books of her own and sat outside on the kerb selling them. Result: 10s. 4d. for the R.N.L.I.

HALFPENNIES HELP THE LIFE-BOATS Mr. Stanley Docherty, of Ashington, Northumberland, has handed over a sum in excess of £52 to the Newbiggin ladies' guild which he raised through collecting halfpennies when they were taken out of general circulation. He received press coverage for his efforts whjch resulted in support from all sections of the community in all parts of the county. Mr. Docherty, incidentally, has had a lengthy association with the local guild.

WEYMOUTH CENTENARY When the Weymouth life-boat celebrated its centenary last year the ladies' life-boat guild made an all-out effort to mark the occasion by raising a record £970 for the R.N.L.I. Their life-boat shop, for instance, made over £320..