MEMBERSHIP is increasing steadily and at present totals over 14,000. Insignia sales have been growing in recent months, and we hope that we are now producing good quality articles at reasonable cost. We are aware that the 8-inch flags produced to date have not been extremely durable in bad weather.

However, new flags are now being produced in nylon and wool bunting and our practical tests over several months' continual flying on a small ferry boat at Poole show that they are extremely hard wearing.

We also have a 12-inch flag of similar design which is available at a cost of £2.

The move of Shoreline to the Salisbury office has now been completed. Owing to slight variation in systems one or two anomalies may arise. Should anybody not receive normal service please let us know.

Bearing in mind our eventual move to Poole in the future, possibly 1975, we are carrying out initial enrolments at RNLI Headquarters, West Quay Road, Poole, Dorset, BH15 1HZ, all subsequent correspondence and communi-cations from existing members being dealt with by Shoreline Membership Office, 29a Castle Street, Salisbury, Wilts., SP1 ITT, where all records are maintained and insignia despatched.

We plan to launch into a recruiting campaign at the International Boat Show at Earl's Court next year. Our target for membership is 250,000.

Our members are now an essential part of the lifeboat service, but there are literally thousands who gain pleasure or who work at sea,besides the remainderof the country who rely on our exports andimports transported by sea from these islands of ours. Can we not persuade them that they will, by becoming Shoreline members, help supply the vital boats and equipment required by our gallant crews to carry out the saving of life from the sea ? There are many who would wish to help the RNLI but haven't the time. The answer is simply to join Shoreline and,4ip 24*p 46ip 14p 10|p 1972 Expenditure Accounts-at-a-glance To Reserves Construction of new boats Operational District and costs of running lifeboats lOOp Branch expenses (including publicity) Administration (Head Office and Depot)with insignia, show others that you are part of the lifeboat fraternity.

If you feel strongly on lifeboat affairs, become a governor of the Institution at a minimum of £10 per annum or a life governor for a single minimum payment of £60. This entitles you to attend the governors' meeting when the Committee of Management reports on the running of the Institution.

We hope our present members will with their enthusiasm help by introducing their friends and acquaintances to Shoreline. Should you have the facilities in your club, office or other premises to distribute forms, we will gladly supply enrolment forms in a convenient dispenser—Robert (Bob) Walton, Shoreline Organising Secretary (Membership).

Mermaid Ball The Hon. Mrs Donald Campbell is chairman of the Lifeboat and Mermaid ball which is being held this year at the Dorchester Hotel, London, on December 11. Tickets may be obtained from Mrs Heather Hodges, MBE, Lifeboat House, 42 Grosvenor Gardens, London, SW1W OEF (Tel.: 01-7300031) at £6.50 each.

Escape of Arthur Verrion The RNLI is indebted to the East Kent Times of May 1, 1973, for this story of a ducking with a happy ending.

'At the age of 74', the report stated, 'ex-lifeboat coxswain Arthur Verrion has battled against some pretty rough seas in his time. During 45 years of RNLI service he's been out in the worst of weathers helping rescue scores of fellow seamen in peril from the stormy waves.

'But Arthur is recovering this week from his first-ever fall into the water . . .

and he had only been working in Ramsgate harbour's inner basin at the time! 'Arthur was standing on a pontoon helping to fit out the motor yacht Kate Elizabeth when he took his ducking.

"I was on the edge of the pontoon with a couple of brushes when I put the wrong foot out and went in feet first.

I was fully clothed at the time and wearing boots and a hat. I went down to the bottom and it's about 12ft. deep there." 'Arthur dislocated a shoulder in the incident. He was fished out by his colleague on the yacht Charlie Pettit and a fitter called Derek. They took him home to change his clothes before he went to Ramsgate hospital to get his arm seen to.

'For 12 years Arthur was coxswain of Ramsgate lifeboat and he has always had a love for the sea. Strangely enough he can't swim—though this has never worried him.

' "I always remember what my father said when he was alive: If you're bom to be hung you will never drown. Neither my father nor grandfather could swim either",' he added.Famous lifeboat gets model send off The lifeboat in which coxswain Henry Blogg, of Cromer, most famous of all lifeboatmen, saved so many lives returned to these shores from Ireland on July 18 to find a final home.

Miss Gaynor Lacey (right), the Liverpool- born model who earlier this year was selected as Miss Leisure Sport 73, broke a bottle of champagne over the bows of the 37-year-old lifeboat at Crosshaven Boat Yard before the boat was taken to England to be used in a fund-raising venture for the RNLI in a new leisure park 14 miles from London.

The lifeboat, the H. F. Bailey, stationed at Cromer between 1935 and 1946, has been bought by Leisure Sport Ltd, a subsidiary of the Ready Mixed Concrete Ltd Group of Companies.

Leisure Sport Ltd have bought the H. F. Bailey for eventual use as a feature in their 500-acre Waterpark in Thorpe, Surrey, to be opened some time in 1975. Here she will be launched daily and manned by ex-RNLI personnel.

Leisure Sport Ltd expect that by these demonstrations and their fund-raising events they will be able to provide the funds for a new £100,000 lifeboat every five years or so.

The H. F. Bailey was sailed over from Ireland by Lt-Commander Harold Harvey, VRD, RNR, who is the only RNLI Inspector of lifeboats ever to have won the Institution's gold medal for gallantry. He was accompanied throughout the voyage by Mr Alan Endsor, the Deputy Managing Director of Ready Mixed Concrete Ltd Group of Companies, and Mr Tim Hartwright, a fellow director of Leisure Sport Ltd.

On arrival in this country the H. F.

Bailey was transported by road from Bristol to the National Water Sports Centre at Holme Pierrepont, outside Nottingham, for the official opening of the Centre by the Prime Minister, Mr Edward Heath, on July 27. The H. F.Bailey remained at Holme Pierrepont until the end of the World Junior Rowing Championships, an international event staged by the Amateur Rowing Association and sponsored jointly by the Sports Council and Leisure Sport Ltd, and in September was being refitted at Oulton Broad, Suffolk.Spotted by his tie Mr Raymond Baxter, the TV personality, who serves on the Public Relations Committee of the RNLI, was approached in May by the Reading Young Enthusiasts about a sponsored walk planned for August.

The letter from Mr Alastair Barrow, chairman, stated: 'I have often seen you wearing an RNLI tie on "Tomorrow's World", so I presume that you are interested in some way. I am the chairman of the Reading children's fundraising branch of the RNLI, and in two years we have raised nearly £300 towards a total of £1,000 which we need to buy an inshore lifeboat for the RNLI fleet.

Next year we all take "O" levels so we want to raise the £700 this year. To raise this money we are going to walk the 106 miles between Calshot, Hampshire, and Lyme Regis, Dorset, which is 106 miles along the south coast. To raise £700 we need 5,000 sponsors each giving 15p as a total.

Mr Baxter replied as follows: 'Thank you for your letter which I read with great interest. As a matter of fact, I have the honour to serve on the Public Relations Committee of the RNLI, so your shrewd observation of my tie was perhaps more pointed than you may have thought. I shall be very pleased indeed to be included in your list of sponsors.' Note: The walk is understood to have been a great success and money is still coming in.

Well done!—EDITOR..