SPRING, AND A NEW SEASON of inshore lifeboat service was given a fine start by the dedication of three boat generously given to the Institution by its friends: an Atlantic 21 for Hartlepool and D class ILBs for Crimond Dene and Little and Broad Haven.

Hartlepool is, in fact, an 'all seasons' ILB station and the new Atlantic 21, Guide Friendship HI, had already been launched on service a number of times before her dedication on April 24. She is the third of the class to have been provided from the £28,000 raised by the Guide Friendship Fund for the RNLI in 1974, 'The Year of the Lifeboat'.

It is not the first time that the Guides have helped the lifeboat service. In 1940 Guides of the British Empire raised £50,296 3s 4d to help the war effort, £5,000 of which was given to the RNLI to pay for a 35' 6" self-righting lifeboat. She was one of the little ships which went to Dunkirk and later, in 1941, she was stationed at Cadgwith in Cornwall. On June 14, 1947, she was named Guide of Dunkirk.

Back to 1976, Guide Friendship III was presented by Mrs R. H. Owthwaite, Girl Guide Commissioner for the NorthEast of England, to Mrs G. M. Keen, a member of the RNLI Committee of Management. About 400 Guides, Rangers and Brownies were present and a number of them were taken afloat by Hartlepool crew after the ceremony.

Just a few miles away, on Saturday April 10, about 60 members of theAncient Order of Foresters, accompanied by their wives and families, visited Crimdon Dene for the handing over, dedication and blessing of a D class inshore lifeboat donated by the Order.

She was presented by R. Kirkland, one of their executive committee members, and accepted by Councillor J. S.

Cummings, chairman of Easingwold Council and a staunch supporter of Seaham lifeboat.

The third ceremony was on May 9, down at Little and Broad Haven in South Wales, when E. R. Mockett, honorary secretary of Coventry branch, handed over a D class ILB to Lieut.- Commander George Cooper, divisional inspector of lifeboats (west). The cost of the boat had been defrayed by the people of Coventry and in accepting her Jim Max, chairman of Little and Broad Haven branch, said that their generosity would be remembered every time the ILB was launched..