OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS Shoreline has taken great strides forward. Our membership has grown faster than ever before, largely due to the support we are receiving from our members and, above all, from financial branches and guilds. We particularly appreciate the hard work of those branch members who, at certain harbours throughout the country, are making an appeal to yachtsmen; every yachtsman coming into harbour is given an enrolment form (with a note attached apologising for troubling them if they are already Shoreline members). The appeal is bearing good fruit: we are astounded by the number of replies we are receiving.

* * * At the foot of this page you will see a Shoreline enrolment coupon. If you pass on your copy of THE LIFEBOAT to a friend or colleague after you have read it perhaps you, too, will find that you have introduced a new member to the lifeboat service.

* * * Last March Lt-Col Brian Clark, RNLI national organiser in Ireland, gave a talk illustrated with slides to the commodore and members of the Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club. At the end of his talk, almost everyone present not yet a member of Shoreline 'joined up'; a wonderful response.

* * * Also, via Ireland, comes news of Shoreline support in America. Irving Anshen of Skipper Travel, Paboalto, California, arranged a holiday in Ireland for Norman and Mildred Woodbury, enrolled them in Shoreline and gave them the address of our Dublin office. Lt-Col Clark and his staff were delighted when Mr and Mrs Woodbury looked in at their office and the American visitors were assured of a warm welcome at any Irish lifeboat station at which they might call.

* * * The Shoreline club at Portsmouth, about which I told you in the winter issue of the journal, is proving a great success and it is hoped that this is an idea which could spread throughout the country.

I began considering the possibility of forming a Shoreline club many years ago, when I was district organising secretary (South London) and when a number of branch and Shoreline members said that they would welcome a social club where they could meet and exchange ideas. When I became membership secretary, therefore, this ambition remained with me and I was still pursuing ways and means by which we could all be brought together in a social environment when, to my great pleasure, I discovered by a change remark that Jack Chantler, a member of Portsdown branch, was thinking along the same lines. From this meeting a sub-committee was formed of interested branch and Shoreline members and we agreed to run a pilot scheme in the Portsmouth area. A circular letter to 800 Shoreline members brought back more than 700 replies.

Everyone liked the idea; there was no criticism at all.

So, on November 1, 1978, by courtesy of the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth who allowed us to use the Mayor's Banqueting Suite and Council Chamber, the inaugural meeting took place chaired by Sir Alec Rose. More than 150 Shoreline members and branch workers attended. It was unanimously agreed that a club should be formed and there were many volunteers to act on the committee. Regular monthly meetings have since been held at the Tudor Yacht Club, which allows us to use its premises free of charge.

Talks on various topics have been given, the first social function has taken place and it is encouraging that the average attendance at each meeting is over 50 people.

It is now our hope that similar clubs will be formed throughout the country, rather on the lines of the Round Table, Rotary or Lions clubs, so that our members will be able to visit clubs in other areas, building up strong, widespread links of friendship based on mutual interest in the lifeboat service.

I would like to stress, however, that these clubs would not be fund-raising bodies; while they would without doubt help local branches and guilds they would in no way cut across their activities.

* * * Coming back to the more mundane, but nevertheless important, aspect of our work, a letter from one of our members asked why we needed to use a computer to administer Shoreline membership. The answer is that the computer makes it possible for our same small staff to deal with an everincreasing volume of work. Since we went on to a computer three years ago our membership has grown from 30,000 to nearly 56,000. Without the computer we should have needed an appreciable increase in staff to deal with the extra work. In this way alone great saving has been made possible. I am very conscious of the fact that the change has also meant that a certain amount of personal approach has been lost and for this I sincerely apologise. We try to answer all letters containing a specific enquiry, but if you do receive a stereotyped reply we hope that you will understand that it is not our intention to be impersonal because we are fully aware of the value of the support given by each of you as an individual. Can I please ask you, therefore, to bear with us and be assured that every single one of you is of personal importance to the Institution in its work of saving lives at sea?—PETER HOLNESS, membership secretary, RNLI, West Quay Road, Poole, Dorset, BH15 1HZ (Tel. Poole 71133)..