SHORELINE IS GOING THROUGH One Of the most exciting periods of its life. At the end of August the new Shoreline 37ft 6in Rother lifeboat will be setting out on her delivery trip to Blyth and I am hoping to join her at Spurn Point for the last stages of her passage to station.

Her naming will be on Saturday October 20, when the ceremony will be performed by Sir Alec Rose, Shoreline member No. 1. Reports of both events will appear in the winter issue of THE LIFEBOAT.

A first day cover to commemorate the naming ceremony will be available from Pilgrim Philatelies Ltd, 13 Best Lane, Canterbury, Kent (Tel. 61859).

* * * Two new items have been introduced into our range of insignia and both are available from the Shoreline office at Poole. The first is a green Shoreline tie, price £2.50, and the second is a Shoreline sweat shirt, price £5.25 plus 25p for postage.

* * * Portsmouth Shoreline Club has been running for nearly a year now and enthusiasm is high. One evening last July a group of more than 50 members went on an outing to Selsey lifeboat station, where (see above) they were welcomed by the honorary secretary, Des Cockayne, and Coxswain Mike Grant, recently awarded the Institution's silver medal (see page 185).

Anyone living in the Portsmouth area who would like to join this club, which meets on the fourth Wednesday of each month at Tudor S.C., should write to the honorary secretary, Ray Doram, 5 The Close, Cosham, Portsmouth. New members will be made very welcome.

We have heard that two similar clubs are being planned in other parts of the country and we shall be only too pleased to help anyone else interested in forming such a club.

* * * Miss Ann Baldwin, a Shoreline member from South Croydon, has been raising funds with a delightful range of handmade lifeboat bears; some are 7 inches high and some, 14 inches, are dressed with great attention to detail as lifeboatmen. Miss Baldwin and her family often spend their holidays at Brixham, staying opposite to the lifeboat station, and she has much appreciated the interest in her bears and the help shown to her by Torbay crew members. She makes coxswain bears (shown in the photograph below), mechanic bears and crew bears, and, with sales and a raffle, in two years has raised £90.50.

Thank you again for your continuing support, and with best wishes from everyone in the Shoreline office.—PETER HOLNESS, membership secretary, RNLI, West Quay Road, Poole, Dorset, BH15 I HZ (Tel. Poole 71133)..