Lt E. Gough, the RNLI's staff officer (Communications), sent the message Uniform Whisky One (UW1) to the Boys' Brigade at Aigburth, Liverpool, after they had raised £36 by mounting a display about the sea, doing figure marching dressed as sailors, playing games and singing songs and finally performing a mime in costume of Jonah and the Whale. Earlier in the year Ernie Gough had advised the boys about signal flags to be used in a display.

His final signal to them—UW1— translated read: 'Thank you very much for your co-operation. I wish you a pleasant voyage'.Wyboston Sailing Club, St Neots, Cambridge, organised its twelfth sponsored sail for the RNLI on June 20.

Over £10,000 had already been raised in previous years and this year some £1,500 was amassed for the lifeboats.

Competitors sailed 453.1 sponsored miles and the winners, 'Rank Optimists' of Welwyn Garden City SC, covered 41.4 miles in the allotted ten hours.

BAC Stevenage, the team who presented a paddle as the booby prize for the race, found that they got it back when their boat finished last.

The children at Weston All Saints' Junior School, Bath, gave a concert in May with the theme of a Victorian Night Out. Suitably dressed up they sang and danced their way to raising £37 for the RNLI.

Petersfield branch held a cocktail party at Sheet House, the home of Major General Sir Humphry and Lady Tollemache, on June 6. A great many people contributed to the success of the evening, which raised £1,150 for the lifeboats, and particular thanks were given to the Sheet Guides who had helped in many ways.

Dunstable branch has raised £5,000 since it was re-formed in 1978 through bonfire parties, barbecues, flag days and cheese and wine evenings. In June a barbecue and country evening brought in £620. Icknield Wayfarers Folk Group provided music and entertainment, and there was also a disco for the energetic.

Branch chairman, Dr John Clark, and his vice-president, Mike Press, spent much of the time grilling steaks, while vast quantities of strawberries and cream added to everyone's enjoyment of the evening.If the circumference of the Bewl Bridge Reservoir on the borders of Kent and Sussex is 17 miles and if 145 sponsored walkers complete this distance, what is the sum of money they raised for the RNLI? Answer: over £1,000 thanks to the efforts of Cranbrook, Wadhurst and Tenterden branches who organised the event at the instigation of Mrs Audrey Reading. Joe Martin, coxswain of Hastings lifeboat, started the walk officially, needless to say in pouring rain.

So far Mr Rowson, husband of Wainfleet guild secretary, has made £150 for the lifeboats by making and selling very attractive solitaire games.

They are proving so popular throughout Lincolnshire that he is still working hard at them.

In addition to the magnificent £300,000 gift from the Freemasons United Grand Lodge of England earlier this year, the RNLI still receives generous support from individual lodges. Brother A. Gow, Worshipful Master of Tracery Lodge No. 4719, is a shoreline member and he arranged for £72 raised by a raffle at his ladies' evening to be sent to the lifeboats. Earlier in the year the lodge was able to forward £20 to the Port of Liverpool and District branch of the RNLI.

Mrs Ann Williams, a member of Moelfre ladies' guild, gave a demonstration of flower arranging at the local community centre in April. The numerous guests were served with coffee and biscuits which brought in £51.50 and a further £18.00 was raised when Mrs Williams kindly donated the flowers and arrangements for raffle prizes.

Tiverton branch not only raises money by street and house-to-house collections and cheese and wine parties; it has been very successful in selling old newspapers and especially in selling windfall apples to the local cider factory, which this year brought in £120.

Other windfalls for the branch were donations from the Ladies Licenced Victuallers, the Women's Institute and the Scouts.

At the garden fete and disco held at the home of Mr and Mrs R. Haszard of Chapel Leasowe, Milford, Stafford branch was lent free of charge a mobile generator by Bowmaker Plant for the lighting and power supply; £249.40 was raised at this function. A dance was held a month later making £119 and during the branch's flag week a total of £1,091.23 was collected.

A very successful coffee morning organised by Mrs S. Hill of Tonbridge branch and held at the home of Mr and Mrs H. Veall, Gonerils Farm, Five Oak Green, raised an impressive £280.02.Hazlewood Castle, Tadcaster, the home of the Carmelite Friars, was kindly lent in July for a Glyndebournestyle evening of musical entertainment under the patronage of the Marquis of Normanby, a member of the Committee of Management. Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Compston, a deputy chairman of the Institution, and Lady Compston attended this 'Summer Evening' organised by Stephen Wood of Leeds and his friends. A wind octet drawn from the English Northern Philharmonia performed a serenade. During the interval the 200 guests were given a picnic dinner on the lawns and in the orangery. A remarkable £2,000 was raised for the RNLI as a result.

An appreciable amount of money comes in each year from people who regularly collect for the lifeboats. Mr A. Lemar of the Bull Hotel, Abergele, has sent in two cheques already this year for the proceeds of collections and raffles, both, strangely enough, coming to £31. Mrs J. MacFie keeps a collecting box on the counter at Polegate Fisheries; her most recent cheque was for £15.

Disc jockey Paul Kay of the Bisquit Club of Selsey survived a 12-hour nonstop marathon road show during which he played 673 records and raised over £300. A number of Selsey's lifeboat crew put in an appearance during the show including Coxswain Mike Grant; the honorary secretary, Des Cockayne was also present. Racing driver Derek Bell, fresh from his victory at the 24- hour race at Le Mans, also made an appearance. Paul Kay hopes to raise £3,000 by the end of the holiday season.

Bexhill-on-Sea branch sent £8,000 to headquarters at the end of last year and among many sources that made up this sum were: £536.80 from Bexhill Sailing Club, which has supported the RNLI for many years, £13 being from the club's younger members' carol singing; £63.60 as the proceeds of a fashion show held at Cooden Beach Hotel; £45 from a tournament held at Highwoods Golf Club; and £47.30 from committee member Mrs Lawrence who makes and sells peg dolls. The branch has also made a great deal of money out of souvenir sales at various events.

Plymouth Barbershop Singers very kindly performed at Wembury Peninsula branch's recent ball, which raised £77.

As a 'thank you' for generous gifts of used stamps to help the lifeboat, Newport, Isle of Wight, branch arranged a special evening for three Brownie packs on June 24. Mr G. H. Baker, the branch publicity officer, gave a talk on the work of the RNLI illustrated with slides and Cdr David Webb, chairman of Bembridge lifeboat guild, answered the many questions asked. The Brownies had come armed with another large gift of used stamps, with a promise of more to come; they also made an on-the-spot collection of £11.48 for the lifeboats.

The High Level Ranters played the music at a barn dance held at Mr and Mrs John Moor's Glebe Farm, Whitburn.

The evening was a great success both socially and financially with a total take of £1,500. Mrs Joyce Dixon is chairman of Whitburn ladies' guild, the event organisers who provided aploughman's supper for the 560 guests.

Les Brown won the top raffle prize, a portable television, and immediately handed it back to be auctioned. At this function Bill Ayton, past president of Seaburn Rotary Club, handed over £250, part of the proceeds from a Swim '80 competition.

The town hall at Airdrie was packed with 850 people when the local lifeboat branch celebrated its golden jubilee.

The occasion, compered by the Reverend James Currie, was a Fiddlers' Rally when Ayr and Prestwick Strathspey and Reel Society performed a wide variety of musical pieces. The convenor of the Scottish Lifeboat Council. Sir Charles McGrigor, was present with Lady McGrigor and during the evening he presented Airdrie branch with a certificate to mark its 50 years of fund raising for the lifeboats.

Six-year-old Wendy Anderson had previously won a competition for the design of the cover of the programme and was a special guest for the evening, which itself raised £1,617.

Carlisle branch has shown how the tried and trusted fund-raising methods are still very profitable. Its house-tohouse collection this year produced £3,769, an increase of £580 over the previous collection. Throughout the whole of 1980 the branch brought in £7,390.

Maybe Geoffrey Cox's house guests were not very pleased when an outsider won the British Open Golf Championship at Sandwich this year, but the RNLI did all right. Geoffrey Cox is an ardent supporter of Walmer lifeboat and his guests who were staying for the championship decided to guess the name of the winner at £5 a time. No one got it right so Walmer lifeboat took the winnings—£60. A week earlier, at the mining village of Aylesham, Kent, children from the junior school collected £100 for Walmer prior to a visit to the lifeboat station.During their week of fund raising for the RNLI, customers and staff of the Blue Anchor, Byfleet, gave themselves the opportunity to behave badly when they dressed up as St Trinian's pupils.

£411 was raised throughout the week.

In appreciation of an enjoyable instructional cruise two Bristol University students, Brenda and Chris Romans, presented a woolly kangaroo to RRS Challenger, Research Vessel Services.

Rather than keep the kangaroo at sea, the ship's officers decided to raffle it at their main base in Barry and £30 was raised for the RNLI.

Mr and Mrs John Cooke of Brereton Park Farm, Huxley, Cheshire, kindly lent their farm for a disco supper organised by Christleton branch, and John Cooke's generosity was rewarded by winning first prize in the raffle—a Dufor Wing sailboard kindly supplied at cost by Chester Sailboard Centre. The party, which took place in a beautifully decorated marquee, altogether raised £1,050 for the lifeboat service.Port Talbot lifeboatmen were invited to an evening in the Rose and Crown, Briton Ferry, West Glamorgan, on the occasion of the smashing of a gallon whisky bottle full of money collected on their behalf. Thanks to hosts Frank and Shirley Clarke and Bells Whisky Ltd, the food and drinks were free and, thanks to the pub's regulars, £184 was in the bottle.

Used stamps collected in bulk can be turned into money for the lifeboats. A class of six to seven year olds know this at Malvern Link Infants School and between September 1980 and July 1981 they collected (and counted) 61,055 stamps.

A Victorian Evening staged in the village of Kilmacolm raised £800 for the RNLI. Both the concert performers and the audience wore clothes from the last century and the occasion was acclaimed a great success.

Mr M. N. Cowlin was 50 recently and decided to ask friends and relations who were going to give him a present to give a donation to the lifeboats instead.

Everyone's generosity led to a cheque for £155 going to the RNLI.

Lifeboat week in Angmering followed soon after the sad deaths of both the branch's chairman, Mrs Nell King, in April and the honorary secretary, Miss Frances Ramshaw, in May. The community was able to show its appreciation of these two ladies' services by increasing the annual contribution from £167 to £242.

Raising the Titanic, or at least raising the subject of the Titanic disaster, is Miss Eva Hart's special way of raising money for the RNLI. She is one of the few people to survive the notorious incident and because of current public interest in the possibility of raising the wreck from the seabed, she is in hot demand as a speaker to various organisations.

She does not charge a fee but asks that donations go to the lifeboats.

Her first cheque to head office was for £50.

Brede in Sussex only has a population of about 1,500, but when Rye and Winchelsea branch held a coffee morning at this small village it managed to raise £258. The branch is also a very successful seller of RNLI lottery tickets and expects to bring in some £50 in this way each draw.

When Petts Wood branch gave a spring luncheon in the garden of its chairman, Michael Reynolds, it invited branch officers and crew members from Hastings and Dover, to both of which stations a donation was made. The £537 raised included £156 in Shoreline subscriptions; one life governor and one member.Not only does the lifeboat box in the hairdressing salon of Michael James of Gillingham, Kent, do very well indeed, but Mr James, a keen fisherman, takes another box with him on his fishing trips and passes it around when the 'catch' is being weighed. After the last fishing trip there was £19.79'/2 in the box—so it must have been a good 'catch'.

Bristol ladies' guild raised more than £4,500 at its summer ball. Held at the home of Mr and Mrs Michael Kent at Chew Magna, it was a splendid evening in every way. Even the weather was good! Saturday June 20 was Family Funday for Wolverhampton branch, when a garden fete was held at the home of its president, Tony Guy. More than £2,000 was raised from numerous attractions, ranging from a football wheel which raised £4.15 to a raffle for Martell brandy which brought in almost £1,000.

Kent Schoolboy Scramble Club held its first two-day charity meeting at Lydd-on-Sea, Romney Marsh, on July 11 and 12 and raised the magnificent sum of £625 for Dungeness lifeboat station.

More than 120 members, all under the age of 18, took part in the motorcycle scrambling.

Flares were lit to illuminate a barbecue held at Boverton House by Llantwit Major ladies' lifeboat guild.

Over 150 people were there to enjoy a skittle alley, hoop-la and disco which were just some of the attractions. £600 was the profit from the evening.

Joan and Margaret Collings of Camberley branch held their sixth annual garden party in June, and by laying on tea and organising stalls selling cakes, white elephant items and RNLI souvenirs, raised an impressive £425. The Mayor of Surrey Heath, Councillor Mrs Joy Reid, was guest of honour. In the same month 70 people from Camberley walked a 3'/2 mile course which happened to take in a grand total of 11 pubs on the route. With suitable refreshment at each, they completed the course and raised £750 as a result..