Jersey's Grand Summer Ball on July 10 was held at Government House, Jersey, with the kind co-operation of His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor General Sir Peter Whiteley and Lady Whiteley, president of the guild.

It is the first time a charity ball has been held at Government House in living memory and it raised £5,175. In addition to His Excellency and Lady Whiteley, the ball was attended by the Bailiff of Jersey, Sir Frank Ereaut and Lady Ereaut, the Dean of Jersey, The Very Reverend Tom Goss and Mrs Goss. From the RNLI the guest of honour was Rear Admiral Graham, director, with Mrs Graham and Mrs Georgi-na Keen, a member of the Committee of Management, and Mr Keen, who came over from Guernsey. Coxswain Mike Berry and his wife were present and also Captain Roy Bullen, harbour master and station honorary secretary.

All the table wines were donated by local firms and the champagne served at the reception was donated by M Jean' Marc Charles-Heidsiek himself. A raffle raised £925 and a silent auction £760.

For a silent auction bids are written on cards attached to each item and bidders return to the auction area at intervals to see if they have been outbid and to bid again.

Following the ball, Jersey's 'once every three years' flag day, in August, raised £5,413.

Amble's annual harbour fete held in August attracted record crowds and raised £4,200 which is more than ever before. The previous week's fund raising events included a film show, a sponsored run, a darts tournament and a street collection. There was a disco on the evening of the fete.

Another August fete, this time at Dungeness, brought more than 1,000 people to this remote part of Kent where they were entertained by a host of side shows including a model railway and a band of majorettes. A combined exercise between an RAF rescue helicopter and the Littlestone and Dungeness lifeboats added to the attractions which raised more than £3,000.

Twelve years ago Olive Eades' coffee morning for the RNLI and King George V Fund for Sailors brought in £18, a result with which everyone was pleased.

Twelve years and twelve coffee mornings later Chorleywood and Rickmansworth branch is delighted with its share of the £567 result and so were the 200 guests delighted with the event held in Mrs Eades' sunny garden.Each year a team led by Reg Jones, a paraplegic confined to his wheelchair, organises a splendid sports day at Burrows Caravan Site, Horton; in the past few years the event has brought in more than £2,000 for the RNLI and the sum raised on last August 30 totalled £476.

Residents in the area around Horton and Port Eynon lifeboat station number only 250, but nevertheless the coffee evening run by the ladies' committee contributed a further £400 to branch funds.

Redcar Seagulls Amateur Swimming Club was destroyed by fire several years ago. Last autumn George Watkins, a trustee of the club, handed over to the RNLI the balance of the club's funds, £852.70.

An exhibition depicting the history of Isle of Wight lifeboats from 1860 to the present day organised by Geoffrey Cotton, a former Yarmouth crew member, raised £174. Other profitable events arranged by West Wight ladies' guildhave included a sherry party at the home of Mr and Mrs Leslie Noton (£355), a summer fete on the Green.

Yarmouth (£559.70) and flag day which made £1,103.

The Steamboat Inn. standing where the River Trent meets the Erewash and Cranfleet Canals, is where Long Eaton branch is allowed by landlord and lifeboat supporter Jack Winstanley to set up its souvenir stall during summer weekends. With a sweepstake run in the pub making £80 a grand total of £430 was raised last summer.

Captain Paul Row. Master of Scillonia HI sailing between St Mary's Isles of Scilly and Penzance, allows his crew to take round lifeboat collecting boxes among the passengers during the summer season. In 1981 they increased their collection by 42 per cent, bringing in a total of £3,315.54.

David Hoey went for a walk, an eight-and-a-half mile walk, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean between Capetown and the Bahamas and raised £153 for Morecambe lifeboat. The walk was 28 laps of the BP super Tanker British Respect whose captain, John Graves, is a Morecambe man and who persuaded his 44-man crew to sponsor the energetic walker.

The Cambridge Footlights staged their hilarious revue 'The Cellar Tapes' free of charge at Nottingham Playhouse on July 12. The theatre itself reduced its charges, the charitable Chetwode Foundation donated £350, the Nottingham Building Society (which underwrote the event in case it failed to break even) donated £50 and ticket sales made up the total profit for the evening to £1,015 for Nottingham and District branch. The branch has raised over £1,500 in its current financial year.Fifty years ago Glenkens ladies' guild was formed and to celebrate its golden anniversary a coffee evening was arranged with committee members wearing costumes of the 1930s. Golden cakes and biscuits were served and visitors guessed, at IQp a go, how much was raised at the guild's first function: the answer was precisely £10 13s 6d. The answer to the quiz in 50 years time for the 1981 event will be £308.56.

Selsey Bill Fishing Club's annual open fishing competition this year raised £699 for Selsey lifeboat, almost double last year's total. Mr J. Steel, a holidaymaker, was the overall winner and went home with £100 cash prize, a silver tankard and a silver spoon.

Beatrice Russell of Tockwith, York, a former area organiser for the RNLI in the North East, arranged a coffee evening with her niece Jan and her children.

Everyone who attended the evening in the church hall is trying to persuade her to organise another similar event next year. The impressive profit this time was £150.

An Autumn Fayre organised by Newport, Isle of Wight, branch brought in £122. It was held at the Charterhouse, Newport, and was the first event of this kind organised by the branch. Its success means that a similar fayre is to be arranged this year.

Weston-super-Mare centenary appeal is heading for the £3,000 mark. The latest function organised for the appeal was a music hall evening at Cadbury Country Club, featuring singers the Penny Farthings, stage performers Brian Harding and Meirion Ashton and television personality Martin Dale. The audience found the show enthralling and contributed towards a total profit of about £200.

Joanne Ansbro, Tracey Griffiths and Joanne Duffel of Blackburn, Lancashire, organised a jumble sale for the lifeboats in their school holidays and have since sent a cheque for £7 to RNLI headquarters in Poole.

The Royal British Legion's traditional generous support of the RNLI was perpetuated when Shoreham British Legion presented to Shoreham branch a cheque for £500. It was part of the money raised with a pram race last May: a further £1,000 went to the Poppy Fund.

An astonishing total of £1,161.48 was raised by Holyhead and District ladies' guild at a coffee morning held at the Beach Hotel, Trearddur Bay, on August 5. The sale of home-made cakes, freezer ready meals, crafts and toys made by local RNLI supporters, raffles, souvenirs and tombola tickets all contributed to this splendid result.

Henry Saver, honorary secretary of Epsom and District branch, was happy to receive a cheque for £367.70 from Epsom and Ewell Swimming Club which organised a sponsored swim for the lifeboats last May. Over the past seven years the club has donated £1,907 to the local branch.

Farnham branch has gots it wet weather routing down to a fine art: for the third year in succession its annual market, scheduled as an outdoor event, had hastily to be moved to the United Reformed Church Hall because of August rain. It still achieved a record total of £550 and chairman of Waverley District Council, Mrs Anne Mugford, was among more than 80 supporters who took advantage of the coffee room for refreshments after making purchases from the stalls of souvenirs, cakes, plants and bring and buy.Marks and Spencer have to date given £15.000 to lifeboat stations in seaside towns where the firm has branches.

Latest to benefit from this generous scheme is Rhyl where Mr J. M. Owen, president of the station branch, received a cheque for £1,500 from local Marks and Spencer's manager, Mr J.

Lowe.

No sooner was it discovered that Clacton lifeboat needed a new searchlight than the children of Woodend Junior Modern School. Harpenden, set about raising the money required for a replacement. A very short time later £258 was sent to the RNLI.

On his return from his latest voyage aboard BP tanker British Pride, merchant seaman Fred Dingwall was able to present £405 to Tommy Cocking, coxswain of St Ives lifeboat, after running raffles during the four-month trip. He collects the money in tobacco tins and since he began fund raising in this way he has brought in £1,500.The Bishop of Coventry, The Right Reverend John Gibbs, dropped in to Coventry guild's eleventh annual bazaar on October 24, making several purchases.

A flying start had been made when £57 was raised at the coffee morning held to receive gifts for the bazaar and on the day itself £391 was raised.

Mrs Cora Beaumont of Sheffield made a special visit to Bridlington to hand over £80 to the lifeboat station.

Instead of presents for her 80th birthday, family and friends who came to her party were asked to give to the RNLI.

The guests made their combined gift a pound for every birthday Mrs Beaumont had had and she later said that her day at Bridlington was one of the happiest of her life.International Stores at Canford Heath, Poole, invited Poole guild to man an RNLI stall outside the store for a week in August and also provided three food vouchers, worth £30. £15 and £10, as raffle prizes. During the week an RNLI caravan organised by Mr and Mrs Paul Neate took £158.35 on the raffle and souvenirs sales amounted to £224.26.

Golf balls found in Glasgow and sold in Southampton have made over £100 for the RNLI. Ex-seafarer A. Stewart Greig who sells them is supplied by a retired couple whose house just happens to be close to a Glasgow golf course.Hastings and St Leonard's ladies' guild holds at least one event a month.

A garden party organised by Mrs Joyce Mepham last summer and attended by Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Compston, chairman of the Fund Raising Committee, raised a fine £322.

Of the £752.79 total at Rotheram's 1981 flag day. £220 was collected by Mrs Jane Baker and her three sons.

Staff at the National Westminster Bank in Bognor Regis have taken part in sponsored walks both in 1980 and 1981, raising £1,000 for the lifeboat service in the two years.

For a number of years Mrs E. Gudgin has supported various charities, including the RNLI, by picking and selling apples from orchards and gardens where the owners did not want them. With few apples available last autumn. Mrs Gudgin turned to blackberries, picking 200 Ib. The lifeboat service's 1981 share was a cheque for £17.

A record £3.571 was raised by Doncaster Ladies" guild during the 12 months which ended on September 30.

1981. This figure included a response to the annual appeal kindly sent out by the guild's president. Lady Scarbrough, which bettered all previous years, a most successful fashion show and a bestever flag day.Car Boot Sale It is hoped that by reporting different ways of raising money on these pages, new ideas will be passed on and perhaps repeated in other parts of the country.

Henley-on-Thames branch held a car boot sale last September which raised over £700 and it is likely that the originality and simplicity of this fund raising method will appeal to other branches.

The basic principles are that those who wish to sell unwanted goods should load their car boot, arrive at the selling site where they will pay a £5 fee and then throw open their boot and sell the items for their own profit to all the people who come to buy.

Reg Foster. Henley-on-Thames branch press officer, gives the following useful hints to anyone organising a sale of this kind: a. Choose a central, easily reached site with plenty of car parking space.

b. Organise plenty of pre-sale publicity, at least 14 days before the event, including roadside signs near the venue and approach roads to the town.

c. Park the sellers' vehicles in avenues allowing buyers to browse safely. No other vehicles should be allowed in the sellers' area.

d. Charge the buyers 5()p to park their cars, leaving admission free for pedestrians.

e. Appoint two stewards for the sellers' car park, two for the buyers' car park and two for collecting fees.

The final ingredient needed for success is, of course, a fine and sunny day..