More than £12,000 was raised by Bristol ladies' guild at its summer ball, held last July at the home of Mr and Mrs Cullum McAlpine, near Bath. On arrival, every lady was presented with a red rose, and when the 350 guests sat down to dinner in a splendid marquee, the centre of each table sprouted balloons from a small basket. The evening's events included a tombola and an auction by George Tricks assisted by Diana Moran, the 'Green Goddess' of television fame. Dancing continued to well after midnight at this ball which has become one of the most enjoyed events in the Bristol social calendar. A small enamel box, donated to the RNLI by its President, HRH The Duke of Kent, was balloted at a champagne reception held at Hillsborough Castle, Northern Ireland, last June, and raised £325. The demand for tickets for this event, organised by Mrs Maxine Phoenix and Stanley Scott, far outran the numbers available and a most enjoyable evening took an overall £1,100.

So many people wished to attend Bromborough and Eastham branch's Marks and Spencer fashion show one morning last autumn that an additional show was put on in the afternoon at no extra cost. In all, more than 1,300 saw a superb show and £2,500 was raised.

A fine total of £7,771.56 was taken on the RNLI stand at Southampton Boat Show last September—an increase of £800 over last year. The sale of souvenirs brought in £4,614.56, the sale of regional draw tickets another £2,294 and £256.90 came from collecting boxes. Donations included £500 from Turbo Diesels, who also collected £16.84 in RNLI boxes on their stand, and £50 from Mr J. S. W. Locke, an amount which he contributes regularly every year. Mercantile Credit staged an art exhibition on their stand and £42, a percentage of the sales made, was given to the RNLI.

Mrs Grace Chant of Canvey Island is a prolifically generous jam maker for the RNLI. For six years she has been supplying produce and last year alone she gave her local branch 393 pounds of jam and marmalade and 32 pounds of chutney which is worth about £130 to the RNLI. Her husband picks all the fruit and no charge is made for any of the ingredients.

Solihull ladies' guild last summer sent a cheque for £5,800 to RNLI HQ. It was made up from a series of fund raising events including bring and buy sales, flag day, a Christmas fayre and bridge drives. On her retirement, Mrs Gwen Stapleton of Hurstpierpoint branch committee undertook to walk the length of the Southdown Way. She made sure she was sponsored and at the end of the walk was able to hand over £400 to her branch.

Members of Woking branch and their friends were treated to a cooking demonstration staged at the famous Tante Marie School of Cookery. A delicious three course meal was expertly prepared and then given to the lucky winners of the raffle. All proceeds from the afternoon, totalling £245, were handed over to the RNLI.

West Berliners had never seen anything quite like it and one German TV station introduced it as 'the way the British celebrate their bank holiday' and played film of it to Handel's Water Music and sound effects of a naval battle. The event was Berlin Infantry Brigade's first ever raft race on the River Havel; there were 18 different rafts in as many different guises and they brought in £559.17 in sponsorship for the RNLI.

It seems a little sad that Bembridge Snooker Club had to sell its only snooker table because it could not find any suitable meeting place. Still, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good and the RNLI and four other charities each received a cheque for £300, being the proceeds from the sale.

On a day last July when almost all the lifeboats between Eastbourne and Selsey were called out to help yachts and boats caught in thundery storms, Percy and Elizabeth Blunden of Lindfield, West Sussex, were also doing their bit. They had thrown their garden open to the public. It is only just over half an acre, but with 4,000 bedding plants, roses, clematis, fuchsias and prizewinning vegetables people flock to admire its attractive prospects. Percy spends all his spare time in the garden— he is not retired—and despite the very stormy weather, with the sale of plants, tomatoes and home-made teas, £352.70 was raised for the lifeboats. Last July Cambridge Footlights once again staged a performance of their revue at Nottingham Theatre Royal, giving all their services free of charge. A remarkable £2,850 was made on the night and Nottingham and District branch is particularly grateful to the Chetwode Foundation for a substantial donation and to the Trustee Savings Bank for its assistance.

In a draw organised by Ipswich wholesalers F. W. Pawsey and Sons, Paul Chalfont was the lucky winner of the first prize, a sailboard donated by Biro BiC Ltd. The draw was the idea of Bob and Geoff Pawsey, both enthusiastic small boat sailors, and it was supported by Pawsey's traders and their customers and friends; 2,500 tickets were sold altogether and £500 raised for the RNLI.

The foundation of a new branch took place at an inaugural meeting on July 1, 1983. It is Beeston and Chilwell branch and already it has 60 members. For the first fund-raising event one of the new committee, Mrs Joyce Powell, orga-nised a coffee morning which raised £100 and other events planned include a wine tasting, a jumble sale, a cheese and wine party and a coach outing to London. New members are welcome.

Please ring Peter d'Auvergne, Nottingham 257093, or Mike and Julia Powell, Nottingham 256940. White Hart Sea Angling Club held a sponsored fishing match last June. Nine members took part in a ten hour trip off Whitby with the final result of a cheque for £211 being presented to Superintendent Coxswain Brian Bevan of Humber.

At the same time a giant bar bottle containing £115 in cash was handed over to Mrs Frances Sadler, secretary of Skidby and Little Weighton branch, by the White Hart Inn together with £46, the proceeds from the weekly competition held at the inn.

Flag day at Broadstairs continued its upward trend this year with a new record total of £1,455.21. Round Table members were responsible for £224 of this sum, a record for them too. Broadstairs ladies' guild took no more than two hours to raise a further £570 at their May fair; a successful event by any standards.

The sea was the theme for the Harvest Thanksgiving services at Brucefield Church on Sunday October 9. A sale of all perishables donated was held in the Church Halls on the following Monday and non-perishables were sold the next Saturday at a coffee morning, at which there was also an RNLI stall. All gifts and proceeds, amounting to £350, were donated to the lifeboat service. This is how Margate ladies' guild made £1,100 in a remarkably busy ten days. First, they opened a nearly a new shop which brought in £800, then during the same week they held their annual strawberry tea which raised a further £100 and finally Mrs Sudds of Birchington held a sherry and swim morning round her pool, followed by a buffet lunch; with ticket sales, a raffle, bring and buy and souvenir sales, £293 was raised for the guild.

Sir, is this a record? Or is this? First, the King's Head at Roehampton wants to know if any standard lifeboat collecting box has been found to contain more than the £115.50 which was counted from its bar box recently. Secondly, Brighton branch wants to know if ever one person during a single lifeboat day has ever collected more than £357. Fred Ellison achieved this phenomenal record, dressed in oilskins during one of the hottest days of last summer, when he filled no fewer than 15 collecting boxes; altogether Brighton raised £2,394 during its lifeboat week.

Fleetwood's lifeboat week raised £7,500 last summer. It is organised by a joint committee from the crew, the station branch and the ladies' guild and is co-ordinated each year by a crew member. This year it was the turn of Bill Rawcliffe, a former second coxswain.

Apart from a rescue display using breeches buoy between the lifeboat and Fleetwood auxiliary coastguards on the beach, there was a rowing race between Fleetwood and Lytham-St Anne's lifeboat crews. Fleetwood won for the second year running.

The RNLI got a half share of £1,200 raised for the lifeboats and Leukaemia Research by a Highland Games which took place near Ipswich in East Anglia! Philip Gibson, publican of The Case is Altered pub at Bentley, organised the event which included caber tossing, haggis hurling and wrestling. A large number of spectators, many of whom joined in the games, thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

For a branch like Stourbridge which could hardly be farther from the sea, it is no mean achievement to raise £5,200 in just over half a year. This is the branch's thirtieth year and its annual dinner in May, for which Harry Jones, former Hoylake coxswain, was guest speaker, raised £260.75. Later, in July, a strawberry and cream tea was organised in the garden of one of the branch committee members for the second year running when £462.60 was brought in.

This was partly thanks to a local grower who gave 80 Ib of strawberries.

The formation of a new Barnet ladies' guild was heralded with a sherry and mince pie morning last January, when a staggering 75 names were collected of ladies wishing to help. A committee of eight was formed with a representative to attend Barnet branch committee meetings. As well as giving substantial help during Barnet flag week in March, when £2,232.55 was raised, the new guild members have already brought in more than £1,000 by organising a number of events in their own homes and gardens.

While on holiday last summer, four young members of the Prosser family of Tiverton formed themselves into a company to paint and sell sea shells.

Tim, aged ten, was the manager; Nicola, aged eight, the painter; Jonathan, aged five, the salesman; and Caroline, aged three, sometimes a seller. The result of their enterprise was a splendid £18.81 to send to Coxswain Matt Lethbridge for St Mary's lifeboat station, Isles of Stilly. Christchurch branch raised nearly £5,000 with a sponsored slim early in 1983. So outstandingly successful was the exercise, in fact, that it is to be repeated this year.

Three men and a boy set out to walk the 22 miles from Birmingham to Bewdley in aid of the lifeboats. Chris Clifford and his two friends, Geoff Barnsley and Ted Griffiths, completed the whole course, while his nine-year-old son David managed a triumphant 11 miles.

In all, £270 was raised in sponsorship for Erdington branch.

Surbiton branch was allowed to set up a souvenir stall on two Saturdays last year at Chessington Zoo, selling both RNLI souvenirs and donated goods.

The overall result was £600, Huyton and Roby branch's flag day, which raised over £350, was helped by a small display in Huyton of a dinghy, donated by Mr and Mrs H. Colling and restored and painted in RNLI colours by the work creation scheme. Mr J.

Barker also lent two of the lifeboat models he has made for the display. The local Sea Scouts and Air Cadets also gave their support. Later, for Mr and Mrs Kenwright's annual barbecue, all 250 tickets were sold and with more stalls than ever before, a remarkable total of £624.09 was made for branch funds..