Garden gnome By dressing up as a garden gnome in last year's Aldeburgh carnival, lifeboat supporter Mr M. H. Catterick won a personal bet for £100 which he very generously donated to the RNLI.

Netball shoot Eight girl pupils at Reigate Priory Middle School, aged 11/12, organized a sponsored netball shoot to help the lifeboats and raised a grand total of £25.10. They forwarded this to Carl Seager MBE president of the Reigate and Redhill branch with a request that he use the money to buy a lifeboat! Football raffle Mrs G. F. Beswick, founder member of the Mudeford ladies' guild, obtained a signed football from AFC Bournemouth, following their promotion to the second division of the football league.

She then raffled the ball at the Avonmouth Hotel, Mudeford and raised £50 for the guild.

Lucky for us A short story competition, organised by RNLI supporters Miss J. Howard and Miss J. Florey of Cheltenham, attracted 54 entries and raised £80 for the Institution. Miss Howard is a member of the Society of Women Writers and Journalists and the judge was author Olive Etchells, who writes under the pen names Rachel Murray and Liza Manning. The theme of the competition was The Sea and the maximum length allowed 1500 words.

Edna Burress, of Northwood, Middlesex, won the £15 first prize with her story The Lucky One, about the return of a lone yachtswoman from a long voyage. Second was Ann Lewis ofLedbury and third Heather Bennett, of Stockton-on-Tees (who added her £5 prize to the total). Highly commended entries were submitted by Joan Stiebel, of West London and Hay-on-Wye's Frances Copping. There were commendations too for the entries of Joyce Bell, of Warwickshire and Ann Lewis of Ledbury.

Baltic Exchange A new lifeboat due to go on station at Salcombe in 1988 will be named The Baltic Exchange II, one hundred years after the first lifeboat sponsored by the exchange entered service. The Baltic Exchange—the world market for the chartering of cargo ships—has donated £150,000 from its charitable fund towards the cost of the vessel and a cheque was presented to the Duke of Atholl, chairman of the RNLI.

Pedal power Following a suggestion by Sue Parker, a Shoreline member, the Cycle Club Sudbury decided to hold a fund raising event on behalf of the RNLI. A sponsored 12 mile Hilly Time Trial was organised by club member Simon Daw and after a deal of puffing up hill and free wheeling down, the event was won by Simon Daw himself in 32 minutes and 53 seconds, despite a frontwheel puncture en route. The top fund raiser was John Steed and the first lady past the post was Sue Parker! A cheque for £530.11 was presented to Robin Sharp, Eastern Region Area Organiser, and passed to Sudbury branch.

Flying Ace Falklands air ace Commander "Sharkey" Ward, DSC AFC was guest speaker at the 21st annual lunch organised by Leicester ladies' guild. The luncheon was held earlier in the year at the Grand Hotel, Leicester. Over the years this event has made over £70,000for the guild, who raised £6,700 in 1986.

The luncheon attracted 172 supporters of the guild and was chaired by president Mrs R. A. St G. Martin.

Family weekend Dungeness lifeboat station, in Conjunction with the Oakley Leisure Group, held what is believed to be the first ever holiday weekend for lifeboat people at Camber Sands Leisure Park.

Over 60 families connected with lifeboat branches, guilds, stations and Shoreline members attended the weekend when Dungeness station took over the holiday centre.

The weekend started on Friday evening and on Saturday a coach party of lifeboat revellers set out on the firstof the weekend to Lochin Marine at Rye, who had opened up the boatyard especially for the visit. The party were shown over a Tyne class lifeboat which was being fitted out and all manner of questions were answered. The next stop was Rye Harbour inshore lifeboat station to see the new boathouse and then on to Winchelsea where the story of the Mary Stanford disaster is told in the church's stained glass windows. The final port of call was the Hastings lifeboat station to see the Oakley class Fairlight and ex-coxswain Joe Martin was on hand to give a talk and answer more questions.

Sunday saw a visit to host station Dungeness to see a fully co-ordinated exercise with the station's Alice Upjohn and a Wessex helicopter from RAF Mansion. Joining in was the new Arun Roy and Barbara Harding bound for London to attend the RNLI's annual general meeting at the Festival Hall.

After the Alice Upjohn was recarriaged she was open for the guests to look over.

Back at Camber the souvenir shop was in full swing, raffle prizes were claimed and everyone was set for another evening's entertainment. The weekend raised £500 for the station's funds and over £500 worth of souvenirs were sold. It was such a success that another lifeboat weekend is planned for the end of April 1988.

London Marathon P.C. David Baxter of Rotherhithe Police Station, who ran the London Marathon in 3'/2 hours, raised a mag-, nificent £700.70 on behalf of Welling branch.

Another runner, David Stratford, honorary secretary of Croydon branch, who was awarded a silver badge earlier this year, raised the splendid sum of £670 for the branch.

Ooh . . . la, la! Two waitresses at the Black Horse pub, Climping, Karen Forster (20), a successful part-time model, and Antoinette Ross (16), have become pin-up girls to help the lifeboats. They have long been used to wearing French maid waitress uniforms, a hallmark of the pub, and now they feature in two posters, which are being sold to raise money for the RNLI. The idea was the brainchild of Alan Becker, owner of the Black Horse pub, who enlisted the help of former football star George Best to officially launch the sale of the posters.

Wedding bet Mr and Mrs B. Sesto were married at St Matthew's Church, Hastings and held their wedding reception at Plumpton Racecourse, the first to be held at a racecourse while racing was in progress.

Coral's offered a free £25 bet to the newly weds who requested that any winnings be donated to the RNLI. The bet was placed on the last race and the horse won, resulting in a £45 donation.Open day alert A party of sea anglers found themselves early arrivals at Hoylake lifeboat station's open day after being towed to safety by the lifeboat Mary Gabriel. A few hours before they were due to give a life-saving display, the lifeboatmen were called to the real thing. The engines of a sea angling boat, Tessie, had failed in rough seas near the Mersey Bar light vessel and the boat was adrift with eight people on board. However, Tessie was towed to Meols so the crew could take part in their open day and the angling party were taken to the lifeboat station for hot soup and food.

Mayoral support At his Civic Sunday Service, Councillor Eric J. Davies, JP extended more support to Rhyl branch by donating one third of the collection, £54, towards branch funds. Councillor Davies is a very long standing supporter of the branch, having served on the committee for 23 years. An appropriate note on this occasion was that during the service the lifeboat crew (who always attend fully kitted out in their waterproofs, etc) responded to their newly acquired bleeper alarms and rushed out of church on an emergency callout. A timely reminder that lifeboatmen are never off duty.

I wanna tell you a story Max Bygraves, together with the Kaye Sisters (Shan and Gilly Kaye), the Southern Union Barbershop Chorus and Poole Grammar School Big Band gave their services free for the show "An Evening with Max Bygraves and Friends" at the Poole Arts Centre to raise funds for the RNLI. Max, wholives in Bournemouth, regards the RNLI as one of his favourite charities and has been a supporter for many years. Other expenses were met by the Volvo car company and the show raised more than £5,000.

Emergency cover A Kingsclere house-to-house collector, tired and footsore, avoided a blistered heel by using a lifeboat emblem as a plaster.

Island to Island swim Two young girls, looking for a challenge, took the plunge and braved Orkney's icy water to raise money for the RNLI. Petrova Romain (14) and Bonnie Hollick (12) set off from the small island of Papa Stronsay to swim the quarter mile to the neighbouring island of Stronsay. It took them 19 minutes to arrive cold but jubilant at the old lifeboat station pier. The girls chatted and joked as they swam in the choppy sea, accompanied by the Romain family in their boat and Bonnie's father in his canoe. Stronsay folk sponsored them £134.11 for their brave swim.

British Skill During five months British officers and crew of MV British Skill, an oil tanker operating between West Africa and the USA, raised the amazing total of £1,408 for the RNLI. This represents an average of £56 per man by such varied means as the sale of macrame work, quizzes, social evenings, sweeps, etc.

This sum is the largest of three generous donations received through Captain J. Y. MacAlpine. It is also worth noting that, with the exception of the master and chief engineer, the entire ship's complement changes at the end of each tour of duty.

Pincer support The owners of the Crab and Lobster Restaurant at Mere Brow near Southport, Mr and Mrs Bill Flood, are enthusiastic lifeboat supporters. At a birthday party to celebrate the restaurant's 25th anniversary, 48 of their customers and friends helped them to raise an amazing £2,050 for the RNLI.

Harnessing nature The Mistley and Manningtree branch have harnessed nature in support of the RNLI. For around ten years members have obtained permission from various landowners to collect holly, laurel and mistletoe for sale on weekends leading up to Christmas. From 1979 to 1986 a total of £1,259.77 has been raised in this way.

Not content with this Yuletide harvest, every spring these happy reapers have picked snowdrops, put them into bundles and hawked their wares around local hostelries. This spring alone they raised nearly £690 for the lifeboat service.

Sir Humphry Tollemache and his wife Lady Tollemache, president of Petersfield and District branch, opened their gardens at Sheet House to lifeboat supporters for the annual RNLI party.

The party has taken place every summer since 1977 raising over £1,000 annually and the total sum is well over £10,000. This year the Royal Marines Light Infantry Cadets gave a marching band display in honour of Sir Humphry's 90th birthday.

Renewing a friendship When Australian star Rolf Harris began his season at Butlin's Funcoast World, Skegness, he renewed an old friendship with Alvis Blanchard, a man he first met in Canada over 20 years ago. Alvis, was a launcher and occasional crew member of Skegness lifeboat station 40 years ago, before emigrating to New Zealand, eventually going to Australia and Canada. Now back in Skegness he is organising Sky-Dive 87, a display and competition by sky-divers as a fund raising event on behalf of the RNLI. Rolf has presented Alvis with a special original cartoon to use as a poster for his charitable event.

Bottoms up Two merry locals in a Solva hostelry were waxing lyrical about their prowess with an air rifle. Eventually one said he was by far the better shot and could hit a rabbit at 80 yards. The other disagreed and commented that the former could not hit his posterior, let alone a rabbit. The gauntlet was down. Both men, with seconds, retired to a nearby field to settle the matter. An enterprising St David's lifeboatman (one of the seconds) suggested that a wager, with the loser donating £10 to the RNLI was in order. Thankfully, the "crack shot" missed his target and local RNLI funds are £10 healthier! Rotaract Club generosity When the Borough of Solihull Lifeboat Appeal was launched last year to buy an Atlantic 21 for Abersoch, the first donation of £500 was from the Rotaract Club of Solihull whose president, Peter Earl, had decided that, for his term of office, the appeal would be the club's charity of the year. At the end of his term Mr Earl was able to present a further cheque for £1,500 to the chairman of the Solihull Lifeboat Appeal. The appeal currently stands at £20,000 and is well on target.

Half marathon Runners taking part in the fourth 13-mile annual half marathon held in Henley raised £6,000. A cheque for this amount was presented to the director, Rear Admiral W. J. Graham, by the chairman of the Henley branch, Mr Reg Foster, at Henley Rugby Club's annual president's lunch where guests also included TV rugby commentator Nigel Starmer-Smith. The total raised so far for the RNLI by the half marathons has reached over £25,000.

Sealink target Sealink British Ferries set itself the target of raising £150,000 to help build a new lifeboat and the final total raised was £151,660.

The appeal was launched in July 1986 with an initial contribution by Sealink of £20,000 to start the ball rolling. This amount increased by Ip every time passengers made a purchase on board Sealink British Ferries ships during the appeal, which ran from July to the endof October. Leading suppliers of dutyfree goods also made donations on particular brands bought during the promotional period. A children's drawing competition—attracting over 8,000 entries—and a "Name the Lifeboat" competition for adults were held on board to support the appeal.

Reliable sources The first event of Lifeboat Week 1987, a single-handed ten mile sponsored row of the River Crouch from Hullbridge to Burnham, resulted in Burnham on Crouch branch receiving £2,000 in sponsorship money.

Southwell ladies' guild received a very kind offer of support from Shoreline members, Mr and Mrs John Radford.

On the occasion of the launch of their 30-ton motor yacht Mr Radford suggested a spontaneous collection be held for the RNLI. Supporters dug deep and £75 was achieved in half an hour.

A French evening was organised by Hitchin & District branch in the lovely surroundings of Stoneheaps, Kimpton, where over 100 guests were able to stroll around or sit at tables sipping glasses of French wines or beer, serenaded by an accordionist. Many were dressed in French costume, food and drink were dispensed by charming and delightfully dressed ladies and, should it have been necessary, the presence of a gendarme was reassuring! There were prizes for the best male and female costumes and the proceeds were between £300 and £350.

A sponsored skittles evening organised by Warminster branch raised £650.

The summer season got under way at Anstruther ladies' guild with a successful coffee morning. Various other fund raising efforts are planned and each member of the committee has undertaken to "Raise a Tenner", this idea also being put to all members of the guild.

As president of Lewisham branchCouncillor Norman Smith, Mayor of Lewisham, believes in really "working".

On a cold Sunday morning in May he took part in a gruelling ten mile walk in South London, leading a band of 40 walkers around the course, only stopping for light refreshments supplied by branch supporters. Although handicapped through wearing the official chain of office the Mayor completed the course in record time, the event raising over £1,500.

The Treasure Valuation Day held by Aldeburgh & District ladies' guild was a busy and successful occasion. Phillips Fine Art Auctioneers provided six experts to appraise items and ten photographs of items were on display for a competition to guess the price fetched at auction, the prize being two George III mustard spoons, donated by Phillips.

With the addition of a souvenir stall £273.94 was raised.

Members and friends of Childwall branch held a "Knit-in" which involved every lady being sponsored on the length of knitting she did in two hours.

The event raised £235 for the RNLI.

In conjunction with Wylfa Power Station, Cemaes Bay & District branch organised Open Days at the Cestyll Ornamental Rock Gardens. The gardens, which overlook the sea and rocky coastline and contain a large variety of unusual plants, were formerly owned by Baroness Astor of Hever and were last opened to the public in 1961. Over the two days the gardens were visited by 1,283 people and £1,021 was raised.

A fashion show organised by the local Keep Fit Class at Padstow raised £257 for the National Keep Fit Association Appeal.

As part of Scarborough ladies' guild 60th anniversary celebrations, a Flower Festival and a Giant Tombola were organised. Jimmy Saville, QBE, attended the latter event which attracted a large crowd and £1,350 was raised in a few hours.

(More fund raisers on page 216)Focus on the fund raisers H f. you got a fund raising story to tell? The Editor of The Lifeboat is keen to hear from fund raising guilds and branches with news of current or recent fund raising events, as well as any humorous anecdotes of past successes —and failures! He would also like to hear about individual fund raisers who have made significant contributions to their branch or guild and who would make a good subject for a small feature in future editions of the journal.

Fund raisers are also reminded that, if they are sending in reports of their activities for the Editor's consideration, it is advisable to send a copy to their regional office.

Police generosity Students at the Police Training Centre at Grosvenor Hall, Kennington, Kent, unanimously agreed that they would like to equip a lifeboatman and generously donated £200 of the money raised from sponsored events held during their 14 weeks training course to the RNLI for this purpose.Onedin Line When Swansea district branch opened a Nearly New Shop, raising £800 in the first week, they were fortunate to receive a visit from Peter Gilmore, star of the TV series The Onedin Line. Mr Gilmore, who was appearing at the Grand Theatre, Swansea, expressed a keen interest in the work of the RNLI and in particular the local lifeboat at Mumbles. He signed autographs for customers and chatted for some time with committee members.

Anniversary gift An anonymous couple knocked at the door of Mrs Boutwood, secretary of Stanmore branch, and presented her with a cheque for £50. The couple explained that they had had a ruby wedding party and had asked friends to donate to the RNLI instead of giving them presents..