Some ways of filling the coffers… In brief...In brief...In brief.

BARRY YACHT Club donated £1,300 to Barry Dock branch chairman last November, £400 of which came from an RNLI 'levy' which the club includes in its membership fee. At the same time, the chairman received a cheque for £50 from Josh Brown, 9, son of Barry Dock's second coxswain Ray, and his friend David Brooks, 10. For the second year running, they had gathered together their unwanted toys and sold them at a boat jumble.

LAURA Bradshaw, 12, and Claire Shimwell, 11, worked hard to design and dress a well in Pilsley village last July. £36 was donated by visitors and presented to the RNLI.

MRS ANNE Rayner held an exhibition of 150 of her watercolours in Newbury, donating some of the profits to the RNLI. Many of the watercolours were painted on her extensive travels or while sailing with her husband Eric, once a member of the RNLI's committee of management.

Newbury branch was delighted to receive a cheque for £2,081.

BAMBER Bridge branch held a grand band concert at St Aidan's Church Hall on 11 November. Lostock Hall Prize Memorial Band entertained the audience for over two hours with a wide programme. The evening, which included a draw and the sale of souvenirs, raised over £200 for RNLI funds.

DESPITE appalling weather, the golf day at Abbeydale golf club in Sheffield on 23 August 1991 was 'very exciting'. The event was organised by Sue Heath, committee member of Hallam ladies' branch in Sheffield, who is also a past lady captain of the golf club. Proceeds from competitor's entry fees and from a large tombola realised £4,001.17 for the Institution.

HAMPSTEAD Garden Suburb branch's seventh Christmas bring-and-buy sale at Fellowship House this year raised £730.

Souvenirs, cakes, clothes, bric-a-brac and refreshments were on sale. Despite competition from the rugby world cup final and a recession, honorary secretary Caroline Smith says the branch did very well.

NANCY HILL, crew member for Maiden on her round-the-world race with Tracey Edwards, gave a fascinating account of her adventures and a slide show to members of the Bishops Waltham branch. She presented a cheque for £100, part of the sponsorship for the trip she had to abort on breaking her collar bone. She ater sent a further £200, received after giving a talk to the Round Table, who requested her to donate it to her favourite charity.

GOODWIN SANDS and Downs ladies' guild reports a very successful exhibition of 101 drawings and paintings at their local library at Deal. Pictures were donated, or the artist took a percentage on sale. Silverware and pottery were also displayed, and the sale of Christmas cards, calendars and notelets took £955. In all, the exhibition raised £1,600.

SIX BRIGHTON lifeboatmen faced the challenge of cycling the South Downs Way on mountain bikes. Over a long weekend in September, they cycled 100 miles from Winchester to Eastbourne, a route which tested their navigational skills'. Station funds benefited by £460, and Heartbeat 2000 received £100 to go towards purchasing heart resuscitation equipment.

Can there be a fitter lifeboat station? Tasty cake Mr Grant Hodgkinson of Grant's Sandwich Bar in Holmes Chapel presented the local committee with a cake designed in the shape of a lifeboat, which was to be first prize in the Christmas raffle.

The cake, made by Mrs Margaret Corlett of Sandbach, was displayed locally during the weeks before Christmas and raised over £200.

The winner of the cake generously donated it to a local children's hospital where it was devoured with much pleasure! Light on Victorian life A Victorian magic lantern extravaganza, organised by Warwick ladies' lifeboat guild and the Leamington Spa branch, was held at the Royal Spa Centre, Leamington Spa on 3 October.

The evening's entertainment - of the type that might have been seen in Royal Leamington Spa 100 years ago - included the creation of spectacular images using oxy-hydrogen lanterns and glass slides. One concession to modern technology was the use of electricity rather than the authentic block of lime, to avoid an explosion! Music, song, recitations and readings accompanied the slides, which included, among other subjects, some lifeboat slides discovered in a warehouse and unused for 70 years.

This truly magical evening's entertainment produced a profit of £2,005.21. The organisers hope to carry out joint events of the same size and complexity in the future.

Singing support Singing their support for the RNLI with the help of teacher Alan Bower, the children of Wakefield Independent School, Wragby presented a £570 cheque to the lifeboats.

The money was raised from the school's Harvest Auction.

Area organiser (North East) Alan Dixon visited the school to receive the cheque and give a talk on the Institution.

During the presentation, the schoolchildren performed a special song for the lifeboatmen and •women, the words of which were written by headmistress of the school's junior department Mary Bladen.

What the dickens! Haywards Heath and District fund raising branch had a dickens of a time on 6 December 1991 at the late night shopping evening in Lindfield, just north of Haywards Heath. The evening was declared a Dickens Night, and the lifeboat committee was charged with dispensing hot soup and sausages to local shoppers.

The ladies entered into the spirit of the evening, selling 300 sausages and gallons of soup in two-and-a-half hours, to raise £250 for their branch.

Success for Beaconsfield Recently reformed Beaconsfield and District branch held its first AGM last November, where it was reported that the branch had raised £4,500.

There followed a talk by Mr James Grogono about his involvement with the hydrofoil catamaran Icarus, which achieved a world class speed record ofover28knotsin!987. Well-known marine cartoonist Jake Kavanagh presented three original cartoons, which were later sold at auction for £154. Altogether, £1,200 was raised from this most enjoyable evening.

What recession? There may be a recession going on, but Rustington and East Preston branch's fund raising ventures in 1991 still scored a succession of records.

The autumn coffee morning, which raised £775, was the most profitable ever held and the 20th annual sponsored walk in the spring raised a record sum of nearly £3,000.

As if that was not enough, the July flag day and house-to-house collection proved the best ever, making £3,250 for the RNLI. Finally, the total year income was a record £11,340.

Joint attraction Cheltenham branch held a coffee morning during the town's fire station open day on 14 September 1991. An added attraction was the personal appearance of author Jilly Cooper.

The branch raised £500 during the day. A similar amount was raised for the Fire Service Benevolent Fund.

Haircut, sir? Bury ladies' lifeboat guild raised £1,000 when Mr Chris Dagnam shaved his head for RNLI funds. The mop-cropping was performed at the White Horse in Walshaw by hairdresser Debbie Hall with the permission of landlords Mick and Brenda.

Enterprising residents Since 1970, North Chingford branch has enjoyed a close association with the residents of Enterprise House, a complex of self-contained flats.

Every year the branch is given use of a room for storage and distribution of flag week boxes and trays. Several RNLI film evenings have been held, and the collecting box in the communal bar has raised nearly £1,500.

The Chingford branch recently awarded Enterprise House residents an RNLI plaque, acknowledging their continuing support.

Bourne End boost A liaison between the social club of Equity and Law Life Assurance Society at High Wycombe, Bucks and the local Bourne End branch has proven highly successful.

A special charity week in June included a national raffle, darts marathon, karaoke, a horse race evening and a disco. The highlight of the week was a rock concert featuring the High Wycombe band 'Wrekless'. A cheque for £7,000 was subsequently presented to Bourne End branch.

Equity and Law Life Assurance Society social club have decided to continue their support for the RNLI and hope to raise enough to purchase a D class inshore lifeboat.

Fishermen net £1,041 By kind permission of Lord Egremont, the Petworth and District branch held a fly fishing day on 29 June 1991, open to members of the Leconfield fly fishing club and their friends.

Two fishing sessions, with an excellent lunch in between, yielded 78 fish, the largest being three-and-ahalf pounds.

This was the first such event held by Petworth and District branch and raised £1,041.

Newest recruit Budding lifeboat crew member Odysseus McNally launched a new class of lifeboat, designed and constructed by his Grandpop, at Teignmouth branch's 'Walk-into-the- Sea' on Boxing Day last.

Odysseus, our newest recruit, belongs to a family with strong RNLI associations - his great grandmother was named after Grace Darling.

Teignmouth branch have collected £455 from the event, little Odysseus' collecting box containing £34.30.

Towpath trek Reading branch member Chris Clacey and committee member Kevin Goddard trekked 125 miles along the towpath of the Kennet and Avon Canal from the mouth of the River Kennet at Reading to Bristol over four days last September.

A week before the walk, an RNLI exhibition was on display in Reading's Broad Street Mall shopping centre.

Together, the walk and the exhibition raised over £2,000 for the lifeboats.

Back to school Children from the Brentwood area were so eager to learn about the lifeboats that they gave up part of their half-term holiday to return to school! Brentwood Girls School hosted the 'class', which was conducted by Brentwood Junior School head teacher James Brown, also a member of the local RNLI committee. Videos were shown and an art competition was won by Katherine Apps of Ingrave.

Mr Brown said, 'This followed a suggestion from the RNLI to make young people aware of the work of the lifeboats, and we were very pleased with the response.' £19,000 from Southend Proceeds from Southend-on-Sea branch's sale of souvenirs for the year ending 30 September 1991 exceeded £19,000. Over £12,000 of this was taken at the pierhead lifeboat house souvenir shop in its first full year of operation.

As well as a fun day organised by John and Dawn Parker of the Britannia Hotel (which produced £900), and a collection aboard the pleasure craft Balmoral (which yielded £123), the branch raffled a painting by John Lee of Weymouth entitled 'The Last Commission'. It depicts Southend's former lifeboat Greater London II, and raised £1,125.

Tickets had been sold to boathouse visitors from Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, Seattle and Vancouver but the winner was local man Les Borkett of Thorpe Bay whose son Mark is a crew member in the Southend lifeboat Percy Garon III Vintage sales TV personality Raymond Baxter, an RNLI vice president, visited Worthing to receive an £800 cheque from author Rob Blann from sales of his two books on the town's lifeboat past.

Arriving at W.H. Smith in a 1920 vintage car on 24 October, Mr Baxter was escorted into the store by the town crier and entertained to a singa- long by members of the Worthing Edwardian Club in period costume.

Worthing branch set up their souvenir stall instore for the week and screened RNLI promotional videos.

After a visit to Worthing's old lifeboat house, Mr Baxter lunched at the tavern 'A Town's Pride', named after MrBlann'sbook. Meanwhile, despite the cold weather, RNLI supporters manned a stall on the pavement outside the pub. The day was pronounced a huge success.

M n ju Hamming it up Radio enthusiasts from Thatcham Novices radio group made (radio) waves on August bank holiday 1991 when they set up a station in the grounds of the Travellers Friend public house, Crookham near Newbury for a sponsored 'talk to the world'.

Members of the public were invited to take part on their station, whose callsign GB4LB1 was specially designed for the event. Well over 400 contacts were made worldwide and the group raised £500.

A winter's tail Former submariner Steve Winter faced the unkindest cut of all when his prized pigtail was sheared off to raise £175 in sponsorship for the RNLI.

Steve, 35, of Collier Street, Kent, said, 'I'd been growing it ever since I left the Navy, just to prove there were no petty officers yelling at me any more to get it cut.' The dirty deed was done on Boxing Day by 'hairdresser-for-the-day' Colin Springate, landlord of the local White Hart pub, who now plans to hang the tail over the bar as a trophy.

Trawling for funds A generous but anonymous local supporter gave Rhosneigr and District branch a beautifully made model of a Scottish fishing trawler - battery-operated, radio-controlled and measuring over six feet long.

Rhosneigr branch, located in a tiny seaside resort on the west coast of Anglesey, decided to raffle the craft.

Nearly £1,200 was collected and the trawler was won by Michael Dean of Knutsford.

The branch was formed in 1984, since when its supporters have raised over £36,000 plus a further £48,000 in the form of legacies.

Going for broke Walkers from Lloyds brokers Sneath Kent and Stuart took part in the 1991 Royal British Legion (Lloyds of London branch) city walk on 19 October to raise money for the Legion and the lifeboats.

To distinguish themselves from other participants (and perhaps to protect themselves from the wet weather!), the team wore lifeboat oilskins and sou'westers. Finishing 61st out of 139 teams, the team raised about £50.

Summer draw Whitby ladies' lifeboat guild have reached their year end having raised £14,000. A major fund raiser was the summer draw, the first prize a painting donatedby Whitby artist Mr John Freeman, who is shown below with members of the Whitby branch and the winning ticket.

Clubbing together Leighton Buzzard ladies' guild borrowed Barham model club's half-scale replica of the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston Waveney class lifeboat Barham for the town's May Fayre.

Displaying the model in the High Street, the guild sold souvenirs alongside and doubled the usual takings by raising £103. Seeing a lifeboat so far inland obviously caused quite a sensation in the town! The model was built by the lifeboatmen of Great Yarmouth and Gorleston in 1986 to raise funds for their station. Since then, the model has been sent to fund raisers all over the country.

Pulaid cheque A £1,500 cheque was presented to the RNLI at the London International Boat Show on 5 January 1992 by Jim Saltonstall, RYA senior national racing coach, on behalf of Pulaid Marine Systems. The cheque was accepted for the RN LI by Danny Potter of New Quay station.

The donation fulfils a sales promotional agreement made a year ago when Pulaid undertook to donate to RNLI funds £1 for each of the company's navigational reference systems sold. The system is a set of laminated, rotating discs providing instant reference to, among other things, the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea and the I ALA Buoyage System.

Carnival time! A new branch of the RNLI, formed last October, has been launched in carnival atmosphere.

Midsomer Norton/Radstock and District branch in Avon decided on a 'getting to know you' exercise by entering the local carnival.

Poole's inshore lifeboat was dressed up in flags, and 'Home From The Sea' was played on con- tinuous tape, satisfactorily beating off competition from a local sea cadet band marching behind! Committee members in lifeboat gear walked alongside.

The new committee are now organising the branch's first major event, which will be a cheese and wine evening to be held at Midsomer Norton Town Hall in May.

Come rain or shine Regular visitors to Lyrne Regis will no doubt recognise this smiling face! 'The Axminster music man' Norman Welsh plays his accordion along Lyme's promenade in all weathers during flag week, collecting money for charities as he goes. Mr Welsh is said to have collected £150,000 and has donated over £10,000 to the RNLI.

In brief...In brief...In brief...In brief...In brief...In brief… FRAMPTON Cotterell and District branch list among their successes for 1991: a silent auction (£785), May's flag week (£2,991), a June barn dance ( £1,102), and July's Tramps and Vamps farm night, a fun evening with games, raffles and competitions (£1,051). Together with collections, jumble sales, raffles, sponsored events, darts and skittles matches, the branch has raised just over £13,000 this year.

HITCHIN and District branch's barn dance on 16 November was a resounding success, about 80 guests stomping the night away in the Sun Hotel to the sound of The Rangers Country Dance Band and caller George Cropton, who did his utmost to ensure that dancers executed the correct steps! £92 was taken in the raffle and £60.35 in the sale of souvenirs, with a total profit of £300.54.

AN AUCTION, raffle and firework display were all held at the home of Mr Brian Lodge in Farnborough last November and raised £2,250 for the lifeboats. A keen sailor, Mr Lodge has organised fund raising events for the last five years and is a regular supporter of the RNLI.

On offer during the evening were a football signed by Barnet Football Club, a canal trip for six, a trip round Concorde and a day on a yacht. All those attending the evening were dressed, appropriately for the RNLI, in the theme of red, white and blue! THE NEWLY installed landlord and staff of The Flask public house in Hampstead, together with 'all who drink in her', have rekindled the pub's traditional support for the lifeboats. In the weeks over Christmas, donations totalling £21.80 were taken from the new collecting box and £131 was raised through a raffle of wine and spirits donated by the landlord.

THE VERDICT: The ladies of Selsey Lifeboat Association have excelled themselves yet again!' This time, the event was a trolley run, attended by TVS's Fern Britton who drew raffle tickets, mingled with shoppers and signed autographs, helping to raise £592.

FOUR MEMBERS of St Agnes lifeboat station drove 720 miles from Appledore to Weymouth last November, collecting money for Children In Need from south west lifeboat stations along the way. Street collections were also organised in Truro and Plymouth. Crew members Paul Kimberley, Paul Gamble and Neil Roberts, together with launcher Peter Maddock, raised a total of £1,339 for needy children.

MRS ANN Benney presented a cheque for £612 to Torbay's honorary secretary Tony Smith, representing money raised from Mrs Benney's third sponsored parachute jump in aid of the Torbay lifeboat station.

PERRANZABULOE branch is a small group of fund raisers set up in March 1990, who can already claim some success with their dog shows, coffee mornings, jumble sales and a colourful entry in the summer carnival.

The year's highlight, however, was August bank holiday flag day. As well as stalls on the village green, the day had surf guards showing off their skills and the coastguards giving a demonstration of their work off the cliffs. RNAS Culdrose in conjunction with the St Agnes lifeboat and St Ives' Mersey The Princess Royal also performed a joint air/sea rescue display.

AN £8,000 cheque was presented to Paul Hodgson, Gary Finnis and Victor Champs of Margate lifeboat crew at Earls Court Boat Show on 2 January by Icom (UK) Ltd. Icom (UK) donated £1 for each marine radio sold.

Souvenir shop on wheels In 1987, five local business people donated a second-hand caravan to the Woodbridge branch to be used as a souvenir sales shop and PR office.

Tony Purnell of the branch said, 'The caravan was modified to take display shelves by our friendly chippie, and we were allowed to berth it - free of charge - on Ferry Quay at Woodbridge during the summer season and store it at a boatyard in the winter.

'It goes to fetes and shows and is 'crewed' by the lifeboat ladies during weekends and summer holidays.

Other volunteers maintain it, improve it - and tow it! - at no cost to the Institution. Souvenirs worth over £4,000 have been sold from it so far.

'Oh yes, and just to keep up the tradition, it is painted orange and blue, bears the number '4-001' and is just over 12ft long!' Show house auction National builders Taylor Woodrow auctioned the contents of their show house on the Pine Springs Estate, Dorset in November, donating sale proceeds to the Broadstone branch.

Reserve prices for the show house contents were generously low, all excess proceeds going to the RNLI.

Members of the Broadstone branch helped co-ordinate the event, and branch member Peter Coles auctioned the furniture. Ms Bridget Lorimer of Taylor Woodrow later presented the magnificent sum of £2,083 to branch chairman Brigadier Paul Roberts.

Broadstone branch raised a further £314 at this well-supported event through raffles and souvenir sales.Come rain or shine Regular visitors to Lyrne Regis will no doubt recognise this smiling face! 'The Axminster music man' Norman Welsh plays his accordion along Lyme's promenade in all weathers during flag week, collecting money for charities as he goes. Mr Welsh is said to have collected £150,000 and has donated over £10,000 to the RNLI.

Mastercard payment The London International Boat Show 'was the setting for the presentation of a cheque for £131,864.36 to the RNLI.

The money was presented by Ray Essen, business development manager, and Gerry Furner, business accounts manager, on behalf of The Royal Bank of Scotland.

The bank introduced a Mastercard scheme whereby £7.50 is donated to the RNLI for every Mastercard account opened, further donations being made every time the card is used to make a purchase.

In brief...In brief...In brief.

AYTON'S fund raisers have celebrated their tenth anniversary with a party. The 13-member group has raised around £15,000 since its formation in September 1981 through jumble sales, garden parties, concerts and the Christmas fair. The money raised is presented to Scarborough ladies' lifeboat guild.

KENSINGTON branch's annual sponsored walk for children was held in Holland Park in November. Card marker Mary Thornhill, 14, is a 'retired' walker, having walked every year between the ages of 4 and 13. In all, she covered 173 miles and raised a grand total of £1,301. The 1991 Kensington walk raised over £2,400.

MRS TAMAR Edwards, Lady Mayoress of Coventry, invited members of Coventry ladies' lifeboat guild to take tea with her in her parlour in recognition of their fund raising efforts. Tea was followed by a conducted tour of the historic Council House, parts of which, dating from the 13th and 14th Century, survived the Blitz.

LAST September, six staff from the Hendon Metropolitan Police Driving School drove two sponsored Rover cars non stop around all 12 EC countries. The crews were attempting to break the existing record but missed because of a tachograph failure, making theirs an invalid entry. Despite that, the crews still managed to raise almost £4,000 for the lifeboats! Chivenor drift A drift/swim from Barnstaple Bridge to the RAF watersports club slipway at Chivenor by 27 members of various RAF sub-aqua clubs has raised £1,200 for the RNLI.

The event was waved off by Barnstaple's deputy mayor on 20 September, Jf, and it took about three hours to cover the 4.5 miles distance.

A back-up safety boat and engine was provided by Ilfracombe sub-aqua club, and Appledore's Atlantic 21 lifeboat was also in attendance.

The cheque was presented to Appledore lifeboat coxswain Desmond Cox by Group Captain Roger Gault, Officer Commanding RAF Chivenor on 3 November.

Other stations taking part in the event were St Mawgan, St Athan, Halton, Cottismore, Wyton and Cranwell.

Jailbreakers Bullingdon Prison, Bicester suffered its worst ever break-out - but the officers didn't mind one bit! The 'offenders' in question were Gerry Wallis, Shirley Tynan, Kevin Simms and Peter Wilberforce-Eke from Bicester's Vehicle Inspectorate Executive Agency. Their crime was volunteering to raise money for Bicester Round Table and Ladies' Circle charities.

The aim of the sponsored mass breakout was to travel as far as possible in 12 hours without spending any money. The team won hands down, reaching John O'Groats in 10 hours 50 minutes, raising £1061 for the RNLI.

Rowing to success Four fit and splendid fellows from Wraysbury skiff and punting club rowed a double-camping skiff, built privately in 1930 and restored in 1988, in The Great River Race held on 7 September last year.

Crew members R. Weaver, J. Neaves, R. Roberts and M. Williams rowed the 22-mile course from Richmond to Island Gardens in the Isle of Dogs, raising £800 in sponsorship.

As three extra bonuses, the crew won the cup for first place overall on handicap, the Tenks Thames trophy for being the first Thames-based boat on handicap, and the Gravesend trophy for being the first oared craft in on handicap.

The things people do! Fancy a dip? Fund raisers from five branches certainly did over Christmas and New Year, braving cold waters and winter conditions to raise money for the Institution.

First to take the icy plunge were members of Littlehampton Sailing Club. Four frozen sailors took a Boxing Day dip and made £150.

On a nippy New Year's Day, it was the turn of three Scottish branches to 'chill out'.

Four Girvan members took their traditional dip, raising £30; 55 swimmers at Helensburgh, bearing in mind the gales and lashing rain of the previous year's swim, submerged themselves to raise 'a considerable sum', and nine members from Carnoustie branch were rewarded in their efforts by raising more than £300.

Last but not least, eager dippers from the Cuan Bar at Strangf ord, Banbridge jumped in to make almost £300. Brrr.' Keeping a promise One day in 1944, a 16-year-old sea cadet called Bernard O'Reilly came ashore from the Skegness lifeboat, having acted as signalman on a war-time service to a bomber which had crashed into the sea while returning to RAF Waddington. It was 2200, but Bernard was able to spend the last hour at the dance he had planned to visit for the whole of that evening.

At the dance he made a collection for lifeboat funds, encountering a young girl who was a schoolmate. Embarrassed, Kathleen Carey told him she had just spent her last tuppence on crisps, but would make a donation later...

Nearly 48 years later, Bernard's telephone rang. He was now the deputy launching authority for Skegness lifeboat and thevoicewas that of a flight lieutenant at RAF Waddington. Did Bernard remember a young lady called Kathleen Carey? He did, and learned that she was now Anne Batty and that she had just taken part in a sponsored swim for the RNLI. Would Bernard like to visit RAF Waddington to accept the money she had raised? And so it was that Bernard O'Reilly met the young lady at the dance for the first time in 48 yea rs. She was able to keep her promise by adding £500 to RNLI funds at the very RAF station that the 1944 bomber had been making for… ASDA be good news Nuneaton and District branch began its third fund raising year in February 1991 with a flag day and charity stall.

Despite the sleet and snow, over £1,148 was collected and £262 of souvenirs were sold.

An open day at Nuneaton fire station, a carnival and gala, a steam fair and a day spent in the foyer of the ASDA superstore helped result in a final year total of just over £6,773.

Snooker prize VVhen Phil Lord and his three friends play snooker, the losers put a pound (sometimes more) into a large empty whisky bottle. The bottle was finally cracked open recently, and the contents added up to a splendid £925.

Sincere thanks to the 'losers' who generously turned their losses into 'winners' for the lifeboat service.

Hoylake open day Over 20,000 people flocked to Hoylake in the glorious sunshine for the station's Bank Holiday Open Day in August last year and raised £12,000.

The show took place on the Promenade at Hoylake and was officially opened by Brookside's Ron and D.D.

Dixon, in real life, actors Vince Earl and Irene Marot.

Star attraction was Hoylake's Mersey class Lady ofHilbre, parked on her trailer outside the lifeboat house. Also on show were a brass band, a model steam railway and Webster's talking shire horses, as well as a rescue demonstration by a Wessex helicopter from RAF Valley and the New Brighton and West Kirby inshore lifeboats. Acrobatic stunt displays really had stomachs churning when two women 'wing-walkers' looped the loop while strapped to the wings of a biplane! Note: West Kirby inshore lifeboat celebrated its 25th anniversary last year - and was the busiest station in the north west in 1990.

From its opening in 1966 to its 25th birthday, West Kirby's D class lifeboat had responded to 325 calls and saved 138 people.

The Fund Raisers I uatc lor copy to appear in issue of Tin- LIIHBO 15 May 1992 Twelfth Night ball A glittering occasion was held at the Albany Hotel, Glasgow on 6 January for 400 youngsters aged 13-18.

The 'Twelfth Night Ball' was organised by Mrs Liz McKillop and Glasgow North ladies' lifeboat guild. Dinner jackets and evening dresses were the order of the evening, with many of the young men resplendent in full highland regalia! Energetic dancers performed expertly across the range from disco to Scottish Country dancing and area organiser Tom Brown collected £4,600 for RNLI funds. Overall verdict: 'Let's do it again next year!'.

Sotheby's lunch The guest speaker at the Leicester ladies' guild annual luncheon in February was David Battle of Sothebys.

The luncheon was attended by Lady Martin, president of the guild, the committee and 205 guild members.

Mr Battie proved a very popular speaker and gave an interesting and informative talk.

The guild celebrated its silver jubilee last year and under the chairmanship of Mrs Pearl Lynch £18,000 was raised.

Mermaid ball The 1991 Mermaid Ball, held at the London Hilton, raised a staggering £96,000. The evening's fund raising included the chance to bid for parts of a D class lifeboat. The Countess of Normanton, 1991 ball chairman, was delighted with the result and praised her committee for their tireless dedication and hard work which resulted in a fun fund raising evening.

The fine art of fund raising At a recent reception hosted by Phillips Fine Art Auctioneers in Leeds, the RNLI was presented with a painting of the City of Sheffield by Edna Lumb. It was accepted by Captain Sir Miles Wingate, recently retired chairman of Trinity House and RNLI committee of management member.

A limited edition of 250 prints, each one signed and numbered by the artist, has been produced. The cost of the painting and the production of the print has been generously provided by sponsorship and all proceeds will go to the RNLI. As a result, the first 50 prints have been sold, thus raising £2,500.

Copies of the prints are available from Mr Stephen J. Wood, The Old House, Town Street, Chapel Allerton, Leeds LS7 4NB, price £50 (plus £2.50 p&p), cheques payable to the RNLI..