A look behind the scenes at RNLI (Sales), the company which raises funds for the lifeboat service, and is also responsible for perhaps the most visible of the RNLI's images - its gifts and souvenirsWeall knowabout RNLI (Sales) don't we? Every time we order some Christmas cards from the catalogue or a souvenir secretary wants to restock on tea towels a simple order form goes off in the post, and then a few days later a package pops back through our letter box.

It must be simple, mustn't it? Just receive the orders, pack them up and send out the goods.

Well, it is in theory, but in practice things get just a bit more complicated. Who, for example, is going to decide which items to stock? Where to get them? Where to store them? And how on earth do we process more than 90,000 orders a year? These are just some of the problems which face RNLI (Sales) in its task of raising funds for the lifeboat service.Why? First of all why the rather strange title? The full title is actually RNLI (Sales) Limited, which is good clue.

RNLI (Sales) Limited-let's just call it the sales company for simplicity - isn't a charity like the RNLI, it's a wholly owned subsidiary of the RNLI, and a commercial company with its own board of directors.

Its close links with the Institution are made even more obvious to all when the board of directors consists entirely of RNLI staff and members of RNLI Committees. But it must be separate, legally, in order to trade as it does, and in order to be able to deal advantageously with such things as VAT. It 'covenants' its entire commercial profit lifeboatto the RNLI, which also enables the Institution to reclaim the tax that the sales company has paid.

Despite its separate legal status it's everyone's aim that the sales company blends seamlessly with the rest of the Institution and it's activities - call any RNLI telephone number, for example, and you can be transferred from sales company to fundraising to operations and back again with little more than a distant click The whole set-up may all sound rather complicated, but it's not as complex as it sounds and it's by far and away the most effective way of allowing a charity to trade to raise funds and avoid paying unnecessary taxes.

So, having established exactly what the sales company is, what does it do and how does it do it? Managing Director, Sales, is Peter Chennell, and it is he who sets the strategy and looks after the organisation and day-to-day running of this diverse company. For not only does the sales company have to buy in a suitable range of products, much of it personalised to the RNLI in some way but it also has to despatch them to two very different sorts of customers through two very different methods. Its main outlets are 'Watermark', the RNLI's mail order catalogue, and the distinctly different range of goods for sale by branch and guild members.

There are some 2, 000 branches and guilds and most are involved in the sale of gifts and souvenirs in some way. Some have dedicated shop premises, some have a shop at lifeboat stations (which are being added whenever possible when a station is improved), and some make use of them for 'trestle table' operations at shows or their own events. Each needs a different stock and different stock levels but all need a quick turnround and control of orders, banking and returns. Just to add a little variety, as if more were needed, the sales company also has to stock stands at boat shows and the AGM, sending stock out, keeping it topped up and then bringing home the unsold goods.

The company carries around 3,500 different items, ranging from keyrings at 20p each to itemsselling for £200 and more. Just to add to the complexity the range within one item can be extensive. Take sweat shirts: there are three colours, and as all three grades must be available in at least five sizes the simple label 'sweat shirt' covers at least 15 different items.

Under Peter's tenure the sales organisation has come in for much modernisation and updating.

'We're running a £5m a year retail operation here', says Peter, 'and it must be run at least as efficiently as any similar operation. More so really, since we're unique in contributing to the running of a voluntary lifesaving organisation.'The key to handling such large and varying amounts is, as you'd expect, a good computer system which links the order-taking side of things in Poole with the vast warehouse which is centrally located, and convenient to the motorway network, at Thirsk in Yorkshire.

Orders are received in the Bill Knott building on the RNLI's depot site in Poole where the payments are processed and the orders entered into the computer system.Some 250 miles away at the Fulfilment Centre in Yorkshire, in a purpose-built warehouse on the outskirt's of James Herriot's home town, Office Supervisor Jackie Gelder can print off the day's catalogue orders. When we visited things were 'fairly quiet' with only about 800 orders to process - in the run up to Christmas there might be as many as 2,000. Since Terry Burden, whoI manages the Thirsk operation, was already planning an Sam to 8pm day a new Coastal Calendar with 48-hour days in the three months before the festive season might be a good selling line...

Alongside the mail order printer more staff enter the branch and guilds' gift and souvenir orders, which come directly to Thirsk, and these too makes their way through into the giant warehouse behind the offices.

Security It may all sound a little impersonal, but that's far from the case. Orders which are to be gifts can be despatched with personal messages or Christmas cards; branch and guild officials often pop in for their orders in person; and the chief of security is likely to be lying on her back waiting for someone to tickle her tummy... And before anyone gets the wrong idea, security, according to the staff board in the foyer at any rate, is in the hands of Bess, Terry's loveable Golden Retriever. Apart from roving the building to keep a close eye on everyone (in case they have something leftoverfrom their sandwiches) she also contributes to staff fitness by having a seemingly endless rota of people waiting to take herfor a lunchtime walk.

Parrots Once the orders are out in the warehouse the 'pickers' begin toassemblethem, with a simple but effective system in place to check for accuracy. Ten orders are 'picked' at the same time, by bin number, from the seemingly endless racks of storage and put in an individual basket. From these racks, which are only a few yards short of a mile in length, the items are brought back to a central point where they are 'picked' again, this time checking against the computer generated delivery note to pick up any discrepancy between the 'part number' and the actual description of the item. This way you shouldn't receive a talking parrot instead of a key ring if there's been 'finger trouble' on a keyboard somewhere! In with the completed order goes a repeat order form, another catalogue and, at the moment, a Sea Safety leaflet - since this is a very good way of distributing RNLI material virtually free.

All that is left is the packing - but where do you start when you've got items of every conceivable shape and size, and they've all got to go into one box? Just arm Thirsk's packers with a selection of cardboard boxes and some packing material and stand back and watch in admiration. If there is but one way that everything will go in the box, they'll find it! And that packing material? It looks just like simple shredded cardboard, and that's exactly what it is. But not so long ago someone had to be paid to take away the old cardboard boxes that the stock arrivedin, and packing material for outgoing orders had to be bought in. Now, in a nice piece of ecologically sound (and money saving) thinking, a special shredder turns the unwanted first into the needed second...

And then up the aisles to the despatch area and a waiting forklift. Such is the volume of orders passing through this operation that the idea of having a van collect them each day was abandoned long ago. Now the carrier leaves a lorry on site. It's fully loaded by the end of the day, disappears at night and is replaced by an empty version ready to be packed the next day. In busy times (that Christmas rush again) an articulated ; trailer is left alongside it...

IVIean while...

Meanwhile, what's happening back in Poole? Well, walking in to the office there you're reminded of that old adage about the swan. All looks calm and collected on the surface, but you know that there's a heck of a lot of hard paddling going on under the surface. There's a steady stream of orders going in to the computer system fora start, and in the finance section alone there are some 136,000 transactions a year to be recorded by Financial Director Russell Bowman and his section (that's well over 500 each working day for those without a calculator handy).

Pat Hendy's team, bolstered by temporary staff in the three months before the Christmas rush, mans the telephones to process orders, recording details of the order, credit card numbers and so on, and once again the busy three months sees extended hours - from 7am to 10pm, with an answering machine taking over to deal with insomniac customers. They're helped by a software package on the computer specially designed for mail order transactions and which revelling in the name of 'MailBrain'.

on the; motorx/veiy And there's more. In Retail Operations you might find the Manager, Angela Kingsford, in her office, but more likely she left at dawn to visit one of the souvenir shops, or to help someone who has been asked to set up a stand and would like some commercial advice. Rod Johnson could be in, but again he's more likely to be somewhere on a motorway-on his way to provide support for the fundraisers out in the field with commercial advice on stocking, display and careful storage of the goods. You are more likely to find Gloria Price in residence as she's the one who deals with the queries and keeps things running back at base.

Gloria is known to almost everyone as 'Glo' and, as everyone in the RNLI has an acronym for their title, Gloria's 'Branch Liaison Officer' becomes BLO - and she in turn becomes 'Glo the Bio'.

The whole idea is to shoulder some of the commercial strain of what should be pleasurable fundraising activities.

Reps Elsewhere Margaret Creech will be living up to her title of Merchandising and Buying Manager by visiting a couple of dozen trade fairs each year, talking to countless sales reps and looking at four or five parcels of speculative merchandise which arrive uninvited each day. In her spare time she and her team select the items, decide which page of the catalogue they're going to appear on and then arrange the layout and printing of the catalogue with a design studio and printer.

And talking of the catalogues - 'Watermark', the mail order catalogue has a print run of some 800,000 and reaches not only RNLI members with the Summer issue of The Lifeboat but is also mailed out again in October to frequent customers and those who have asked for it specially. To spread the word further other lists of names and addresses are rented for a special mailing, which produces good results and brings many other customers into contact with all aspects of the RNLI.

An interesting point here - the rented lists are checked against the RNLI's own list (the in-term is 'de-duplicated') but can't be checked against each other. That's why if you're on one of the other lists you might receive three copies of the catalogue some years.

Don't worry, it isn't wasteful.

Peter points out that it's far more profitable to 'waste' the odd copy than to miss out on potential customers. 'It looks wasteful, but it isn't really,' he says, 'believe me-it works!' Since £145,000 in donations accompanied catalogue orders last year few would argue.

Jus~t; in Time You might think that all this is enough to keep everyone pretty busy - but of course there's the odd problem still left to solve. Like making sure that the stock is available when its needed, and not before.

There's another buzz-word for this, it's called 'Just In Time'. The stock is delivered just before you need it so that it is not tying up funds and expensive storage space any longerthan absolutely necessary. Sounds simple? Just try it with 3,500 items as Marketing Support Controller Christine Curtis has to! Of course despite everybody's best efforts suppliers can and do let the company down, and items go out of stock. The customers don't like it - but neither does Peter and his team, so if it is out of stock you can bet that they've moved heaven and earth to try to prevent it.

So, the next time you drop an order form in the post and the goods duly turn up a few days later spare a thought for I the poor old swan. A calm and efficient service means a lot of hard' paddling!.