Fundraising for the RNLI

Not surprisingly perhaps, my charity of choice is the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI). I've always supported them and since I moved to Shropshire 6 years ago I've become more involved with my local fundraising branch.
For the past 2 years I've held a coffee morning for them plus attended other fundraisers too.
During the middle of last year I was approached to become a member of the committee. Apparently they were looking for a younger person with some new ideas! I gladly accepted and have enjoyed being involved in planning our fundraisers and also putting forward some ideas too.

I've recently set up a Facebook page for our branch which has started to have a few hits. It is my plan to advertise all our fundraising events on this page and to keep the more technically minded RNLI supporters upto date with our fundraising news.

Click here for : Our RNLI Church Stretton Branch  Facebook page
Make sure you click that you 'like' the page!
This past Saturday was our latest fundraiser which was in aid of the RNLI annual fundraiser SOS day. We decided to organise a Sing Our Songs event. A local Eukele band called The Shropshire Strummers very kindly offered their services free and came along to entertain us. They bring along songbooks so the audience can join in with the singing. People were in fine voice and although most of the songs did have a sea theme some where a bit more fun and unusual!

Click here for : The Shropshire Strummers webpage


We had between 60 & 70 people come along on Saturday. All committee members brought along trays of food for an interval buffet.

Our buffet

A great evening was enjoyed by us all and we were able to raise £436 for the RNLI.

One chap who was there is going to be doing an epic bike ride in May in aid of the RNLI and  I'm hoping to have more information soon to put on our page.









Our next fundraising event will be a Fish N Chip supper on March 3rd.  Our guest speaker this year will be a lifeboatman from Wales.

As high as a kite

Yesterday was as Pooh would say 'a very blustery day'.
After a mornings work I came home to hubby and stepdaughter, her partner and our new addition to the family.
We headed out up the valley to have lunch. The pub there does lovely food, my husband likes it as they brew their own beer and it's dog friendly so Maisie the dog can come inside too.
After a tasty refuel we headed upto the castle. Sadly not much is left of the castle itself but it's great to explore.
We had brought our rucksack of kites with us and hubby set about getting one of the kites out of the bag whilst I threw a ball for Maisie.
I should explain the castle is built on quite a hill and the river meanders around the bottom of the hill. Maisie runs down to the flat land between the hill and river and waits for me to throw the toy. She then runs straight back up the hill with it and then she's off again back down the hill. How she has the energy for this is beyond me!
Anyway the kite was ready to go so the men started to launch and fly it. Maisie was intrigued by this and was running round looking up at this strange white and purple thing, whooshing around above her.
The wind got stronger and stronger until a huge gust took the kite and it's flyer whiz zing across the grass. I'm sure skid marks must have been left behind.
By now I was beginning to get cold so us girls decided to head back to the car quickly followed by the men.
After a lovely exhilarating hour flying kites a hot coffee and some freshly made scones were the order of the day.

Shipwrecked

Imagine you have just checked into an exclusive hotel............................
                   
You follow the porter as he takes you and your bags to your room, not really paying attention  as you walk down identical looking corridors................................................

Once in your room, you unpack, have a look round the room, locate the fridge and mini bar, see what freebies there are, check out the bathroom,  survey the view from the window.......................

After showering and dressing for dinner you try and find your way back down to the restaurant.

Did you look at the fire exit plan on the door in your room?
Do you know where your nearest exit is?

If all the lights went out would you know where you were and how to get out?

Now translate that scenario onto a ship.............................it gets more complicated because not only are you in the dark but you are also on water.........which way is forward or aft? Do you know where your life jacket is or indeed how to put it on? Do you know where your muster station is and how to get there?
The ship will start tipping shortly and make things even more scary.

This must have been the situation for the 3000 passengers on board the Costa Concordia last Friday. They had only been on board for a couple of hours or so before tragedy struck and their trips of a lifetime became a nightmare.

"On any ship carrying passengers where the passengers are scheduled to be on board for more than 24 hours, a muster of the passengers must take place within 24 hours of their embarkation. Passengers must be given instruction in how to don their lifejackets and the action to take on hearing the general emergency alarm signal" (MGN71)

On Friday, how many people had checked the muster list which by law must have been displayed in their cabin?
This would have told them details of all the emergency signals they would possibly hear such as fire alarm, general emergency alarm (7 or more short blasts on the ships whistle or siren) and abandon ship command (usually verbally by the Captain) and the actions that should be taken if they heard them. They should also have known where their nearest lifeboat was, where their muster station was and how to don a life jacket.

I'm sure many people were saved by the actions of crew members who were able to guide people to lifeboats and help them put on their life jackets correctly.

"Each crew member must participate in at least one abandon ship drill and one fire drill every month. These drills must be held within 24 hours of leaving port if more than 25% of the crew

have not taken part in drills on board the ship in the previous month."(MGN71)

I have taken part in many drills on ships in the 12 years I was at sea, often times thinking 'why oh why are we doing this again?' but I'm sure nothing can prepare you for the real thing. Luckily on the ships I have sailed on the number of people on board was much smaller so mustering and checking if there is anyone missing is a lot easier and quicker than on a cruise ship. And of course our drills are always done during the day, usually during calm weather.

So who is to blame?

Well the buck always stops with the Captain.................he is in charge of the ship.
Even if he is fast asleep in bed at the time of an accident, he is always the one to blame,

In this instance it would seem that the Captain was still on the bridge and was wanting to show off his fancy cruise ship to the people of Isola Del Giglio.  By deviating from the course prescribed by the cruise company he has broken the rules. The ship would have been fitted with an echo sounder which shows how much clearance there is under the ships keel. Navigational charts, paper and on computer, are updated weekly and new clusters of rocks would surely have been noted.

Once the ship had hit the rocks I am sure that a bilge alarm would have sounded and engineers would have gone to investigate.  Once the ship lost power and blacked out, this must surely have been a sign to muster everyone at the muster stations, whilst more investigations were carried out by the ships crew.

The Captain does seem to have had the presence of mind to turn the ship around and bring her nearer into shore, perhaps helping to save lives.
It should always be the last resort to abandon ship, the ship itself being the safest place to be, but once it started listing and taking on more water, this must surely have been the time for the Captain to declare 'Abandon Ship'.

Whenever I go on an aeroplane or stay at a hotel, I do always look at where my nearest exit is......why? No idea, I just like to know how I would escape if the worst came to the worst. 
How many of you can say the same?

Do you spend more time flicking through the in flight magazine than listening and paying attention to the safety announcements?

Do you check out the fire exit plan on the back of your hotel door or check out whats in the mini bar?

It only takes 5 minutes but it could save your life!


Whilst researching for this blog I was shocked to see that on a passenger ship, passengers "should be strongly encouraged to attend abandon ship drills".  They don't have to attend,

If I had to change 2 things it would be that:

1) All passengers must attend an abandon ship drill.
                                                                      
2) An abandon ship/emergency drill on a passenger ship must take place before the ship sails.


Happy Sailing!




Read MGN71

Back home with a cold!

I signed off the ship on Saturday afternoon and drove home to Shopshire. I had a wonderful reception from hubby and my dog, Maisie.
Hubby had cleaned the house from top to bottom, filled it with flowers and cooked a lovely chinese meal, crispy duck pancakes, lemon prawns and sticky ribs all with rice. It was delicious.
I sank into a lovely hot bath and relaxed for a while.
Sadly I also brought home a cold :(
I've been sniffling and sneezing ever since.
Today I got dressed up warm and we ventured out to our local town with the dog. We walked along the river, it was lovely, frosty and crisp.

Once we had had a little walk we ventured up into town to our favourite pub. Its dog friendly and does fabulous homemade soups. So we sat and watched the world go by as we sipped on our tomato soup and dipped in the crusty bread. I was still feeling very sneezy and sniffly so we wrapped up warm again and went back to the car and headed home.

I have decided to cancel my appointments tomorrow.  Many of my patients are elderly and I am very cautious about passing on coughs and colds to them, knowing how vulnerable they can be, especially in winter.

I suppose instead I shall snuffle and sniff at home whilst trying to organise the dreaded tax return!! Its got to be done.

Last Day

Today was my last full day on board. I shall be signing off tomorrow and driving home to Shropshire. I'm surprised that I have such mixed feelings about that too.

My reasons for coming back to sea were quite simple. To be able to revalidate my certificates I need to have done 12 months seatime in 5 years. I've got about 18 months to go until I need to revalidate but not much seatime. As I've been working away from sea for 3 1/2 years I've been a bit undecided as to whether I wanted to revalidate at all.
One part of me still yearns to work on a ship, be part of a crew, navigating around the sea etc. I worked hard to get all my certificates, so figure it would be a shame to lose the certificates.
On the other hand I have a quiet life in the country, working for myself with my dog for a companion and a great husband who I see every 3 weeks as he works at sea too. I don't have to get up at silly hours of the day anymore, I get to belong to clubs/ groups etc and don't miss out on family birthdays/ weddings/ get togethers.
I wanted this trip away to help me decide whether I should bother trying to revalidate my ticket or just concentrate on my 'newer' life.
Of course it is hard to measure it by this trip alone because it has by no means been a 'normal' trip. We have only done 1 cargo and have been in a repair stop for just over a week. Being able to go ashore with other crew, makes a difference. Normally at sea you wouldn't see a lot of other crew members because of doing opposite watches. In a 3 week trip I probably wouldn't go ashore once.
So this has been a refreshing change, I've thoroughly enjoyed myself, I've had a great laugh with the crew and some of the lads working in the dockyard. It's worked out well really that I knew the ship already too.
Another nice thing is that several of the crew have said how nice it has been having me on board. It's made a change to them too.
So will I continue and come back for a few more trips to sea or will I say 'no this isn't for me' and cast away the idea of going back to sea??
What would you do?