The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is one of those great Victorian foundations, the merits of which are as starkly obvious today as they when it was founded. Now a massive national charity, the RNLI today protects seafarers and beach users of all the beaches and waters around the UK, and also those of the Republic of Ireland. It does this through 238 lifeboat stations and 242 lifeguard units. The former deploy a fleet of 432 rescue craft, which they launch about 10,000 times each year, while the latter goes to the aid of some 20,000 people on and around the beaches annually. These services are provided by nearly 10,000 lifeboat volunteers and about 2,500 paid staff, including lifeguards. The RNLI HQ is down in Poole Harbour, where it also recently built a unique and rather smart training college (with extremely comfortable, boat-themed, ensuite bedrooms), which has some rather unusual training facilities. Next door it has constructed an equally specialist factory, in which it builds its iconic and extremely capable lifeboats. For obvious reasons, the public have access to scarcely any of the site, which is entirely focussed on the RNLI volunteers and employees, who go there for its myriad of specialist training courses. However, the Master has persuaded the Principal to allow a party from our Company to stay at the College during the last weekend in June, to see what they do there, how a busy lifeboat station operates, and how the lifeboats are built and maintained. The Royal Marines are one of our nation's two premier light infantry units, and with their amphibious focus, they have bases in various coastal locations around the UK. By chance, one such base is in Poole, located just across the harbour from the RNLI College. We have long affiliated to the key...

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