On 15 December, the Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton fundraising guild held their annual carol service. Volunteers from the guild presented retiring guild secretary, Maureen Chandler with a framed photo.

The carol service was held at Tower Street Methodist Church on a cold, wet evening. Reverend Beth McDowell welcomed and introduced the service which comprised carols and readings. Volunteer Deputy Coxswain Steve Hockings-Thompson paraded the charity’s standard. Readings from the Bible, poems and short stories were read by RNLI volunteers from the lifeboat crew, shop and the fundraising guild. Reverend McDowell ended the service with an emotional reading of The Lifeboat Prayer. Despite being a modest service attended by around 40 people, over £100 was raised in collection buckets.

After the service, committee members from the fundraising group thanked Maureen Chandler for her commitment to RNLI fundraising since 1985. President and former RNLI Coxswain, Keith Graham presented the retiring secretary with a framed photo taken by volunteer Tina Burke. Maureen now looks forward to her Vice-President role.

2013 will be a busy year for the Exmouth RNLI fundraisers. Anticipating the arrival of the new Shannon-class lifeboat towards the end of the year, the appeal has begun to raise £150,000 towards the cost of the launch and recovery vehicle. The group will be looking towards the community to help raise money for this essential piece of life-saving kit. The charity’s biggest fundraising day, SOS Day will be on 25 January and more details will appear in the press nearer the time.

We would like to thank everyone for their on-going support and donations throughout 2012. One of the key fundraising efforts from last year was to equip our volunteer crew with new state of the art lifejackets. Thanks to your support the new lifejackets are now operational and well received by our crews responding to emergencies at sea. Exmouth RNLI would like to wish all our supporters a happy Christmas and a safe New Year.