A grand day out in Poole – by Trustee, Nicola Baker

“With courage, nothing is impossible.” So said Sir William Hillary, founder of the RNLI.

Some expert training, dedication and camaraderie also help. So we trustees learnt when we visited the RNLI College on a gloriously sunny day at the end of September (2013).

Neil Garrie, Education Volunteer, gave us a tour of the main building including the state-of-the-art lifeboat bridge simulator. Here trainees can experience manoeuvring a lifeboat in all sea and weather conditions using high tech equipment – without even getting their feet wet.  We had fun attempting to ‘rescue’ two virtual people from a virtual burning ship in the Channel and getting safely back to Dover.

We visited Poole's huge indoor Sea Survival Centre, complete with its 25m long, 4m deep pool. This is where crews learn to handle different types of life raft, manage capsizes and practise rescues - again in all conditions. The building has equipment to create: waves, real driving rain, pitch black night time and even thunder and lightning.

After lunch in the excellent canteen, we boarded a bright orange 14m Trent All-Weather Lifeboat moored in the harbour. Oliver Mallinson, Lifeboat Trainer and Coxswain, showed us specialist equipment on-deck, the control panels inside and the space below deck where rescued people can recuperate and even have a cup of tea.  That type of boat can carry 107 people if necessary.  The trip ended – naturally! - with a quick visit to the onsite RNLI shop.

Opened in 2004, the RNLI College has a beautiful campus overlooking Poole Harbour. Hundreds of lifeboat crew and lifeguard volunteers from all over the UK and Ireland come for training each year. It even has porthole windows in the doors and seascape decor in the study bedrooms for that maritime feel! 

Just outside the College is the National RNLI Memorial – a splendid shining sculpture of a lifeboat rescue. Neil told us it bears 800 names of crew members who have died on duty, the most recent being in 1983. The RNLI is dedicated to providing the best possible training and kit to ensure no more names are added.  The Lifeboat Fund’s 2013 Appeal is focused on buying state-of-the-art crew kit.

I recommend a visit to the College for other trustees and supporters of The Lifeboat Fund.  It really enhanced our understanding of the RNLI and the difficult work of its volunteers.  Thank you to Angela and RNLI’s Amy Terry for organising the visit, and to everyone at the College for their time and hospitality.

All of us from The Lifeboat Fund who visited Poole that day:

• Sarah Miller, HMCTS (MoJ); John Jarvis, CSPA; Paul Shipley, HMCTS; Nicola Baker, ex-MoJ; Mike Trevett, Cabinet Office; and Peter Schild, HMRC (all pictured)

certainly renewed our enthusiasm for supporting the RNLI’s “ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”