Award winning journalist, Ian Bell, as written an excellent article in the Herald.
We were particularly struck by this extract….
“The question of what makes – or breaks – a community is never simple. What looks small enough from the outside is big and fundamental if it’s part of who you are.
Where St Abbs is concerned, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution has overlooked that fact. It counts as irony. The RNLI depends as much as any charity on communities and their sense of themselves. Communities provide the volunteers for its 235 stations and its 346 lifeboats. Communities dig deep, year upon year, to provide the money – £51.15 million according to the 2013 annual report – to support the RNLI and ensure that crews have the gear they need.
From that attitude comes an ethos. The ethos brought the institution £118.75 million in legacies at the last count. Without communities, without what they are prepared to risk, sacrifice and spend, the RNLI wouldn’t amount to much. The organisation knows this, counts on it, boasts of it. The mistake it is about to make at St Abbs flies in the face of the RNLI’s traditions. Locals believe it also defies reason. And they call it a betrayal.”
Well said Ian ,we couldn’t agree more. Community is the foundation upon which the RNLI is built. It’s not too late for the RNLI exective to remember that the organisation they run relies on similar communities to ours all around the coast of these British Isles.
You can read the full article here:
