Lifeboat offer off?

Press, 29 April 1978, Page 11

Lifeboat offer off?

A proposal aimed at boosting the resources of the Sumner Lifeboat Institution is in danger of foundering. The institution needs a sponsor who is willing to provide S2OOO before the end of the month to help pav for a four-wheel-drive utility vehicle. Some time ago, the Lin-wood-Woolston Rotary Club made an offer of S2OOO to the institution to meet half the cost of a used Land-Rover to assist in the launching of Aid 11, the jet boat in use at Sumner. One condition of the gift was that the institution find some other sponsor to pay the balance. The deadline for the offer is the end of April. The secretary, Mr W. J. Baguley, is concerned at the lack of response. “We were hoping that another service club or business flrm could help sponsor the Land-Rover, but so far no-

■ one has come forward,” he • said. i Mr Baguley said the vehicle, apart from being j used to launch and retrieve . the jet boat, would broaden ■ the scope of the organisation. • and make possible rescues on , a wider scale. “With a four-wheel-drive utility vehicle, we could take the boat up the coast, as far ' as the Waimakariri or Motu- ; nau, as well as drive it over ' the Peninsula,” he said. I At present the boat must make any trips round the ' Banks Peninsula by sea; not i an easy task given the con- ; ditions the crew is likely to strike The Land-Rover would also ' be used as a mobile control ■ base when it was called out 1 further afield than Sumner. ■ said Mr Baguley. The Canterbury Land-Rover ■ Club has offered its services ; to the institution, and will > maintain the vehicle and pro- • vide such mechanical exper-

tise as is needed, an offer described as “very generous” by Mr Baguley. The institution has been us-> ing the Hamilton jet-boat since 1970, and private cars have been used to launch and retrieve it. Salt water had caused considerable damage to the cars. The chairman of the com-munity-sendee committee of the Linwood-Woolston Rotarv Club (Mr B. R. G. Carey) said his organisation had helped the institution in various ways over the years, and he regarded the present protect as a necessary and valuable one. , , “But we have other charitable commitments as well, and our resources are not unlimited,” he said. His club had promised the institution $2OOO provided it found another sponsor for a similar sum; and he, too. expressed concern that no response had been made from the public.