Unfortunately due to other commitments no one from the NIR committee is able to attend the CCA meeting on Wednesday evening, but Joe Bilous sent this update which was shared at the meeting on 30th May 2018.
In the past month Nith Inshore Rescue have had a single callout to an incident at Sandyhills, thankfully this had a good outcome for all involved. The fantastic weather we are having at the moment draws people to the coast and raises the possibility of an incident occurring.
We have been concentrating on training, with a joint exercise with local Coastguard teams focusing on mud rescue at Annan being the highlight.
May is one of the more expensive months for the lifeboat as we have to renew the many insurance policies covering our crew and equipment, along with the annual fee for our pagers. As with most things, these annual costs are ever increasing which makes us acutely aware of our reliance on the fantastic support from local people and businesses. Thank you to everyone for their generous support.
The landscaping works at the Lifeboat Station are progressing well, with the gabion baskets due for completion this week. The next phase is to re-turf or seed the area between the station and the river, and create a gravel parking area to the north of the station. This will prevent issues with crew members parking along the roadside during training and callouts. The dry weather is helping us progress quickly with this work after it stalled earlier in the year.
If you see our Land Rover, you may notice that something is different. It has recently undergone an essential refit at Penmans in Dumfries to keep it in the best possible condition. At 14 years old, it is important that we look after it as best we can. It has had the windows removed from the load space in the rear, a shelving system added so essential equipment is easy to access, the wiring has been checked and refitted, door seals replaced, a new colour scheme wrap has been applied, new tyres and chequer plates added to the bonnet. During this refit, we hired a 4×4 from Lloyds in order to keep our mobile unit in service. Russell Tiles have kindly chosen us as one of their charities to support this year. They will be organising various fund raising events over the coming months to support the refit of our Land Rover.
As you may have seen in the papers last week, on 16th June four of our crew members have set themselves the challenge of completing Tough Mudder 2018 at Drumlanrig Castle, raising essential funds for our lifeboat service. Peter, Robbie, Laurie & Dougie are training hard to be able to complete the course. If anyone would like to sponsor them, speak to one of the crew or visit our Facebook page where you can sponsor through Just Giving.