The funding for the new Lifeboat Station and lifeboat, the equipment and the training of all involved has been met by the RNLI Dartmouth Lifeboat Appeal opened in August 2006. David Hannah, RNLI Appeals Manager said, "Our appeal has been an enormous success. Not only have we reached our target of £259,000 we have now exceeded it. This has been made possible through the enthusiasm and dedication of our volunteers in Dartmouth, Kingswear and Totnes and the generous donations made by members of the public, businesses, charitable trusts, clubs, event organizers and other organizations."

Our appeal to meet the set up costs of our new station will close on a highly successful note on 1 September 2008. Any residual funds in the appeal account will be used for the operational maintenance of the station and our volunteer crew.

Despite the completion of the appeal we will still need your help to fund the annual running costs of the station, which will be in excess of £30,000 per annum. We will need to maintain the boathouse, service the lifeboat and associated equipment and continue to train our crew, some of whom come from a non-maritime background.

The result of the Appeal is a new RNLI facility for saving lives on the River Dart and in coastal waters and for providing sea safety advice through education, which we hope will serve the community for years to come. We are very grateful for all your support.

St Augustine's Priory is a Roman Catholic school for girls in Ealing, West London. They raised over £5000 for our Appeal and a party from the School visited the Station in the June. The girls managed to persuade Frank Lampard of England and Chelsea fame, to donate a pair of his signed boots for auction. Bids eventually reached £500. More details of how they raised such a sum is available in the educational section of the RNLI web site.

http://www.rnli.org.uk/Shorething/Youth/News/?newsID=169

How can I help?

The cost of the new boathouse project has unfortunately had to be revised upwards due to the extremely wet area immediatly outside the boathouse exit onto the park. The new target is £259,000. Work to start to remedy the problem is scheduled to begin in the week of 28th January.  An anonymous donor has recently kindly donated £15,000, which, with gift aid, will provide for the New Holland Tractor. We have raised £229,000 by late January 2008. It is still possible to give donations for individual items of kit for the crew and boathouse. Terry Knight, Chair of the Fundraising team, has the up to date list.
We are running a full programme of high quality fund raising events,  The first Dartmouth RNLI lifeboat week which took place in August 2007 raised £9100. You can help us and have a good  time by supporting these events.  But history tells us that the biggest slice by far of the appeal target will come from donations.

• By the web: To make a donation by credit or debit card go to; www.rnli.org.uk/dartmouthappeal
• By phone:  To make a donation call 0800 543 210 and quote "Dartmouth Appeal"
• Please see below for more information.