Barmouth lifeboat station was the venue for some very special young people on Saturday – the members of the junior committee of the South Staffs Centre of the Caravan Club along with their families visited the station to present a cheque, meet the crew and have a conducted tour around the boathouse.
Liam Cotterill, 13, is the Junior Chairman of the club and it was his idea to raise money for the RNLI.
He proudly presented a cheque for £786.73 to Mark Haworth, Area Fundraising Manager for North Wales, who expressed his appreciation and thanked all the youngsters for their ideas, commitment and motivation in raising such a large amount of money.
The junior committee consists of fifteen members aged from 8-16. Every weekend the group and their families meet up with their caravans and, as well as enjoying themselves, they raise money for different charities.
They had lots of different ideas for raising the money. Last year at their firework rally they made chocolate apples and also sold glow sticks and punch balloons.
On other weekends they made cakes, cooked bacon and sausage baps, and fetched water for caravans for a small donation.
Throughout the year donations were received from other caravanners, RNLI collecting boxes were placed in local shops, RNLI key rings donated by a centre member were sold, and the profit made from selling gas was donated.
One weekend in March the youngsters organised their own rally to raise more money for the RNLI.
The weekend centred on sport with lots of activities including virtual horse racing, a whisky slide for the adults, a sweet roll for the children and a large raffle.
When presenting the cheque Liam said: ‘All in all it has been a very good year and we have enjoyed raising this money and are very pleased to come to Barmouth to present the cheque to the RNLI.’
Mark Haworth said: ‘It is gratifying that the youngsters know the importance of helping others while looking for nothing in return. Their families should be very proud of them. The RNLI depends entirely on voluntary contributions so we are extremely grateful for the huge amount of time and effort put into raising this money”.
