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And so the RNLI dies

He said he suspected he was targeted as he struggled with the new form-filling regime, adding: ‘Thirty-four years of service with not one disciplinary mark against my name, and skill, experience, knowledge and the sacrifices that I’ve made count for nothing.’

Darren Lewis, RNLI regional lifesaving manager, defended the charity’s decision to sack Mr Clark. He said it was down to a ‘number of breaches of our policies and procedures’ and followed a ‘lengthy investigation’.

Asked if there was a change in culture at the charity, he said a new management structure meant paid managers were able to keep a closer eye on the activities of volunteer crews at lifeboat stations. He added: ‘Any actions we do take are not taken lightly.’

No, no, the forms are the important thing, aren’t they?

37 thoughts on “And so the RNLI dies”

  1. a new management structure meant paid managers were able to keep a closer eye on the activities of volunteer crews at lifeboat stations

    Worthless fuckholes get to bully lifesavers. There isn’t enough fuck you in the world for these cunts.

  2. Bloke in North Dorset

    As I posted on TimN’s blog yesterday:

    Libby Purves, an accomplished sailor in her own right, has a very good piece in the times: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rnli-sacking-has-whiff-of-new-puritanism-dk0nxvthm

    Someone on the sailing forum has dug out the key figures from this year’s report:

    All figures are in £m.

    Income is up from 197.8 (2016) to 202.4 (2017). In this, legacies increased by 4.6 but donations are down by 1.9.

    Operating expenses are down by 1.2 mainly due to a fall in fund raising costs of 4.4

    Net gains on investments represent 10.5 compared with 20.6 last year.

    Finally actuarial gains on the pension fund total 22.8 compared with a loss last year of 67.9

    The net addition for the year to funds is therefore 53.7 bringing the year end funds total to 766.3.

    Paid employee costs increased from 75.3 to 80.2

    FTE non seasonal headcount increased from 1608 to 1631.

    Directors earning more than £60K per year increased from 51 to 54.

    The investment directly in completed lifeboats totalled 17.9.
    Read more at http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?500048-It-s-that-time#dHGiVCsVGKywswXP.99

    RNLI is a massive operation and they now design and build their own boats, but 54 Directors earning over £60k does set off alarm bells,

  3. Bloke in North Dorset

    Ooops, didn’t close the blockquote tag properly. The last comment is mine and not the author’s.

  4. Serious question, how do you value volunteers? Are they an asset? Are they shown on the books at replacement cost? i.e. how much it would cost to hire people to do the job?

  5. The RNLI was(*) the only large charity I have ever supported and have done so since I was a 12 year old volunteer jumping off boats at flag days (for which I still bear a massive rope burn scar 30 years on due to being badly hauled onto the lifeboat one year).

    This was mainly due to the RNLI being successful without government which stayed away, even though it was already stuffed with cash which seemed well invested for the future and in facilities.

    (*) The “was” above directly as a result of this leftist crap in the last few days. Probably due to “professional” charity arseholes moving in.

  6. There’s a petition to reinstate him. In his shoes I’d tell them where to stick any offer.

    Roue poses an interesting question.

  7. I used to fund the RNLI. Not any more, but I would donate to breakaway groups of lifesavers

  8. For many years the RNLI refused all goverment money, because they could see the strings attached, and remained one of the few genuine charities left.
    Alas, it now seems the leeches have managed to attach themselves even so, and will suck this one dry also.
    I wonder how many donating money realises it now goes to £60k (+pension) desk merchants, whose main job is to get rid of the volunteers that do the nasty wet & dangerous bits.
    It was a year or so ago there was a mutiny (in Jersey?) when the local chief was sacked for setting out on a rescue and saving people’s lives, without permission. Spit on hands…

  9. So Much For Subtlety

    What MC said. In spades and with a cherry on top.

    I would have thought that the RNLI’s core business is bravery. Not paperwork. It seems I am wrong. At least about what they think their core business is.

    OK. They will have a Right On mission statement that kicks major league butt compared to, say, Amnesty.

    I assume the next step is to regret the short fall in donations and ask the government for a hand out.

  10. “Darren Lewis, RNLI regional lifesaving manager”: jolly good – do we know how many lives our Darren has saved?

  11. FFS. That was one of my two GAYE charities chosen for a mixture of impact and lack of overheads. Now who?

  12. Have a look at the CV of the CEO of the RNLI and ponder whether he may have had a Gilbert Andrew Sullivan opera written about him in another age.
    “I polished up the handle of the big front door”

  13. Bloke in Germany

    Roue, in my much much smaller charidee, volunteers are not assigned an asset value. Neither are the paid staff. And neither are employees given a book value at my company, or probably even places like Golden Sacks. The only company that might put staff down as an asset on the books would surely be something like a football club that can demand compensation for an employee wishing to take up employment with a competitor (or enjoy a substantial yearly depreciation). Most companies can’t do that.

  14. The RNLI made the mistake of being too successful, and having a lot of money coming in. That attracted the vampire class.

    >FFS. That was one of my two GAYE charities chosen for a mixture of impact and lack of overheads. Now who?

    You could support some struggling non-PC authors of campus satires instead by buying their books. Just a suggestion.

  15. My late mother for many years helped out in a Lifeboat charity shop – despite being about as far from the sea as you can get in the UK.
    I doubt that the lifeboat crews will be the only volunteers starting to think that their selfless efforts are being abused and the money raised wasted.

  16. Yesterday Robert Goodwill, Tory MP for Scarborough and Whitby, also urged the RNLI to reinstate Mr Clark.

    The days when Charicrats paid any attention to Tory MPs are long, long gone.

  17. Pretty much the same as above.

    Contributed for many years but now the CM NGO scum are running the show. So no more of my money.

    A decent PM would go thro’ the fucking lot with fire and the sword. Starting with Common Purpose.

  18. @smoking scot – i note his skills are the usual mix of asshattery – project management and change management. Can’t see anything about savings lives.

  19. I know a few lifeboat volunteers. Many of them are self-employed tradesmen, with their vans near at hand. Others are businessmen with their premises near the harbour.
    So – people with business experience, who have demonstrated years of commitment to the service – they seem ideal for the job of managing the RNLI.

  20. they seem ideal for the job of managing the RNLI

    Yes, but have they got an MBA*?

    * Master of Bullshit Articulation

  21. William: I wondered about his CV. Can one get to Vice-Admiral without having commanded a ship? I guess there are non-deck officers who have climbed that greasy pole successfully. That would explain the apparent lack of command experience.

  22. Operation RNLI successful, hijacked by Left statism. Same as English Heritage, National Trust, RSPCA, RSPB, OXFAM, IET et al

    Part of the Marxist, Trot, Lenin, Stalin plan – first infiltrate & control the Unions & Universities, then the schools & media; the rest will then follow.

    RNLI – I predict donations will fall and the new mgt will go cap in hand to Gov’t for essential funding. Mission complete, state control accomplished.

    RNLI removed last year from my few “donate to” list due to this CM crap. PDSA is still on list

  23. Agree with most of the comments above but Pcar nails it.

    I was thinking false flag (the sacking), in the sense that through a completely provocative and unnecessary action (?) the CM fuckers can’t fail. You either lose your donations from one crowd or the from other (depending on eventual outcomes / media etc).

    And to the marxist garbage it doesn’t matter ultimately which way it falls – mission accomplished; another box ticked.

  24. Clovis Sangrail

    Thanks for the suggestions. Perhaps I should donate to a public spirited assassin?

  25. So now my list of national charities I’ll donate to is down to one: the Salvation Army. How ironic – prepared to gift to a Christian Church, but there it is.

    We’ve even abandoned a charity that my family had been involved with since its foundation in the mid 19th century.

    What a crying shame.

  26. @ dearieme
    So you are one of those who actually look at what the charity does rather than the label – good for you!
    A few decades ago, before Christian Aid got infiltrated, it was quite happy to use the local Imam to distribute relief in disaster areas and the Jews in my neighbourhood were significant contributors.
    I used to buy Lifeboat “flags” when I was in short trousers so I am really disappointed that RNLI has gone wrong.
    May I commend The Leprosy Mission for your intention? It really does cure Leprosy and help Lepers.

  27. The Pedant-General

    In the Forces, the officer class trade on really only one quality: integrity. You can be largely incompetent and your boys may still follow you (in fact, they follow you with more diligence…), but screw them over just once and you’re toast. They’ll never really be able to trust you again.

    That is very especially true for the actual volunteers who actually go out to see when it is actually in a state sufficient to sink ships. They need to know that someone has their back because they might not come back.

    If it appears that this fish is rotting from the head, those at the top will suddenly find that those volunteers will find the risk/reward balance of not being paid to put their lives at risk tips quite dramatically, quite quickly and quite irrecoverably.

  28. @ The Pedant-Genral
    Showing your age – that was true from 10,000 BC to 2,000 AD: not any longer because they’ve abolished the officer class and replaced it with bureaucrats.
    In 1917 the life expectancy of 2nd lieutenants was two weeks.

  29. I recommend this.
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Englishman-War-Wartime-Christopherson-1939-1945/dp/0593075501

    It starts in ’39: by ’44 he’s CO of his regiment. Young 2nd lieutenants join them and die before he knows any more about them than their surnames.

    One reason he’s CO is that four predecessors were casualties – one wounded, three dead.

    One reason I was interested is that my father commanded tanks from Normandy to Germany. No bloody wonder he was reluctant to talk about it.

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