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The RNLI Chief Executive, Mark Dowie, visits Jersey
06/09/2021
The RNLI Chief Executive, Mark Dowie, visited Jersey on Thursday and Friday and, during a packed schedule, also managed to witness his first ever live launch on service when visiting a lifeboat station.
Mark Dowie’s first visit to Jersey during his tenure as RNLI Chief Executive gave him the opportunity to present awards to two long-serving volunteers and to visit each of the two RNLI Jersey lifeboat stations, as well as the RNLI Lifeguards, who celebrated 10 years on the Jersey beaches earlier this year.
Awards were presented to:
- Jurat Roy Bullen, for his 55 years’ service and support to RNLI Jersey, first as Launch Authority with Jersey Harbours and subsequently as RNLI Honorary Secretary of the St Helier and St Catherine’s lifeboat stations and latterly as Chairman of the RNLI Jersey branch. Following the presentation, Roy now assumes the role as President of RNLI Jersey. His commemorative letter was read out and presented to him at St Helier lifeboat station on Thursday evening, where Mark Dowie also met with members of the crew and RNLI Guild.
- Michael McNally, for his 20 years’ service as crew and helm of the St Catherine’s inshore lifeboat and member of the operations team for RNLI Jersey. Mark also met with members of the St Catherine’s crew and members of the RNLI Guild.
Shortly after presenting the long service award to Michael, the St Catherine’s inshore lifeboat was launched on service to investigate reports of an inflatable dinghy off the north coast below La Saline quarry in St Johns. The toy dinghy was found and recovered, thankfully with no-one on board or reported missing. Mark Dowie commented that, although he had been in role for over 2 years, the launch on service was the first he had witnessed when visiting a station.
RNLI Jersey wishes to remind beachgoers of the risks associated with inflatable toys which are easily blown out to sea and can present risk to life for anyone unfortunate enough to be in/on them. At the very least they can result in search and rescue assets being deployed unnecessarily which could mean those assets are not available where there is a genuine need.
