The aim of my presentation was to introduce myself, provide a personalised overview of the RNLI, provide a glimpse at the RNLI’s flood rescue capability and provide opportunities to ask questions.  I have been a firm motorcycle fan since a young child following in my father’s footsteps.  He had been an early member of the 69 motorcycle club and bought me my first Italjet motorbike when I was 4.  Following school I joined the Royal Navy as a Seaman Officer and completed an 8 year short career commission.  I then joined Kent Police for 2 years where I met a few members of EKAM and passed my advanced course.  In 1999 I was offered a full time post as an inspector of Lifeboats within the RNLI so said farewell to Kent Police and joined the charity that exists to save lives at sea.  My RNLI role is to maintain the operational efficiency of lifeboat stations and takes me to all 42 of the east division stations between Hunstanton in Norfolk to Lymington in Dorset and the Isle of Wight. The RNLI is an amazing charity that relies primarily upon volunteers to man over 230 lifeboat stations across the UK and Republic of Ireland.  The lifeboat fleet consists of a number of different all weather lifeboats and inshore lifeboats, all of which have a rightable system of some description that enables the crew to deal with the ever apparent risk of capsize.  In a nutshell, our volunteers require the very best equipment and lifeboats as they are launching in all conditions and invariably at times when other mariners have turned for home!  The RNLI aims to achieve an average launch time of 10 minutes from notification and to reach all casualties where a risk to life exists, in all weathers, out to a maximum of 100 nautical miles.  In addition we aim to reach at least 90% of all casualties within 10 miles of lifeboat stations within 30 minutes of launch in all weathers.  These performance standards are challenging when considering that the majority of our crews are volunteers with day jobs who drop everything at the sound of their pager.  In 2009 RNLI lifeboats launched over 8000 times nationally and rescued nearly the same number of people.  Recently the RNLI has established a beach lifeguard service and now operate 140 Lifeguard units with 700 seasonal lifeguards.  This new service is proving to be a great success and provides a seamless service from the beach to the open sea at locations throughout the UK.