At the recent Annual General Meeting of Peel RNLI held at Peel Town Hall Thursday (8 March) it was announced that Hazel Hannan the current Chairperson of Peel Ladies Guild had been appointed President for her voluntary work since 1982 including 20 years in the Chair.

This was received by the meeting and Hazel was thanked by branch Chairman Stuart Blackley for all her work over the years. Hazel is succeeded by Paddy Kelly as Chairperson of the Guild and other appointments are as follows:

Vice Chair, Jackie O’Halloran
Secretary, Shirley Collin
Treasurer, Margaret Kelly
Ass. Secretary, Isabel Lawrence
Events Coordinator, Julie Marshall
Membership secretary, Adrienne Teare.
Committee, Marj Rothwell, Rose Blackwell, Joan Simpson

Treasurer Margaret Kelly gave a report of the fund raising effort for the past twelve months and reported that it had been an excellent year with a total of £32,327 raised a significant increase of £10,583 from the previous year.

Branch Chairman Stuart Blackley thanked all the volunteers in particular the crew for all their hard work during the year and commented that everyone would have to work harder because things could only get tighter over the next 12 months.

Lifeboat Operations Manager, Allen Corlett gave a report and explained that 26 exercises had been carried out and 6 service calls. The most arduous being a long 20 mile tow in gale force winds from the Mull of Galloway back to Peel of an ex Liverpool pilot boat on passage to Wick. He explained that a coastal review of the Islands stations was taking place on Monday 12th March and under the present financial conditions cuts could be made.

Branch officers were appointed as follows:
Chairman, Stuart Blackley
Admin Officer, Mark Gosden
Treasurer, Margaret Kelly
Press Officer, Malcolm Kelly
Committee, David Kinley, Herbert Watterson, John Teare, Dr.Christian, Chris Wilkinson, Jack Lee, Tom Bryan-Brown.