When I ticked the box to be an “occasional volunteer” for the RNLI I hadn’t anticipated ending up with a role that involves finding and coordinating collectors in the City of London for their collecting day in April now known as Mayday.

I realised my mistake when I was introduced to a number of people via email but by that point it didn’t seem right to pull out.  My initial thought was it can’t be that hard.

However it has proved much harder than anticipated to persuade people to give up a few hours of their day to stand with a collecting tin.

I wonder if people don’t equate the RNLI as being connected with London or if they even know it’s a charity. The fact is that the busiest lifeboat station in the country is Tower RNLI – now on the north bank near Waterloo Bridge – and it is  solely funded by donations.

I have volunteered on a couple of occasions before during the Thames Festival at Tower RNLI and wrote this blog post a couple of years ago which details more about what they do.

I am still looking for volunteers so if you can spare a couple of hours at either Bank, Moorgate, Cannon Street or Liverpool Street Stations please sign up via the links. Once you are on the Eventbrite page click “Register” and this brings up the various time slots divided over the day. At the time of writing they still need 30 volunteers at Liverpool Street, 19 at Cannon Street, 15 at Moorgate and 4 at Bank so any help anyone can give will be much appreciated.

I will be stationed (pun intended) at Liverpool Street on the 26th April “looking after” the collectors. Say hello if you’re passing through!

Next time I will ensure I know what is involved before volunteering!

The author of this blog (Joanna Moncrieff) is both a City of Westminster and  Clerkenwell and Islington Tour Guide. 

Details of all her group walks are listed here and upcoming public walks here