Hi I'm Gemma, director of a group of masters and undergraduate students at Bournemouth University, creating the documentary "Beyond the Waves". I have been an huge admirer of the RNLI as I have grown up and after creating a similar documentary for my undergraduate degree that generated a lot of reward and recognition for the Devon Freewheelers blood bikers charity, I now want to highlight the RNLI's relentless work to provide the nation's lifeboats and hope to achieve the same success again!
The RNLI are an admired organisation across the country, and the heroic work of the on-call volunteers is perpetual to saving lives! But have you ever considered what goes on behind the scenes and how they manage to do it?
The RNLI fund the design, testing, building and ongoing maintenance of all their own lifeboats from their factories in Poole and Cowes, solely from donations as a charity. A Shannon-class lifeboat can cost over £2 million and takes up to 17 months to build before it can start its lifesaving work on the water, all done in-house by the RNLI engineers.
Come with us as we explore the process inside the All-Weather Lifeboat Centre in Poole and the importance of the public's role in making this possible. Because without the lifeboats, the RNLI's vital mission to save lives at sea would not be possible.
As a student production, we don't receive any funding for this documentary project, and require equipment transport, crew travel and food in order to make this happen. Any funds we don't use directly on these production costs will be donated back to the RNLI to continue to help fund their lifeboats so please donate with them in mind!
Thank you for your support!
Gemma, Joel, Saffron, Dan, Harry and Tom