Sparking Something Good – Roger Harding Crew Room


April 2017 to March 2018, Hamble Lifeboat were very pleased to be selected as Marks and Spenser’s Hedge End charity of the year. This enabled Hamble to have coin pots at the tills and have our merchandise range available in the shop. This has raised a fantastic amount for the Lifeboat and have been astounded with the generosity. The highlight was M&S offering the ‘Sparking Something Good’ (SSG), the ‘Sparking Something Good’ is where staff from the store are able to commit to a charity. The store allowed Hamble to have 15 persons per day for two days. Store managers Lauren and Jon masterminded a refit of the Lifeboat Station. Hamble’s Lifeboat station was completed in 2015 and due to the operation the station little time has been invested in finishing the internal fit out. With 30 full time volunteers the Lifeboat station crew room named the Roger Harding Crew Room has been renovated to be a highly polished training and briefing room. The operation was managed by Liam Dobbin Head of Fundraising/Coxswain. Liam was hugely impressed with the teamwork, professionalism, work ethic and passion of the M&S team as they painted, sorted, organised and styled the entire Lifeboat station not just the planned crew room.

The crew room was styled with a Lifeboat orange feature wall complete with framed pictures. A new sofa and furniture was donated kindly by M&S, the windows and ceilings were sealed as they has yet to be finished. The roof beams and walls were all painted a bright white from the dour grey giving the crew room a bright modern feel. The SSG team were so proactive most of the paintable areas were refreshed and orange was used again in our stairwell highlighting a picture of Nick Robinson the founding member of Hamble Lifeboat.

M&S manager John and his team worked very hard organising our Boat area, installing warehouse racking for additional storage and building a vital work bench for our technical team. This was a great opportunity for the service to have a good clear out and fresh start in our new Lifeboat station.

The Trustees and Crew are very thankful to those from M&S Hedge End who participated in the Sparking Something Good and voting Hamble as charity of the year.