Contrasting approaches.....

Diane and I were SO pleased to see a sponsorship donation of £300 made recently by Annonymous. Mr/Ms Annonymous, we don't know who you are, but we really appreciate your support, and you are such a very kind and generous person! Thanks for being such a great supporter of the CF Trust and the Blue Star project!

Contrast that generosity with a recent news article that told how HMRC are not granting gift aid donations when more than one person is named as the donor because they cannot be sure whose tax to reclaim / donate. This seems incredibly mean when eg. Janet and John name themselves and add a note of encouragement when making a sponsorship donation. Surely HMRC could find a more understanding way of dealing with this situation.

......Life Jacket service continued.

So what did I do about my lifejacket (LJ) service? I wanted to weigh the CO2 cylinder to check it hadn't leaked any CO2. The unit was stamped 171g - the minimum weight which indicates it is sufficiently full. But where could I weigh it to a sufficient accuracy? I had a contact at a local commercial organisation and asked to use their scales - no problem; the scales indicated 170g! Hhmmm! Later I was visiting Morrison's in Stone and thought to ask the checkout lady to weigh the cylinder for me as a check - 175g! Hhmmm! Which reading to believe?

I checked the condition of the inflating part of the LJ. All looked well. I checked the reflecting tape sections - strangely one seemed a bit degraded, but still OK. One internet entry said to check the condition of the inflating section by inflating it with a pump, not by mouth because air from one's mouth will be damp and will not be good for the LJ; another advice column said that the modern materials from which LJ's and made can easily deal with a bit of damp air used to test a lifejacket. Which advice to believe? Hhhmmmm!

I needed to make a decision, so chose to use the 'old' gas cylinder to inflate the jacket (perhaps it was under weight anyway?), and send off for a replacement cylinder and trigger cartridge; the new cylinder did not cost that much more than the cartridge alone, and after all this is MY life we are talking about! I left the LJ inflated for 12hours to test for leaks then, after installing the new gas cylinder and cartridge, re-packed the LJ.

'What about the light?' I hear you say. You will recall that I couldn't withdraw the battery unit to check it's 'replace by' date. My LJ is only a few years old so the battery should fine since the battery life expectancy is 5 years. I tested the battery by short-circuiting the terminals on the activation lead that would in an emergency be short-circuited by the sea. The light flashed away brightly! Good!

Job's a good 'un!

Joke:
How do you make a pirate angry?
Take the 'p' out of him!

Testing my lifejacket

Thank you Wolstanton Rotary!

I was invited to give a presentation about cystic fibrosis and the Blue Star GB Challenge to Wolstanton Rotary Club this week. As a show of support the club donated a cheque for £250 for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, which will shortly be despatched to the trust HQ. Thank you so much Wolstanton Rotary! Your support is very much appreciated!

Joke:
A Rotary visitor to Japan told a joke lasting 2 minutes.
The interpreter then translated using only a few words. Everyone laughed. Afterwards the visitor asked the interpreter how he translated such a long joke so quickly.
"Well, I didn't think they would get the point, so I said, "Our guest has just told a joke. Everyone please laugh."