20th/21st July: NCI 30th Flag
On Saturday 20th July a Morris Minor “Monty” belonging to one of our watchkeepers, escorted by a Morris Traveller “Ethel”, took the Flag from Stone Point to Calshot. The arrangements for the NCI 30th Anniversary Flag events had been set up without any discussion with Committee members and the timing for the Saturday events was rather odd. We had a photo session at Stone Point at around 0930 and the Flag was then at Calshot for 10am. However Watchkeepers were asked to turn up at 1400 for a photograph. Unsurprisingly hardly anyone bothered to drive sll the way to Calshot simply to have their photo taken.
I took some photos at the two stations so we had something to go on Facebook and, eventually, the Blog. Obtaining photos of people in front of Calshot Tower was a challenge , especially at 2pm when cars were parked in the best places for taking the photo!
On Sunday 21st July our Station Manager was to take the Flag to NCI Lee-on-the-Solent being ferried there by Hamble Lifeboat. I assume the latter was chosen rather than RNLI Calshot because, with water jet propulsion, Hamble were willing to land on the beach at Lee. I left the photography for this event to our Operations Officer, which meant I could give Zoe a lift to her mother’s house on my way out to Stone Point. A relative of one of our watchkeepers photographed the Flag arriving at Lee-on-the-Solent.
It has to be said that NCI Lee-on-the-Solent were much better at publicising the Flag relay and they actually had a feature on the BBC South News and website.