A BRANCH of the RNLI raised over £400 for the charity through a street collection.

The lifeboat organisation’s Corsham and District branch set up a stall in the town’s Martingate and High Street, collecting £408.39.

Over £4,000 is raised by the group every year, contributing to the millions of pounds needed to run the RNLI every year.

John Maciver, honorary secretary of the Corsham and District branch, sees this work as his ‘payback to the community’.

He said: “We do our bit.

“When you multiply what we do around the country, the contribution becomes quite significant.

“I was brought up in the Outer Hebrides so this, and the sea, is in my blood.”

This branch do several fundraising events over the year, including a Dinner at Devizes involving a speaker, collecting at Melksham Sainsbury’s and various other street collections.

The RNLI costs around £140,000,000 a year to run, and a lot of this is donated by branches like the Corsham one across the country.

Almost 60 per cent of this funding comes from ‘legacies’, when money is bequeathed to the RNLI from people who had close connections to the charity. When this happens, a rescue boat will be named after the person who died and left the money.