Thanks for our community support

All of the marine rescue units in Queensland are waiting patiently for the Queensland government to make a decision on what is going to happen to the sector in the wake of the “Blue Water Review”.

We understand that several options have been presented to Cabinet by the Department of Emergency Services, which may even include the option of doing nothing.

In the meantime, your local Coastguard at Tin Can Bay continues to operate as normal, and that means having to raise about 75% of our operating costs including fuel, maintenance and insurance among other necessary expenses.

We raise this money from several sources, but primarily we are reliant on our local community where we sell raffle tickets, get income from local boaties being “assist members”, running courses for the public, donations, and in some cases, grants from various agencies.

Sometimes we apply for grants to help buy new boats, vehicles and vital equipment to save people and vessels in distress. We were recently successful in receiving a grant from the Queensland Gambling Community Benefit Fund that enabled us to purchase a new vehicle to assist in our operations.

Since our last vehicle became too old to be economic a few years ago, we have relied on our volunteers using their own vehicles to do our work. This has included towing boats, driving to Gympie to claim bottle deposit scheme refunds and going to training and meetings at other locations.

Now, with the assistance of John Madill Motors in Gympie, we are the proud owners of a new Holden Colorado dual cab Ute.

If you see raffle ticket sellers at The Country Club on Friday nights, or out selling tickets in our latest homemaker raffle around town or at the markets, come up and have a chat.

Maybe buy a ticket and help keep us operating and helping boaties keep safe on the water.