Southwold Lifeboat open day for twitter and facebook followers. Celia Hart taking pictures of the Lifeboat demonstration.

Southwold lifeboat crew’s very 21st century open day

Saturday, November 24, 2012
4:20 PM

For nearly 150 years its crews have risked their lives to save those in peril in the North Sea off the north Suffolk coast.

And now the crew of the RNLI station at Southwold has become a 21st century trailblazer thanks to the power of internet social networks Facebook and Twitter.

On Saturday about 100 people attended an open day at Southwold lifeboat station at the harbour to thank people who follow the exploits of the station’s 18 volunteers on the two websites.

The station has 321 “likes” on Facebook and 1,068 followers on Twitter.

Followers who turned up on Saturday could inspect the station and its life-saving equipment.

People could also go out on the Coastal Voyager to the watch the station’s lifeboat the Leslie Tranmer go through its paces offshore.

By arranging the invitation to its all internet followers, the Southwold crew is believed to the fist RNLI station in the country to have set up a social network open day.