London’s Waterloo Station was the venue for a ‘silent disco’ yesterday, with Radio 1’s Scott Mills acting as DJ. The event was to raise awareness for RNLI SOS Day, which is taking place today, Friday, 30 January 2009, and which has the theme ‘Sound Or Silence’.
SOS Day is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s biggest annual fundraising day, and the charity is hoping that supporters around the UK will take part in a range of activities to raise cash to support the lifesaving work of its volunteer crews and lifeguards.
RNLI supporters are encouraged to raise funds in any fun way related to the SOS acronym. Past events have included ‘Sizzle Our Sausages’ (barbecues), ‘Shiraz Or Sauvignon’ (wine tasting), ‘Swap Our Suits’ (office dress-down day). This year, events will include sponsored silences, sea shanty sing-alongs and themed discos.
At Waterloo, people on the dance floor wore wireless headphones that picked up the music being played; only those wearing the headphones could hear the music, so the dance floor was full of people dancing in sync with one another, apparently in silence. RNLI collection boxes were on hand for anyone wishing to donate at the disco. The event was organised by communications agency Three Monkeys.
The RNLI says that during 2008, its 235 lifeboat station crews launched 8,182 times, rescuing 7,533 people while RNLI lifeguards, operational on 110 of the UK’s busiest beaches, dealt with 9,535 incidents involving 11,026 people. The charity receives no government funding.