Barrie Behenna was presented with an Excellence in Volunteering award by Nigel Jones, RNLI Area Lifesaving Manager at the Teignmouth RNLI Fundraising Team meeting last week. The award celebrated Barrie’s hard work and dedication to the RNLI in Teignmouth over the last 15 years.
The award was accompanied by a written citation, read out by Ellie Walker, RNLI Community Manager for Devon, which stated that even during the challenges of the pandemic, he had ‘remained an enthusiastic and determined leader who fully embodies the RNLI core values of being courageous, selfless and dependable.’
Barrie recounted that his earliest memories of the RNLI were as a very young boy seeing the Ilfracombe Lifeboat in its then shed on the Quay, followed soon after by learning of the tragic loss of the Mumbles Lifeboat and all her crew. It was at that point that the magnitude of the Institution and the people who were part of it impressed him immeasurably.
When Barrie moved to Teignmouth in 1975, he had his own little yacht, and he spent many happy hours coastal sailing off the Devon shores, but the RNLI was ever present, and he decided to become a member of the RNLI.
The yacht was sold, and another maritime interest beckoned, initially as a youth speaker, and initiator of the Lifeboat House Visitor Scheme. Committee work followed, as Hon. Secretary of the Teignmouth RNLI Fundraising Team, a post he held for 14 years before becoming its Chairman. Two years on, the pandemic had struck, a lot of things had changed, and a new and younger membership was blossoming, highly necessary if the Fundraising Team was to reach the previous heights of raising over £100,000 a year of income!
A combination of circumstances happily coincided, so that on leaving the Chairmanship to a younger volunteer, Barrie was appointed by the RNLI to be the Lifeboat Management Group Chairman.
Barrie has carried out this role with his usual diligence for over a year, during which he has worked with the Lifeboat Station team, and got to know most of the crew.
Barrie said: ‘My admiration is not a bit diminished since my experiences all those years ago.
This unexpected award marks a high point in my RNLI career, but I am a tiny cog in a very big wheel’.
Barrie’s knowledge and dedication to raising money to support the RNLI in Teignmouth is truly admired by all who know and work alongside him. The award is very well deserved.