A bit about my past: In the 70's I had been involved with a few minis from an old 1960's with sliding windows, push floor start and a big steering wheel through to a mini moke and a nice black 1275GT clubman. Once I bought an 850 mini for £5 in Paignton, Devon ran it with nearly every part rattling and eventually cut the back off like a pick-up, put in a Austin 1300GT engine, Minofish carb, high lift cam etc. I fitted the mini with Hillman Imp wheels with low profile X-ply tyres and kept the drum brakes as changing to discs then was not as easy as it is now. A friend of mine Allan on his Suzuki 550 custom motorbike followed me for a speed check but he backed of at 115mph. The problem came when I tried to stop (those 850 drums). I sold the mini after fitting new brakes shoes and cleaning the seat. I Had a black auto Clubman estate that I got in Fareham till the auto box went near Bournemouth. My son Scott got involved with minis as he grew up and we started again. Changing an auto to manual etc. Another friend Andy then got involved as well and after his first 998 mini he now has a lovely mini van. A few minis later Scott was into changing them a bit as I did when I was younger. At the same time I had a nice 1974 mini called Samantha and was happily working away on her till I sold her to Adam and she is still going. A few changes have been done to her since then, big engine etc. The time came when I moved to Cornwall in Oct 2007. Scott stayed at Hayling Island and I moved with my two Triumph motorbikes a 2005 Bonneville and a 2007 America. Scott then decided to move down to Cornwall with us and brought his mini with him and it all started again (the mini bug) its harder to stop than smoking. The story of "Round the UK The Long Way" I had been loaned the DVD of The Long Way Round from Paul, the son of a friend Russco in Paignton, and that was it. I had the motorbike and I would have loved to do that then reality set in. It was not going to be possible to go round the world on my Bonneville but I could possibly go round the UK. Not long after watching the DVD the Triumph Bonneville broke down (again). This was the second time in its short 5,000 mile life. This time it was the CDI and it was going to cost some £500 to fix. Triumph didn't want to know and I had already sold the America previously as it sounded like a scooter and I was not that impressed with it. I could not have unreliability so I got the Bonneville fixed and sold it. I was sorry to see it go as I did love my Bonnie. I also sold my Hyundia 2005 Trajet people carrier as I couldn't afford to have that breakdown as it would cost a fortune to fix. After selling the bike and the car I went out and bought an old Volvo 240 estate and ANOTHER MINI (here we go again). This time, unlike Scott with his modified mini, I was not going down that road and I decided to keep it standard. The original trip was, me on the bike and Scott following in his mini. The trip then was over 6,000 miles as I really was going round the coast of the UK. We would do a joint thing with the mini clubs and the Triumph guys and try and raise money for our local Air Ambulance and Cancer research. Since I had sold the bikes and now it was just the minis the route was changed and ended up at about 5,000 miles. I then found the Air Ambulance people not to be that helpful, couldn't use there logo's etc. This was when it hit me. I wanted to go round the coast of the UK, what is round the coast? Water! What happens on water? People go in and on it and sometimes they need rescuing by the R.N.L.I. so why not go round the UK visiting all the lifeboat stations in my mini? I redid the route (again). This time from lifeboat station to lifeboat station printing out the route from The AA web site as I went and it turned out as it is now 4,279 miles. Actually I did miss one lifeboat station out and had to do the route again. Scott decided at this point not to come on the run as he needed to work (something to do with needing the money). It was not all that plain sailing either (excuse the pun) as I still have not got the paper work from the R.N.L.I. allowing me to use their logo etc. and I was thinking of changing the charity again but decided I will do it anyway. The reason it is going to take 41 days to complete is I plan to stop at every lifeboat station for 30mins and only visit them between the hours of 10am and 4pm Monday to Saturday. This will leave me time to catch up in the event of bad traffic, not mini problems!!! (I won't have any of those I hope) plus I will have Sunday off to meet up with other minis. I have kept my mini standard'ish. I had it tuned by Alan Jeffery's in Plymouth after the South Devon Mini Club rolling road day confirmed a 45.8bhp (it is now 51.9bhp). I fitted a few new bits as I would have had to do anyway. I even have standard 145/70/12 tyres. It is not easy getting sponsorship as a lot of people do lots of things for lots of charities. The MINI magazine have asked me to do a 6 page write up of the trip and the money from that will pay for the fuel. If need be I will be sleeping in a tent or in the mini apart from the nights that generous people have offered to put me up. This trip is all about people with or who like minis and the people who wish to support the R.N.L.I. - all parting with some hard-earned cash to help buy a new lifeboat to be named Mini 1. I am doing the trip because I want to go round the coast of the UK, I can take 6 weeks off work and have a love for minis. I have the confidence that other people like me will help and we will get the new lifeboat. I have had support from a few, well actually so far everyone I have asked, has helped. I do not want anything for my car, as it is my car and if it needs anything I would do it anyway. I do not want anything for doing the run, as I wanted to do the run anyway. ALL PROFITS will go towards the lifeboat, this means apart from the cost of things like the stickers etc. the rest of the money will go directly to the new lifeboat. I am trying to put up all the names of all the people that buy stickers. This way when someone's life is saved by MINI 1 they can look on the website and see just how many people actually contributed to buying the lifeboat that saved their life. Not only the brave (and mostly volunteer) lifeboat crew but most of the people involved in providing the R.N.L.I. with the actual lifeboat that saved them, and in this case that's thousands!!! If you can imagine selling 10,000 stickers to get enough money for at least one new lifeboat is going to be an enormous task. That's about 28 stickers every day for a year and so far I have sold 8 stickers in three days, that means tomorrow I need to sell 84 and then 28 every day after that for the rest of the year. I expect it will take a while to get going and I will cope with the rush later with the help of a few friends. What I would like to happen: 1) Mini clubs to take orders for stickers from their members and send in a cheque as this will save on posting and Internet costs etc. 2) Mini clubs organising and hosting an event to raise money for the new lifeboat. The club could present the cheque to me somewhere on the route, or post it. 3) Minis to join in the run at some point. I know a lot of the run is during the day and people work, I will be free from the run in the evenings and if anyone can arrange a meet point (a pub for instance) then we could possibly meet there. 4) People sell the stickers for me. If you are going to a mini meet for example. 5) Sundays - I am not progressing with the run on Sundays so this leaves a day for mini meets and/or small runs etc. (I have been driving all week!). If you would like to help in any way please feel free to do so. I have been invited to a few shows next year by the Mini Magazine and I will try and get the mini there. If you have read this far you deserve a medal for your interest and support and I thank you. Stevie Mann