While the rest of the world enjoyed the warmth of April, the 66-year-old Skelmorlie resident, Dr. Allan McKinnon, returned home from Africa after successfully completing his ascent up to one of the world’s highest mountains \u2013 Mount Kilimanjaro. On Tuesday, April 7, 2026, he came to visit the Largs RNLI lifeboat station, not as one in need of assistance, but as the man behind raising money through his climbing experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The climb was more than just a personal challenge. Thirty-three years ago, Allan reached the 5,895-meter summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and returned to the place thirty-three years later together with his son Jonathan and Sandy MacPherson. The challenging three-week expedition included the ascent of the tallest freestanding mountain in the world, where they braved the rarefied atmosphere to raise funds to keep the Royal National Lifeboat Institution running smoothly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being a sea kayaker and living on the Scottish coast, Allan McKinnon has always been interested in volunteering and charitable activities. In particular, he admires the work done by the RNLI volunteers who risk their lives for the sake of helping those in need. “It’s been my pleasure to support the RNLI and donate money to keep the service going,” Allan said upon arrival at the lifeboat station. Thus, being a regular spectator of lifeboat launches and coming to appreciate the courage and dedication of the people in orange lifejackets, Dr. McKinnon made sure to contribute a bit to this vital institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interestingly, the funds raised were not intended exclusively for UK’s coast rescue services because, in addition to contributing to the RNLI, Allan decided to give half of the raised money to the Moshi Christian Children’s Centre in Tanzania \u2013 the country in which the climbing expedition took place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Allan was welcomed by Largs RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager John Griffiths, who emphasized that charity organization operates independently from government funding. Hence, the raised money will be directed towards maintenance of 238 lifeboat stations offering around-the-clock search-and-rescue operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hearing the success story about the most recent rescue performed in the area, the three guests understood that their efforts would not go unnoticed because they provided the money that was necessary for the rescue missions at the coast of Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the fact that there is a plethora of digital means for raising money nowadays, Allan McKinnon’s story is a good example of how a person can push themselves out of their comfort zone and make a positive change to the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While the rest of the world enjoyed the warmth of April, the 66-year-old Skelmorlie resident, Dr. Allan McKinnon, returned home from Africa after successfully completing his ascent up to one of the world’s highest mountains \u2013 Mount Kilimanjaro. On Tuesday, April 7, 2026, he came to visit the Largs RNLI lifeboat station, not as one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sb_editor_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"relative_dates":{"created":"10 hours ago","modified":"10 hours ago"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalistic.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}