With bells and whistles, the first copy of the anniversary book of the Bloemendaal Rescue Brigade arrived at the town hall in Bloemendaal on Thursday. A large brigade car pulled a trailer carrying a large orange jet ski. And on that jet ski a volunteer with the book. The rescue brigade has been around for exactly a century.
Mayor Elbert Roest received the first copy. It took him some effort to free the book from its festive packaging. Roest is happy with it: “This book shows that it is an association with resilience. I just read that a woman was also on the very first board. That was quite special a hundred years ago.”
Seaway
The rescue brigade was founded in 1923, two years after the construction of the Zeeweg, says the mayor. “More and more bathers came. They sometimes couldn’t swim well and accidents happened because of that. Swimming education was not yet optimal at the time either. So the rescue brigade came.”
“The volunteers are actually semi-professionals. The requirements that are currently being applied to work are very strict. The Bloemendaal Rescue Brigade is not only active on the beach, by the way. They are also involved in many social affairs in the municipality. For example, the May 4 commemoration.”
The mayor himself regularly visits the rescue station on the beach. “I like to cycle from my home in Aerdenhout to the beach. Then I drink a cup of coffee at the rescue brigade. They are so hospitable.”
Chairman Ruud Cloeck of the Rescue Brigade Bloemendaal has been involved with the association for a long time. “I joined the club in 1973 and I have been chairman since 1986. I was playing water polo at the time and a teammate took me more to the lifeguards. I thought that would be fun, because lying on a beach bed is not for me. that I didn’t have much time for it. I shouldn’t have said that, because I spend more than 40 hours a week on it.”
Wristbands
Cloeck is also the man who invented the wristbands for children, in case they get lost. “The mobile phone was on the rise at the time and parents sometimes wrote their number on the arm of the child with felt-tip pen. That was not a sight. I came to the hospital and saw those wristbands with the patient’s data. That’s how I came up with the idea .”
And that idea is now widespread, says Cloeck. “Radio presenter Erik de Zwart helped enormously. He provided 10,000 of those tapes. It really works: we now have far fewer missing children. And they are also used for school trips or a visit to an amusement park, for example. At home and abroad. We came up with a nice idea in Bloemendaal.”
Leaky boat
According to the chairman, a lot has changed in those hundred years. “In the beginning they had nothing at all. They received a first wooden boat as a gift. But it turned out to be leaking. The material is of course much better now.”
Wilma Vermunt is one of the authors of the book about the Rescue Brigade Bloemendaal. “It was quite a job. We received the order in mid-January and it came off the printer at the end of last week. We had to keep to a very tight schedule, but we did it!”
Actually, Vermunt didn’t know much about the work of the rescue team. “I learned a lot from it. People might think of Baywatch when they think of the rescue brigade. With those beautiful men in swimming trunks who save people. But it’s much more. The volunteers are so involved. They pay dues and take care of their equipment themselves. They are volunteers, but very professional volunteers.”
This weekend the centenary of the Rescue Brigade Bloemendaal will be celebrated extensively with donors and volunteers.
Book presentation Bloemendaal – NH News