Key role with Wick lifeboat team is ‘something you have to want to do’

Wick RNLI will be appealing for new lifeboat volunteers in the near future – but in the meantime the focus is on filling a vital staff vacancy.

Recruitment is in progress for a senior station technician, or station technician, following the departure of full-time mechanic Johnny Grant.

And coxswain Allan Lipp is convinced there will be candidates who are ideally suited to the role – even if they don’t realise it at this stage.

“It’s basically the mechanic leading a team of volunteer mechanics who will support the individual,” Mr Lipp explained.

“It involves maintaining the boat so it’s always ready to go to sea at a moment’s notice and being on call as the duty mechanic fitting in with the volunteers’ availability.

“So it’s not a 24/7 requirement to be on pager – there’s time off pager. It’s fitting in with the team to make sure that 24/7 the boat is able to launch and being able to deal with any emergency at sea, working hand in hand with the coxswain and the volunteer crew.

“It’s something that you have to want to do. There might be people out there that don’t know they want to do it because they might have excluded themselves straight away by saying ‘I don’t have the qualifications’ or ‘I don’t have the boat experience’.

“But I’d like to encourage those people – the door is open. Please either apply or come and speak to us.”

He added: “Regardless of who gets it, assuming it’s somebody from outwith the RNLI, they will have a huge amount of training to develop into the role here. They could be a fully qualified mechanic and come in at the senior station technician level, but they’ll still have to train to be a crew member and pass out as a mechanic on board this lifeboat here.

“Somebody with previous experience – whether it’s boat experience or mechanic experience, or both – will fly through the training and assessments so they’ll be fully operational very quickly, probably within six months.

“Somebody that has maybe been a DIY mechanic, they’ve got perfectly good skills, they might take a little bit more training on the job to get passed out. But they might come with other skills.

“I’m convinced there are people in the community that might be interested but don’t even know they’re interested. They might not even know anything about the job at the moment.”

The closing date for applications is March 31. Anyone wishing to find out more can email wick@rnli.org.uk or phone 01955 603723.

Mr Lipp also indicated that extra volunteer crew members will be required in the near future.

“We’ve lost one or two and there are a few struggling to attend as much as they would like,” he said. “We’re probably going to need to recruit three or four crew before too long.”

There are 27 volunteers at present across a range of ages, from mid-twenties upwards. There is an upper age limit of 65.

“We’ve got a really healthy mix here,” Mr Lipp said. “There has been a stream of younger people coming in, and it’s important to maintain that, but equally age isn’t really a barrier.

“If you’re keen and enthusiastic, and willing to learn, we’ll teach you.

“We are nothing without the community supporting us, and that includes filling vacancies.”

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