March 11, 2025 • 52 mins
SARCast is back for Season 4, with some big changes.
From this episode onwards, the podcast is a collaboration between Stonestreet SAR Store and Outdoor Professional, with Richard Prideaux stepping in as the main host for the next few episodes.
Luke Stonestreet and Richard discuss the transition, future plans for the show, and why Richard is currently sporting a questionable moustache.
This episode covers the evolving landscape of search and rescue, including the growing professionalism of voluntary SAR teams, the impact of technology on operations, and what to expect from future interviews.
Upcoming topics include Coastguard rescue officers, women in SAR, and insights from international search and rescue teams.
Later in the episode, Luke interviews Joe Appleby, a newly qualified Lowland Rescue Licensed Search Technician from Berkshire Search & Rescue (berkshirerescue.org.uk). Joe shares his journey from civilian to operational SAR member, the challenges of training, and the reality of balancing voluntary commitments with family and work.
The conversation also delves into the role of kit in SAR, the evolution of team equipment, and the growing presence of Stonestreet SAR Store patches and gear in the field.
Listen now and get ready for an action-packed season ahead. Find SARCast online:
From this episode onwards, the podcast is a collaboration between Stonestreet SAR Store and Outdoor Professional, with Richard Prideaux stepping in as the main host for the next few episodes.
Luke Stonestreet and Richard discuss the transition, future plans for the show, and why Richard is currently sporting a questionable moustache.
This episode covers the evolving landscape of search and rescue, including the growing professionalism of voluntary SAR teams, the impact of technology on operations, and what to expect from future interviews.
Upcoming topics include Coastguard rescue officers, women in SAR, and insights from international search and rescue teams.
Later in the episode, Luke interviews Joe Appleby, a newly qualified Lowland Rescue Licensed Search Technician from Berkshire Search & Rescue (berkshirerescue.org.uk). Joe shares his journey from civilian to operational SAR member, the challenges of training, and the reality of balancing voluntary commitments with family and work.
The conversation also delves into the role of kit in SAR, the evolution of team equipment, and the growing presence of Stonestreet SAR Store patches and gear in the field.
Listen now and get ready for an action-packed season ahead. Find SARCast online:
- Website: sarcast.co.uk
- Instagram: instagram.com/sarcastuk
- Facebook: facebook.com/SARCastUK
- Twitter/X: twitter.com/SARCastUK
- Discord: discord.gg/6Qk7ps58Fs
- Stonestreet SAR Store – SAR and outdoor gear: sarstore.co.uk
- Outdoor Professional – Specialist training and consultancy: outdoorprofessional.co.uk
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
And welcome back to a new season of Sarcast. This
is season four, episode one. As soon as you know,
my name is Lake Staine Street. I'm the host of Sarcast.
My family's got a little bit bigger, so my time
has been absorbed, which is why we've been a little
bit delayed in getting another episode to you, the listeners.
(00:40):
And I'm joined by Richard Prudo.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hello everyone, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Richard?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm good. I'm My face is cold because i'd have
to shave my beard off for a work thing which
I won't won't talk about just yet, but yeah, my
face is cold, and I don't like it.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
It is definitely a different look, that's for sure, but
I think it's suits you.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
It does suit you, So I've kept the mustache. I'm
going for the tom Selick now, although someone keeps pointing
out I do look more like Renee from a lower
low rather than tom Selick. You know, I haven't quite
got the rugged and the rugged features or the body
fat index for tom Selick.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
That's funny. I mean you have to be a bit
careful of what you wear to work now, I do.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I mean, like Hawaiian shirts haven't quite come back in yet,
but yeah, the fore mustache is a strong look, so yeah,
it's good though it keeps the top lip warm at least. Yeah.
So it's nice to be back as well as I
haven't happened to been on here for quite a while now.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
No, yeah, thank you for coming back and it's good
to have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
How is this going to work?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Then?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I'm helping you out with some of the hosting. Is
that how we're going to run things for the next
few episodes?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's correct? Yet, in the next couple of episodes are
going to be a a combination between outdoor Professional and
under an umbrella, which would be great under sarcast. Yes,
it's gonna help bring some more cadence to the episodes,
which would be great for the listeners. And we've got
(02:18):
some good stuff lined up.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I can come and help do some of the interviews
and with some of the content whilst you're off dealing
with your firstborn and you your life is born there.
What do we just refer to it as as a
time sponge time sponger?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I think that what we nared it down to absorber
of time. No matter what you do, it's always nine
o'clock PM.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Everything you keep running out of time. Yeah, so I'm
going to try and help out where I can with
some of the hosting. I mean this used to be
a co host way back in the day when the
podcast first started, and I do have a in the
dim very disc and pasted a search and rescue background.
But now I, amongst other client types, I train people
(03:08):
in things in the outdoors under my brand Outdoor Professional,
So I train people in everything from land navigation and
outdoor safety and movement over adverse terrain and mountain terrain,
right through to ground sign interpretation and ground sign awareness,
search operations and a few of the things related to that.
(03:31):
So we have been doing that for a long time,
but we've gradually shifted more and more towards the outdoor
operations clients. So we still train wind farm engineers and
people like that, but most of our clients are now
from police, military, search world, which is not necessarily search
and rescue, and a few other clients like that.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
That sounds amazing and is that based just here in
the UK or is that global? Now?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I do work with clients overseas as remotely as a consultant.
Sometimes in person training and teams come over from elsewhere
in the world over here to the UK because people
just love coming here. I think it's an excuse to
come on a holiday to Sodonia or as we are
now calling it, which is we should have been calling
(04:17):
it that already though it is a Welsh name, but
it's Yeah, it's a it's a good way to spend
your days. And weirdly enough, we get people turning up
on courses wearing things that you've made with yeah, with
patches and stuff like that, and I look at it
and go, did you get that from Luke? Who's Luke?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, I got from Luke. It's the one that sends
out stuff with sweets in the pack in the packets
every time.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I was on a course recently, and I think it
was five out of maybe the eight laptops had a
Sarstore sticker on, which I can't really complain. It's pretty good.
It's amazing where they get into.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So my yeah, my laptop has a Star Store sticker on.
It has the Methane acronym sticker on it, and it's
got one from my my friend Terry and his CDI
tactical stickers, and those are the brands I'm rapping when
I'm trying to deliver power points in a in a
training room somewhere brilliant.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
We've gone a bit mad with some of the stickers
actually recently.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So do you stick a bomb? People? Do you go
and put stickers in places you shouldn't do, like police cars?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Or I've been so tempted. I mean at some of
the places that I've managed to swingle into, like inside
of helicopters and bristow bases and other ambulance stations. You're like, oh,
I'm so tempted. I should really do some sort of sticker,
But I just I don't. I can't. I just can't
do it yet.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Maybe one day I have a I have a customer
on another business and she managed to get stickers from
another brand we work with on the inside of the
bodywork on a premium British car manufacturer as it went
down the line. So somebody somewhere has an SUV, a
(06:10):
British one with somewhere under the front wing is some
stickers I think you made for me originally as well, So.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Then I wonder if we could find them.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, it used to be a thing in the I
don't know if it's still a thing in the Royal Navy,
but you would you'd get zapped by either that unit
or that ship's stickers and you like put on people's
cars and stuff like that, or on their kit somewhere
without them noticing, and see how long until they did notice.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
To start that. In some teams there.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Maybe you need a sticker that is just there just
to tag people with. You've been tagged by Sarstore or
something like that. You've been visited by the Star Store
Ferry very start elf.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, the elf maybe, yeah, more of an elf than
the theory you are. You're yeah, you're quite quite a
hefty elf. So you've got you've got some more content
at the end of this episode. You've got you've been
interviewing somebody I have.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, yeah, So coming up is a bit of an
insight into life as a Loan and Rescue Search Technician trainee.
We talked to Joe, who is a member of a
well actually he's not far away from from from where
I am in the UK and gives us an insight
(07:45):
into life as a trainee has journey into loanan rescue
and yeah, there's some really good insights into what it took,
what he had to do and where his journey is
going to go from here.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, it was a good, good conversation because he's the
terminology has changed for Lowland SAR text now, hasn't it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
It has, so it's gone from search technicians to licensed
search technicians or LSTs, just as they're reformalizing and adapting
the qualification to make it more formal and align with
I believe it's the College of Policing licensed side of search.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, they have the License Search Officer of course, so
I one of is to go in line with that
and keep sort of putting in the hierarchy with that
and pulsor and and other search courses. I suppose it
is reflective of that continual evolution of voluntary SAR that
it's moved on from. You know, it's it's always going
to be a bunch of volunteers, but the professionalism within
(08:53):
the organization is continually evolving, sometimes at a pace faster
than a statutory organization would be able to meet.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, definitely, Yeah, yeah. I think also the maturity of
teams excels quite quickly, so a young team, for example,
doesn't take them five years to start doing stuff. At
a police force, they're almost straight away up and running,
(09:21):
whereas yeah, historically it would have taken a yeah, wrangling
to get up and running.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I help out with some procurement advice for police forces
and a few other organizations, and literally for some things
like thermal imaging. The technology moves on faster than the
procurement process, so at the beginning you help specify some
one particular model and say well, go for two of
these and one of these or three of those, and
(09:51):
that's your A and B option, and then has to
go through all the procurement and all the thing. He
gets signed off and go through that, and by the
time they come back to it, the manufacturer goes, we
discontinue that, and this is the new one. Can we
send it to you for evaluation? Yes, fine, go through
the whole thing again. But yeah, voluntary organizations they are
they're the canoe, whereas the police or the fire are
(10:13):
the supertanker, you know, so they can be agile and
go into small places and change direction quickly.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, Yeah, And I think things have changed
quite a lot with technology changing. You know, it don't
need to have lots of paper mapping like the old
days and rely on printers. You can, as you said,
agility and agile to deploy faster, move faster, and respond quicker.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, because it Procurement is a huge issue for big,
big services because they can't integrate something into fifty different
terminals across a region or something, whereas a Sartine can
adopt it and almost in a week getting everyone everyone
moved over into that system. Yeah, less than five hundred
(11:06):
pounds worth of cast Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Well not yeah. Not only that is they don't have
a choice either, So there's no one there going, oh,
we don't want this, there's something better they go with.
This is the choice or direction we're taking, said group,
And this is the new tools industry. It's you know, procurement,
it's R and D, it's piloting, it's Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
It is one of those things that should always be
remembered about the voluntary star world, or even just smaller
scale star teams or specialist operational units within a wider organization.
If sometimes the smaller you are, the more the more
you can get achieved relative to the big organization. Were
there any without giving anything away, then, were there any
really interesting takeaways from your conversation with Joe that sort
(11:55):
of tease the audience with here.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I think it was interesting thing about backgrounds. So you
would sometimes always think that people would have a lot
I don't know, say, say someone always likes paddling, they'd
always want to do water stuff. So someone who doesn't
always have all the necessary skills or line up with
(12:19):
search and rescue as a typical person as in like
they you know, they love the outdoors, they love they
love navigating, They've they've absorbed everything they can, Whereas it's
just you know, there's people out there who just just
normal Joe have just come in, they've had a little
bit of experience doing certain things, but then they're not
(12:43):
an expert. They're willing to learn, and yeah, it's amazing
of how much things can change from when you learn
something the first time to what it is nowadays. So
I think, yeah, that's the little tea is not too
much into it.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
But yeah, I suppose again that's some of the difference
between the voluntary role and the paid role. That with
the paid roll, at least beyond your initial training or
your probationary training, you can leave the training at work.
You can walk out of the door, come off shift,
come off your thing, and in theory, unless it's coming
(13:22):
up for I don't know, your promotion boards or something
like that, or it's a promotion related course that you
can leave it some to work hours before you open
the books again. Whereas volunteer, you're turning up at base
or you're turning up a training, but you're also you're
never on work, you're never on duty off duty the
(13:43):
same delineation.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
It also relates to some of the stuff that joh
and I were talking about about commitment in terms of
when you first start, it's not always clear what that
may be, and then as you progress, even family members
don't really understand what that may or may not be,
and having that solid foundation of okay, wife or partner,
(14:07):
I am going to go on a call out now,
see you later. What time will you be back. I
can't tell you. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I'm going out of the door now. And the point
of this is some point in the future. It might
have been ten minutes when we stood down, it might
be tomorrow exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So yeah, I think it's it's important as well, whereas
paid would be more under a shift, or you'd have relief,
not saying that not all such rescue teams work in
the same way, but a lot of teams are all
hands to the pump rather than going, right, we know
(14:48):
this is going to take three days, two days, let's
phase it. Sometimes they don't have that luxury of knowing.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
No and the building in that backfill as well. Sort
of when you think about you've got long job, when
people are coming in from other teams or other organizations
or just the next shift, the next level of availability
coming in, that trickles back down to the family. Particularly
in a volunteer role. It's not only okay, well this
person's been working for eight hours or sixteen hours or
(15:17):
thirty two hours or whatever whatever your cutoff is for
your organization and your SOPs. It's do you have to
be back because you're fifty percent of the caregiver role
for your children, because they those children are going to
need that care, they're going to need they can need
you home at this point. So that does almost the
(15:37):
family life almost has a direct link to the operational response.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, definitely, especially work commitments as well. I mean there's
sometimes people's employers are more flexible than others, meaning that
they can you know, almost just go oh, I'll be
make up my hours or flex my hours or take
annually leave at the drop of a hat, where some
companies can't do that because of whatever industry they're in
(16:05):
or COVID, I guess has has had a bigger impact
on the change of that in terms of more people
can now work a little bit more flexibly than they
could previously.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It'd be interesting to pick up with Joe again afterwards,
after maybe a year of being operational or something like that,
and just do a a before and after analysis.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah, we did talk about that, so it's definitely something
we can do. It would be interesting to see where
he is currently. Yeah, he's probably probably been in a
fair few months now and hopefully he's had a few
proper call outs under his belt.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Cool, Okay, should we go into the interview.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, let's go. So I'm now joined by Joe Applebee,
who's recently qualified as a loan and rescue search technician.
So hello, welcome.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Joe, Thanks very much, Leeke, thanks for having us on.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
No worries at all. So Tennis bent about yourself. What
do you do for a day job?
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Sure, yeah, so day job consultant engineer, So nothing to
do with search and rescue. Father two young children live
just north of Reading in Berkshire, Lovely.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
That was the next question of whereabouts you are but
read Lovely Dove, And then how did you find out
about learning and rescue?
Speaker 4 (17:21):
So, I mean, I've been looking for a volunteering opportunity
for a little while. I'd sort of consider going down
the special Constable route, considered the TA I like the
idea of mountain rescue, but being in Berkshire, there's not
many mountains.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Around, no, not at all.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
So I wanted something that allowed me to get outside,
be active. Give back to the community was a really
really key thing for me. And it was a bit
of a chance encounter. I was out on a run
one day and came across a search and rescue team
how on a search so he didn't want to bother
them too much, asked a couple of questions and then
got on my merry way and a bit of googling
and to me mailing and things to the membership team
(17:58):
and yeah, big fortune and good timing and they were
just about to open up recruitment.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Oh happy days. Sounds like a well opportunitist well find
as such as yeah, so have you done anything like
this before or have any relatable skills, not really.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
I mean, so when I was younger, I went through
Cubs and Scouts, and I mean, if I had a
spirit animal, it'd probably be a mud covered labrador.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
I love being outdoors, running, cycling, hiking, whatever. I've also
was a lifeguard previously as well, when I was sort
of teenager, early twenties, so I was sort of comfortable
in the outdoors, had some reasonable navigation skills, comfortable and
familiar with first aid. Done a bit of volunteering in
the past as well, but that was a bit different
(18:53):
when I was in my teens and I DJ'ed and
I was going around local youth clubs teaching other kids
how to dj.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Amazing, amazing, awesome, that's really cool. So most of those
actually probably really good set up for at least the
basics of getting into search rescue, like navigation, being outdoors,
getting used to working a team. So that sounds sounds
real good. So shall we get down to find out
about being a trainee licensed search technician as it's now
(19:22):
called these days. Yes, So tell us about your training journey.
What's it been like in the last nine months.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
Yeah, So, mean, we kicked off at the end of
September last year. It's been a really good nine months,
has been really enjoyable. We had the grace of time
over those nine months, and I know the team sort
of redesigned the training to bring some of the manatary
elements up front. Use that as an opportunity to get
us trained in operational support so we can get out
(19:51):
and start start helping with the team. But over that time,
I mean we're obviously had our enhanced DBS to commence
training and then got into operational first aid communications and
five and two's and all those, all those sort of
good things along the way. Those were some of some
of the sort of more formal training. And then we've
managed to get out with the team on exercises as well,
(20:11):
which was a real eye opener because that's where you
get the sort of like everything you're learning clicking into place.
And yeah, that was that was a really good, good
part of it.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Awesome. So is it a big.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Team that you're in reasonable size? Yeah, I think there's
about sixty active members at the moment. I think, as always,
more is always better, But yeah, the team have been
great with working on a scene and we've we've had
sort of ten ten recruits in our in our intake,
the sort of past past qualification on Sunday just gone.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Amazing, that's pretty good. So was the ten to start
with or if you sort of whittled down to the
ten qualifying.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Yeah, there are a few more to start off with. Yeah,
I think realization of commitment is always a challenge of me.
It's definitely an eye opener for me. But it's sort
of yeah, yeah, it can always make it work, but yeah,
I think it sort of wigs on to those that
really wanted to be there.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Amazing. Yeah, definitely. The a commitment side of things is
if you're not really sure what you're signing up for
can be very daunting. That from experience from some new
duly qualified technicians and the other they're going, oh, I
have to do this, and I have to do this,
and then I have to commit to this, and you're like, yeah,
(21:34):
this is what we told you at the start, and
it's amazing how many people to sort of glaze over
that initial introduction to the team. So did you have
to do anything before you did just fill out like
an application form.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Or yeah, yeah, so sort of, yeah, an application process.
You filled out a bit of formed bit of a
brief TV if you like or sort of what you're
looking to do it. Then there was an interview process.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Sorry.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Prior to that, there was an information evening where they
sort of talked about them nice that was involved, which
I thought was a really nice thing to sort of
be able to go along to find out a bit more,
meet some of the team members and like say, get
that pretty vital information.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, try and put your off.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Yeah, it's a big investment right in training someone up.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
So I sort of I get it. I think it's
a good thing to have in place.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Lovely stuff. So what have you enjoyed the most about
becoming a search technician.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
So it's sort of hard to have sort of narrow down.
I mean the navigation and operational first aid. It was
great to get back and refresh the old skill sets.
It was amazing what had changed over the past twenty
odd years since since I did my lifeguarding qualification. The
missing person behavior sessions that were put on by a
search plan was really really interesting to start getting some
(22:49):
of the maths and statistics behind it. But I guess
probably one of the biggest things I learned. Maybe it's
a bit more of a realization was just what a
massive resource the team is to the other urgency services,
like the expertise, equipment and the people power they bring
to searches for vulnerable missing people is massive.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
Really.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, It's almost like that missing piece of the puzzle
that no one really knows about, but it's always there.
It's just, you know, the volunteer side of search and rescue,
or the whole search and rescues as a whole, it's
just hidden behind layers of police blue lights at blue lights.
(23:28):
It's crazy, but that's wicked. And what have you found
the most challenging?
Speaker 4 (23:34):
I think definitely forgetting some of the old, old learned
stuff was was testing. Definitely benefited from the factor. I
don't know if you've heard the Albert Einstein saying, if
you can't explain it to a six year old, you
don't understand it yourself. I very frequently find myself being
that six year old. And the team have been great,
and like the expertise and the passion and the team
(23:56):
for it has been great, and everyone's always really happy
to help out, really happy to get involved. There's never
any sort of scolding or anything, you can get it wrong.
It's all very very positive sort of development throughout the process.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Brilliant, Yeah, because I mean I think the history of
your team is Barcelona and Rescue. I mean they've been
around for years, if if I can remember, right, did
they have to do you have to do any history
lessons or to get to the team?
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Do you don't have to get into the team?
Speaker 4 (24:27):
You sort of absorb some for osmosis right along the
way bit, Yeah, I believe them right and saying they're
one of the oldest teams in the in the country,
which is a badge were of pride. You certainly see
some of the Alsa, which I think was the predecessor
to b Elsa out there still and certainly our call
sign still being c BEV, which was the original call sign,
(24:50):
is a bit of a nod back to that.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Yeah, different times back then. It's like civil defense and
all of that side of things, which was unheard of
in most free eighties people. They don't even know what
it was, but it's amazing. Well let's move on to what, like,
what gear do you get as a as a search
technician in the team?
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Yeah, so we get a few bits provided by the team,
So we get a very snazzy red polo shirt, nice
Keeler Stratus jacket which is a great bit of kit.
Been really impressed with that and got a couple of
bits from Keiler since then Hiver's jacket and helmet, bit
built in safety glasses. Then there's sort of the bits
(25:34):
that at the very beginning of the process they sort
of say sort of essential for you to provide sort
of the hiking boots, some sensible trousers, personal first aid kit,
a decent torch, which I think your perception of what
is a decent torch changes pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Is he get into the team and how many how
many you need? Is it like a backup for your.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
Backup or yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
That's brilliant. And also that sounds good. I mean most
most teams don't issue helmets, so that's that's pretty good.
Unique to that teams, that's that's good. I mean, obviously
mountain rescue they normally provide that side of scenes, but
for learning rescue teams, helmets they're sort of a strange
one fork issued. Some teams do, some teams don't. It's
almost like yeah, depending on where they are in the
(26:21):
in the UK, so and then I guess the important
questions are, it's like, what's the good have you then
chosen to go with? Have you gone down a ruck
sect route? Have you gone down a load rescue?
Speaker 5 (26:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I got myself a lovely artist load vest from a
little place called Sastoor.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
Yeah, that was sort of I was considering that much.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Holf.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
I mean I've got a belt as well. I've been
using that a bit throughout training. I'm at that stage
of looking around the team and what others have and
what sort of cherry picking of what I think is
going to be used for me. Some of the early
bits I bought myself was waterproof pouches for phones and
maps because one of the early so I went on
it was sort of drizzling and someone had a map
(27:02):
and didn't have a wallet to put it in and there, Yeah,
so you got quickly went and fish went out from
someone else's bag.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
So that's good.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
I mean the reliance on phones as well, I think
that's that was something maybe I didn't realize going into it,
whether that's just sort of the admin side of it.
The team email, the team WhatsApps, the workplace, D four
H and qbe apps and navigation apps, which, yeah, so
making sure you've got secondary power on you and those
sorts of things to keep that tops up, because that's
(27:30):
quite a key bit of kit nowadays.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Oh yeah, I can tell you for sure of the
last ten years that that has changed from waiting for
a map to be printed out of a control vehicle
to going, have I brought my spared battery pack today
to charge to my phone as you're going around the
team of going, oh, my phone's just died because the
map is just sucked up all my battery because it's
(27:52):
now cold at night. So yeah, it is amazing of
how quickly we've moved to that sort of reliance on
mobile technology in terms of mapping communications. I mean even
some teams are using Zello on their phones to communicate
via radios and stuff, which is right next level sort
of you know, everything's on your phone. Then you're mapping
(28:15):
your commander, control your you're tracking your communication. You're like wow,
just wow.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Yeah, it's really really useful when it works.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
I think that's sort of the good thing in the
team where they've gone through and they've taught us sort
of the basic map reading skills and how to take
a bearing and those sorts of things and done a
few sessions on that, which is everything with tech is
great until it falls over. Do you don't want everyone
floundering around at that point? So so yeah, yeah, I'm sure.
I'm sure with everything that's coming up and tech at
the moment, that will continue to develop.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then what's next on your trainee journey,
do you know?
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I mean, with the startek under my belt, I sort
of feel like I've been taught to walk and I've
shown I can take a few steps. But yeah, I
think definitely at the moment, I want to sort of
demonstrate to the team and to myself. I guess I
can sort of bed in those skills, get comfortable with those,
get useful to the team with those skills to sort
of yeah, look around and see the water teams and
(29:13):
the medical teams and the drone teams with all their
sort of very flashy kit and yeah, don't want to
get ahead of myself with those bits.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Definitely.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
I mean the next step is bank search, making sure
we've got that in there, and like I say, just
making sure I can be useful out on searches.
Speaker 5 (29:28):
In the next sort of six to twelve months awesome.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
And then like so when you were doing your training
for like actually doing the searching, because like that's not
something that many members of the public actually understand or do.
How did you find that as going from sort of
do I just walk in the woods or Yeah?
Speaker 4 (29:48):
That was I mean that was a big part of
our Star Tech weekend was sort of a bit of
the focus on those skills. So there was Yeah, there
was a lot of cubing and of lot of Northumbrian
rain dancing, which I'm still refusing to explain to my wife.
It's funny just to say Northumbia rain dunce. Look at
the confusion on their face. I think the most striking
thing to me wasn't that these were out there, it
(30:10):
was the power of doing them. Well yes, yeah, yeah,
And I guess that's sort of the key difference. I say,
someone someone going for a walk around the woods and
a search technician going to look for someone. It's it's
that it's that skill set.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
And yeah, it was. It was quite eye opening.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, and it's a it's a it's a skill that
develops with time as well, Like it's amazing, Like you
speak to some people who've you know, done it for
a year and they'll tell you, you know, like wow,
I can I can see things that I didn't see before,
or I can I can find things now that just
don't look right. But I don't know why, but they
just don't look right. And and it's just that resilience
(30:47):
of your brain and your eyes all connecting everything together
and what you've been taught in training to to do
that searching.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
So it's sort of the exercise and things over the
coming months will definitely be yeah, bedding that in then
sort of hopefully it becoming second nature. And we had
a lot of a lot of very mobile next over
the weekend sort of showing that we were cubing doing
our nine boxes.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
So yeah, looking forward to that.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Brilliant. So any tips or advice for people looking to
join a lead rescue team.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean I would say, don't be put off.
If there's things you don't know, anything specialist, anything you
really need to know, they'll teach you. I mean our
intake of recruits, I mean we did have some ex
military person and we had some X Police, X Fire Service,
a few mountain leaders. But it's absolutely not not necessary
to get into it. As long as you're as long
(31:44):
as you have the dedication and the commitment to learn it,
then you'll you'll be absolutely fine.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
Sort of alluded to earlier on.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
My experience has been a team of really professional volunteers
who love what they do and are all really happy
to help newcomers coming into it. They'll give you the
time as long as you're sharing the dedication to it,
they'll give you the time to help sort of coach
and mentor you. I think sort of conversed to those bits,
don't underestimate the commitment needed for it. Yeah, I mean,
(32:12):
I'm fortunately I've got supportive wife. I say, I've got
two young kids, so they can be they can be demanding.
So she was supportive of me going into it. Benefit
from having a job with some flexibility and supportive management
and it, but ultimately being able to attend training and
call out is why I did it, really, and so
(32:32):
I think as long as that's sort of your intent
going in, I think, yeah, you'll be absolutely grand.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah. I think that's some good advice there and some yeah,
key things for people to think about, especially that you know, commitment,
support of their family, you know, all of that things
make a big difference when you when you go to
join a team, especially where you have no idea when
the call that's going to come, which is a really
hard thing for some people to really take on board of.
(33:01):
I need some routine, but there is no routine. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
I was sort of one of the things that sort
of as I sort of learned about how we'd call out,
some the the anatomy of call out as well. Sort
of with my wife, I've been on too, in a
support role sort of when you back, when we be back,
it's like, I don't know when when we're done, and
so I think that's sort of settled in now. But
(33:27):
actually she remains supportive, So that's good.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Awesome. Is there anything else that you want to say
about your journey?
Speaker 4 (33:34):
No, I mean I say that the team have been great.
I'll I'll throw a name out there, Alan Warrington. He
was sort of our training officer, was assigned to us.
He was he was great coaching through each of the
steps he was We got a text every Friday from
him updating us and what the team had been up to.
Nice making sure we knew the weekend sports schedule as well.
(33:55):
It's been a really good nine months and I'm looking
forward to the current months and years.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Perfect. Thanks Jay. We've got one final question, and that
is what we've said to all of our guests so
far this year and last year, was if you had
to describe your team using just three words, what would
they be?
Speaker 5 (34:18):
So?
Speaker 4 (34:18):
Professional and committed would definitely be two of them, and
I'm going to have to go with helpful because they
all the way through the training process. They've been a
huge support, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Thanks so much for coming on and really appreciate your
time and answering all those questions and giving him on
an insight into being a qualified learn and rescue search technician.
Speaker 5 (34:39):
No, that's great, Thanks very much for having us on.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
So Luke for the rest of the season. Then what
work have you got mined up for me? What are
you expecting of me in terms of guests and interviews?
And how hard do I have to work here?
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Extremely hard, cracking lists of potential interviews and lining up
interviews that we've got underway. So I really want to
get talking to some Coastguard rescue officers. Well, you need
to talk to famous Ralph. We haven't spoken to him
(35:20):
for ages. See how everything's.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Going in nor he's still alive. He sends me memes
every now and again, and then I.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Think it'd be really good to hear some from some
women in rescue as well, to see how everything is
from that side of the fence. There's some good movements
out there and some really big social media accounts who
focus on celebrating women in rescue, so it'd be good
to just to talk about that. We've got some big exercises.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
Winter storms, so it'll be good to I mean nagging
Rob Simpson for a while to get him on, so
I will get him on and we can interview him
about all the amazing stuff that he's doing for policing
in the rural country for snow and extreme weathers.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
There's some good like CPD and shows coming up soon
in Liverpool, so it'll be good to hear all the
good things that are happening there.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, because there might be a few events that you
and I are both attending for our sort of well
my work and your voluntary work roles at different things,
and there's a few people I've got to go and
see for other work stuff, some equipment suppliers and things
like that, so i'd like to maybe if we can
tie in some stuff with them. So there's your old
friends at Mere Supplies. I mean there's about a county
(36:49):
and a half between me and there, I'm sure, and
a cross over the border to get to them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah, Well Bradley's always being willing to come on. We
did try once and at technology failed us, which is
really really annoying. Worked every day that broke.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
That's why I thought if I go there in person,
I could at least get him to write down the
stuff and I'll read it out afterwards, really basic technology
in case it hates him. There's a few other technology
people as well that might be really interesting because there
is some real cross platform, cross discipline uses of technology.
(37:26):
Even in the last five years, some of this technology
has moved on so quickly. Yeah, so there's a few
thermal imaging people and want to speak to that'd be
really good to get on and just talk about the
evolution of thermal imaging technology and the accessibility of it
as well drone and uas stuff. And we were talking
about this before we started recording, and as Luke said,
(37:47):
it's the The Ukraine War has changed the game in
terms of a lot of things for deployment of small uas.
When you start looking at the I think it's the
new Matrise forty T which the AI algorithm built into
that that is learning. So I was talking to one
of the reps for I think it was Elite Optical,
(38:08):
but they were saying it started off with it could
recognize that this was a rhino shaped object, and then
it became it could recognize this as a rhino definitely.
Then this is a white rhino. Then this is a
male white rhino, and now it's at the point of
this is the male white rhino we saw three weeks ago.
That's amazing based just on thermal signature, It's okay. So
(38:31):
this is the thing that maybe ten years time will
be stalking me across the mountains and chasing me down,
thank you permit. Yeah, you know, just a skynet. I
don't know, maybe Musk is going to come for me,
powered by starlink. But there are there are some there's
some text ouf there. There's a few organizations within the
(38:53):
anglosphere within the Canadian, US, New Zealand Australian world that
it always a pain to record with those guys because
of time differences. Yeah, and stuff like that, but it
is is worth it, I think, because we know that
you have a global audience for this podcast, and it
is it is listened to around the world every week
(39:15):
surprising places as well. I just just checked on the
statistics and it's quite big in the Philippines at the moment.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
So what's what's happening over there?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Let us know, Yeah, from the Philippines. So is that
something you want people to do as well? If they
they want to come on the shore, if they think
they they're there, or their organization has something to share
with the audience here. Do you want them to get
in touch with you?
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah, get in touch. They can do that via the
website or via discord, where we've got an amazing little
group of people chatting away under a list is and
given advice and helping with guiding us with topics and
just some general good to know stuff, which is which
(39:58):
is great. We've had some interesting things in the last
couple of months come up, including I've broken my kit,
what do you recommend to fix this? Or I need
to replace my radios. There's some really good conversations going
on on our discord. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
I think it's that that community element of this as
well is quite good because you can learn from people
around the world.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
I mean, as long as the biome is roughly the
same and it's not polar people trying to learn from
desert people. And even then, actually there are there is
some overlap a little bit in terms of remoteness and visibility.
Oh god, don't go down that rabbit hole. The cross platform,
cross discipline, cross environment learning is something that should be encouraged,
particularly outside of your own organization, because you can it's
(40:46):
very easy to get stuck in this doctrinal trap of
you should only listen to the doctrine and the SOPs
and the TTPs of your organization that you should actually
maybe look at what other people do, not to change
what you do, but to find out maybe why your
organization chose to teach you in that way, because there's
(41:06):
another different there's these are the other ways, and this
is they work elsewhere but not where you are. It's yes,
I love learning from people who do something parallel to
what I do. I like learning from other educators people
are working in a completely different space, but talking to
them about how you structure a lesson, how you keep
learning engaging for people no matter what the client type is,
(41:30):
you can't surly on the fact that they've been told
to be there by the boss for the day to learn.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
I think that's a good thing about Loan and Rescue
In a ways, everyone has the same standards, but the
way you can teach those standards can vary from you
meeting the criteria of that qualification by going you must
learn point one point two point one? Right, can you
use a compass? Yeah, well yes I can. All right,
(41:54):
can you use a compass in the dark? Well, that's
not on my one point one point two So it's
just building on that. And the way that people can
present stuff is amazing.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, and there's a parallel learning as well of being
in not necessarily stressful but that growth to stretch zone.
So you're going outside of your normal operational level into
a slightly higher level or to a slightly more frantic,
slightly more pressured environment, because it gives you an idea
(42:29):
of how you operate, how your kit operates, how your
current training standards work in that more pressured environment. But
you can do it in a still a training environment
where you can put your hand up and put a
stop to the situation. If you need to on a job,
you can't necessarily do that. So it's good to find
out where, not necessarily where your limits are, but where
(42:50):
your personal pressure points are and where your strengths and
weaknesses are in an environment where you can go away
and work on them, not finding out that you can't
do this in this environment on the job at three
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
It's raining.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, it's a bit too late to learn then, isn't there.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Exactly, So that communications there if you have any ideas
for shows, even if it's just wouldn't it be good
to get somebody on from this world, even if you're
not from that organization. If you've heard of somebody doing
something strange, I don't know, maybe there's somebody training air
centing bats in Colorado or something, or strange echo location
(43:30):
for kidava recovery.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, we rough to see. I think we had someone
in the back County Search and Rescue. Is that like
the Great Smoky Mountain International Park?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Back country?
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Back country? Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
I heard a good term a few years ago, which
was side country. So it's not back country, it's just
the bit in between or it's just off to the
side of a trail. Or it's just so it was
in the context of camping. Weirdly enough, it was side
country camping, so that's when you pull off from the
main trail, from the main road and you're just off
to the side, but you're not on a prepared site.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
So yeah, back country start because the further you go
from civilization, the more you the more you have to
consider your own personal safety and your ability to be
in that environment yourself and for extended periods. There's somebody
who I would love to get on the show, which
is Andrea Lankford.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Do you know who this is?
Speaker 2 (44:27):
No, she was a US Park ranger. I think she
was at I think she was at Yosemite and the
Grand Canyon, that's the one. So she wrote a book
called Ranger Confidential, which is a really really interesting book
if you want to hear sort of late nineties, early
two thousands Wilderness SAR and US Park Service SAH for
(44:50):
North America and then more recently. I should have had
the name of the book ready, but she wrote a
book about people going missing on the Pacific Crest Trail
and the stories of people going missing there and then
how she became involved in this search for them. And
(45:11):
there was this huge volunteer lad effort to try and
locate their bodies presumably or to at least find out
what happened to them, because a lot so many people
just disappeared, And she really goes into that. And now
she's involved in these organizations that try and raise money
to either give or to loan out garment in reaches
(45:36):
and satellite trackers to people so that they have more
opportunity to call for help from the middle of nowhere.
So she really really dives into that because she goes
right into costers, lost person behavior and how it pertains
to missing people in back country environments, in the mountain
environments there. So she'd be a dream guest. I do
(45:58):
have a contact details that a mutual friend gave me,
so I just haven't been brave enough to email it yet.
If I can get Andrea Langford on, that's I see
my my tidy contribution to this shows as being complete.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
That'll be amazing.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
So if you're listening, Andrew, please please get in touch.
So what's all the social media for all of your stuff? Now?
Where do people go to to find you? Find the show?
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Find the show is mostly at sarcast UK on most
of the social media's so your X, your Facebook and
your Instagram. If you want to find out about sarstore,
you can have a look at us on Instagram, Facebook
and X.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Yeah, your Stone Street Underscore Starstore on Instagram.
Speaker 5 (46:46):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (46:47):
That's right?
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's the orange logo, which is an
octagonal white logo on orange, isn't it is?
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:55):
I always look it up, but I'm trying to tell
people what there is. But yeah, you've got some great
stuff on there as well. You do the custom kits
a lot as well, now that seems to.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Be yeah, we do. Yeah, it's getting more and more popular.
We're still catching up from last year, which is mental.
We've got two more orders to go. Don't tell the
customers we've got two more orders to go so we
can reopen the books. It's just it's absolutely amazing of
people's ideas of what they'd like and colors and different
(47:25):
little things, which is amazing. So yeah, we've got a
chest pack. Custom chess pack is about sixty percent complete
at the moment for a customer, and we've got a
load of random stuff which we've never done before. So
we're making marker flags for a partly rescue team.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
They like sort of ground signed market flags or what
used to be the mind marketing flags.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, yeah, very similar. This team uses them to mark
entrances into and to help from the trail up to
wherever the extraction and may need to be. And they've
got a couple of they're going to trial some team
leader ones. So they're more like a traditional market panel
(48:09):
with her arrow and reflective like they were in the
military where they had a big sort of square design
bright orange. If you needed to be extracted by a helicopter,
you could stick that out on a mountain side or
and attract attention. And then we've got a bucket load
(48:31):
of incident commander vests that we're making as well for
some teams, which well you can spy some of our
R and D behind us.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah I can. I can. I'm trying to work out, yeah,
which role that is on the thing I'm not allowed
to talk about on the hangar behind you.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
And then yeah, just maintaining are just a product range.
So we're lucky to sell lots of different brands now
from when we first I did say just yeah, keep
it up to date with that. So one of our
latest product. Ranges is the next tool, which is makes
them really good multi tools and little gadgets, so we're
(49:14):
stuck in those now. We continue to stock the Dance
Tough range of.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Socks, so they are down tough as well. I think
I've had three pairs off you now and they refuse
to die.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Yeah, and if they do die, you can send them
back because they're guaranteed for life, so they will send
you a new pair. So it's probably the perfect search
and rescue sock. Dare I say it? Because you can
ruin it and send it back and they'll send you
a new pair, which is bonkers, absolute bonkers.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
I suppose you should do mine now as well, shouldn't they?
Speaker 1 (49:44):
Yeah, yeah, tell us about yours.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Because of the nature of my work, it's sort of
a weird one. I have to I'm on social media
and we have a website. But then I can't talk
about you. I can't be training home and training are
doing the work I'm doing and go, okay the mile guys, Yeah,
here's a photo. So we almost were trying to put
out some more educational content for social media. We actually
(50:06):
spoke to a few of our clients and said if
we saw as doing this, would that affect our ability
to get this contract next time or to be out
doing the next thing, And they said yes, so sorry.
They said we wouldn't affect the contract, so I'm going
to hold them to that. So we are Outdoor Professional
(50:27):
UK on Instagram and I think that's pretty much the
only platform, or I think we're on Facebook as well,
but no one ever goes on Facebook, it seems anymore,
apart from going on there to argue on your local
what day do the bins go out or something like that.
And Outdoor Professional dot co dot uk is where we
have all the courses. We don't run open public courses anymore,
(50:52):
at least not through that brand. I have this whole
parallel life where I work with wild food and hunting
and foraging and fishing for food and doing stuff with
but that's a completely different thing. But Outdoor Professional dot
co dot UK that's where you can list, basically list
all the things we teach. It's not just me, there's
other people involved as well. We have subject matter experts
who come in to teach very specific things because there's
(51:16):
plenty in there that we offer that is outside of
my skill set or all outside of my core skill set,
and I just can't be everywhere at the same time.
So it's me talking, but it's not just me involved.
And yeah, that's where you'll find all that that stuff.
So I don't know when I'm going to be back.
It's with the next episode, but we're going to be
back less in less time than it was between this
(51:36):
episode and the one before. I'm guessing you're going to
make me do it because I've committed to it now
exactly right. So I think it's time to say goodbye
to the listeners and we'll see for the next one.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Yeah, thanks for listening, guys.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Bye bye
Speaker 5 (52:01):
Stop
And welcome back to a new season of Sarcast. This
is season four, episode one. As soon as you know,
my name is Lake Staine Street. I'm the host of Sarcast.
My family's got a little bit bigger, so my time
has been absorbed, which is why we've been a little
bit delayed in getting another episode to you, the listeners.
(00:40):
And I'm joined by Richard Prudo.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hello everyone, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Richard?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm good. I'm My face is cold because i'd have
to shave my beard off for a work thing which
I won't won't talk about just yet, but yeah, my
face is cold, and I don't like it.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
It is definitely a different look, that's for sure, but
I think it's suits you.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
It does suit you, So I've kept the mustache. I'm
going for the tom Selick now, although someone keeps pointing
out I do look more like Renee from a lower
low rather than tom Selick. You know, I haven't quite
got the rugged and the rugged features or the body
fat index for tom Selick.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
That's funny. I mean you have to be a bit
careful of what you wear to work now, I do.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I mean, like Hawaiian shirts haven't quite come back in yet,
but yeah, the fore mustache is a strong look, so yeah,
it's good though it keeps the top lip warm at least. Yeah.
So it's nice to be back as well as I
haven't happened to been on here for quite a while now.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
No, yeah, thank you for coming back and it's good
to have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
How is this going to work?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Then?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I'm helping you out with some of the hosting. Is
that how we're going to run things for the next
few episodes?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's correct? Yet, in the next couple of episodes are
going to be a a combination between outdoor Professional and
under an umbrella, which would be great under sarcast. Yes,
it's gonna help bring some more cadence to the episodes,
which would be great for the listeners. And we've got
(02:18):
some good stuff lined up.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I can come and help do some of the interviews
and with some of the content whilst you're off dealing
with your firstborn and you your life is born there.
What do we just refer to it as as a
time sponge time sponger?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I think that what we nared it down to absorber
of time. No matter what you do, it's always nine
o'clock PM.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Everything you keep running out of time. Yeah, so I'm
going to try and help out where I can with
some of the hosting. I mean this used to be
a co host way back in the day when the
podcast first started, and I do have a in the
dim very disc and pasted a search and rescue background.
But now I, amongst other client types, I train people
(03:08):
in things in the outdoors under my brand Outdoor Professional,
So I train people in everything from land navigation and
outdoor safety and movement over adverse terrain and mountain terrain,
right through to ground sign interpretation and ground sign awareness,
search operations and a few of the things related to that.
(03:31):
So we have been doing that for a long time,
but we've gradually shifted more and more towards the outdoor
operations clients. So we still train wind farm engineers and
people like that, but most of our clients are now
from police, military, search world, which is not necessarily search
and rescue, and a few other clients like that.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
That sounds amazing and is that based just here in
the UK or is that global? Now?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I do work with clients overseas as remotely as a consultant.
Sometimes in person training and teams come over from elsewhere
in the world over here to the UK because people
just love coming here. I think it's an excuse to
come on a holiday to Sodonia or as we are
now calling it, which is we should have been calling
(04:17):
it that already though it is a Welsh name, but
it's Yeah, it's a it's a good way to spend
your days. And weirdly enough, we get people turning up
on courses wearing things that you've made with yeah, with
patches and stuff like that, and I look at it
and go, did you get that from Luke? Who's Luke?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, I got from Luke. It's the one that sends
out stuff with sweets in the pack in the packets
every time.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I was on a course recently, and I think it
was five out of maybe the eight laptops had a
Sarstore sticker on, which I can't really complain. It's pretty good.
It's amazing where they get into.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So my yeah, my laptop has a Star Store sticker on.
It has the Methane acronym sticker on it, and it's
got one from my my friend Terry and his CDI
tactical stickers, and those are the brands I'm rapping when
I'm trying to deliver power points in a in a
training room somewhere brilliant.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
We've gone a bit mad with some of the stickers
actually recently.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So do you stick a bomb? People? Do you go
and put stickers in places you shouldn't do, like police cars?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Or I've been so tempted. I mean at some of
the places that I've managed to swingle into, like inside
of helicopters and bristow bases and other ambulance stations. You're like, oh,
I'm so tempted. I should really do some sort of sticker,
But I just I don't. I can't. I just can't
do it yet.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Maybe one day I have a I have a customer
on another business and she managed to get stickers from
another brand we work with on the inside of the
bodywork on a premium British car manufacturer as it went
down the line. So somebody somewhere has an SUV, a
(06:10):
British one with somewhere under the front wing is some
stickers I think you made for me originally as well, So.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Then I wonder if we could find them.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, it used to be a thing in the I
don't know if it's still a thing in the Royal Navy,
but you would you'd get zapped by either that unit
or that ship's stickers and you like put on people's
cars and stuff like that, or on their kit somewhere
without them noticing, and see how long until they did notice.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
To start that. In some teams there.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Maybe you need a sticker that is just there just
to tag people with. You've been tagged by Sarstore or
something like that. You've been visited by the Star Store
Ferry very start elf.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, the elf maybe, yeah, more of an elf than
the theory you are. You're yeah, you're quite quite a
hefty elf. So you've got you've got some more content
at the end of this episode. You've got you've been
interviewing somebody I have.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, yeah, So coming up is a bit of an
insight into life as a Loan and Rescue Search Technician trainee.
We talked to Joe, who is a member of a
well actually he's not far away from from from where
I am in the UK and gives us an insight
(07:45):
into life as a trainee has journey into loanan rescue
and yeah, there's some really good insights into what it took,
what he had to do and where his journey is
going to go from here.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, it was a good, good conversation because he's the
terminology has changed for Lowland SAR text now, hasn't it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
It has, so it's gone from search technicians to licensed
search technicians or LSTs, just as they're reformalizing and adapting
the qualification to make it more formal and align with
I believe it's the College of Policing licensed side of search.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, they have the License Search Officer of course, so
I one of is to go in line with that
and keep sort of putting in the hierarchy with that
and pulsor and and other search courses. I suppose it
is reflective of that continual evolution of voluntary SAR that
it's moved on from. You know, it's it's always going
to be a bunch of volunteers, but the professionalism within
(08:53):
the organization is continually evolving, sometimes at a pace faster
than a statutory organization would be able to meet.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, definitely, Yeah, yeah. I think also the maturity of
teams excels quite quickly, so a young team, for example,
doesn't take them five years to start doing stuff. At
a police force, they're almost straight away up and running,
(09:21):
whereas yeah, historically it would have taken a yeah, wrangling
to get up and running.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I help out with some procurement advice for police forces
and a few other organizations, and literally for some things
like thermal imaging. The technology moves on faster than the
procurement process, so at the beginning you help specify some
one particular model and say well, go for two of
these and one of these or three of those, and
(09:51):
that's your A and B option, and then has to
go through all the procurement and all the thing. He
gets signed off and go through that, and by the
time they come back to it, the manufacturer goes, we
discontinue that, and this is the new one. Can we
send it to you for evaluation? Yes, fine, go through
the whole thing again. But yeah, voluntary organizations they are
they're the canoe, whereas the police or the fire are
(10:13):
the supertanker, you know, so they can be agile and
go into small places and change direction quickly.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, Yeah, And I think things have changed
quite a lot with technology changing. You know, it don't
need to have lots of paper mapping like the old
days and rely on printers. You can, as you said,
agility and agile to deploy faster, move faster, and respond quicker.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, because it Procurement is a huge issue for big,
big services because they can't integrate something into fifty different
terminals across a region or something, whereas a Sartine can
adopt it and almost in a week getting everyone everyone
moved over into that system. Yeah, less than five hundred
(11:06):
pounds worth of cast Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Well not yeah. Not only that is they don't have
a choice either, So there's no one there going, oh,
we don't want this, there's something better they go with.
This is the choice or direction we're taking, said group,
And this is the new tools industry. It's you know, procurement,
it's R and D, it's piloting, it's Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
It is one of those things that should always be
remembered about the voluntary star world, or even just smaller
scale star teams or specialist operational units within a wider organization.
If sometimes the smaller you are, the more the more
you can get achieved relative to the big organization. Were
there any without giving anything away, then, were there any
really interesting takeaways from your conversation with Joe that sort
(11:55):
of tease the audience with here.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I think it was interesting thing about backgrounds. So you
would sometimes always think that people would have a lot
I don't know, say, say someone always likes paddling, they'd
always want to do water stuff. So someone who doesn't
always have all the necessary skills or line up with
(12:19):
search and rescue as a typical person as in like
they you know, they love the outdoors, they love they
love navigating, They've they've absorbed everything they can, Whereas it's
just you know, there's people out there who just just
normal Joe have just come in, they've had a little
bit of experience doing certain things, but then they're not
(12:43):
an expert. They're willing to learn, and yeah, it's amazing
of how much things can change from when you learn
something the first time to what it is nowadays. So
I think, yeah, that's the little tea is not too
much into it.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
But yeah, I suppose again that's some of the difference
between the voluntary role and the paid role. That with
the paid roll, at least beyond your initial training or
your probationary training, you can leave the training at work.
You can walk out of the door, come off shift,
come off your thing, and in theory, unless it's coming
(13:22):
up for I don't know, your promotion boards or something
like that, or it's a promotion related course that you
can leave it some to work hours before you open
the books again. Whereas volunteer, you're turning up at base
or you're turning up a training, but you're also you're
never on work, you're never on duty off duty the
(13:43):
same delineation.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
It also relates to some of the stuff that joh
and I were talking about about commitment in terms of
when you first start, it's not always clear what that
may be, and then as you progress, even family members
don't really understand what that may or may not be,
and having that solid foundation of okay, wife or partner,
(14:07):
I am going to go on a call out now,
see you later. What time will you be back. I
can't tell you. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I'm going out of the door now. And the point
of this is some point in the future. It might
have been ten minutes when we stood down, it might
be tomorrow exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So yeah, I think it's it's important as well, whereas
paid would be more under a shift, or you'd have relief,
not saying that not all such rescue teams work in
the same way, but a lot of teams are all
hands to the pump rather than going, right, we know
(14:48):
this is going to take three days, two days, let's
phase it. Sometimes they don't have that luxury of knowing.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
No and the building in that backfill as well. Sort
of when you think about you've got long job, when
people are coming in from other teams or other organizations
or just the next shift, the next level of availability
coming in, that trickles back down to the family. Particularly
in a volunteer role. It's not only okay, well this
person's been working for eight hours or sixteen hours or
(15:17):
thirty two hours or whatever whatever your cutoff is for
your organization and your SOPs. It's do you have to
be back because you're fifty percent of the caregiver role
for your children, because they those children are going to
need that care, they're going to need they can need
you home at this point. So that does almost the
(15:37):
family life almost has a direct link to the operational response.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, definitely, especially work commitments as well. I mean there's
sometimes people's employers are more flexible than others, meaning that
they can you know, almost just go oh, I'll be
make up my hours or flex my hours or take
annually leave at the drop of a hat, where some
companies can't do that because of whatever industry they're in
(16:05):
or COVID, I guess has has had a bigger impact
on the change of that in terms of more people
can now work a little bit more flexibly than they
could previously.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It'd be interesting to pick up with Joe again afterwards,
after maybe a year of being operational or something like that,
and just do a a before and after analysis.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah, we did talk about that, so it's definitely something
we can do. It would be interesting to see where
he is currently. Yeah, he's probably probably been in a
fair few months now and hopefully he's had a few
proper call outs under his belt.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Cool, Okay, should we go into the interview.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, let's go. So I'm now joined by Joe Applebee,
who's recently qualified as a loan and rescue search technician.
So hello, welcome.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Joe, Thanks very much, Leeke, thanks for having us on.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
No worries at all. So Tennis bent about yourself. What
do you do for a day job?
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Sure, yeah, so day job consultant engineer, So nothing to
do with search and rescue. Father two young children live
just north of Reading in Berkshire, Lovely.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
That was the next question of whereabouts you are but
read Lovely Dove, And then how did you find out
about learning and rescue?
Speaker 4 (17:21):
So, I mean, I've been looking for a volunteering opportunity
for a little while. I'd sort of consider going down
the special Constable route, considered the TA I like the
idea of mountain rescue, but being in Berkshire, there's not
many mountains.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Around, no, not at all.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
So I wanted something that allowed me to get outside,
be active. Give back to the community was a really
really key thing for me. And it was a bit
of a chance encounter. I was out on a run
one day and came across a search and rescue team
how on a search so he didn't want to bother
them too much, asked a couple of questions and then
got on my merry way and a bit of googling
and to me mailing and things to the membership team
(17:58):
and yeah, big fortune and good timing and they were
just about to open up recruitment.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Oh happy days. Sounds like a well opportunitist well find
as such as yeah, so have you done anything like
this before or have any relatable skills, not really.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
I mean, so when I was younger, I went through
Cubs and Scouts, and I mean, if I had a
spirit animal, it'd probably be a mud covered labrador.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
I love being outdoors, running, cycling, hiking, whatever. I've also
was a lifeguard previously as well, when I was sort
of teenager, early twenties, so I was sort of comfortable
in the outdoors, had some reasonable navigation skills, comfortable and
familiar with first aid. Done a bit of volunteering in
the past as well, but that was a bit different
(18:53):
when I was in my teens and I DJ'ed and
I was going around local youth clubs teaching other kids
how to dj.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Amazing, amazing, awesome, that's really cool. So most of those
actually probably really good set up for at least the
basics of getting into search rescue, like navigation, being outdoors,
getting used to working a team. So that sounds sounds
real good. So shall we get down to find out
about being a trainee licensed search technician as it's now
(19:22):
called these days. Yes, So tell us about your training journey.
What's it been like in the last nine months.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
Yeah, So, mean, we kicked off at the end of
September last year. It's been a really good nine months,
has been really enjoyable. We had the grace of time
over those nine months, and I know the team sort
of redesigned the training to bring some of the manatary
elements up front. Use that as an opportunity to get
us trained in operational support so we can get out
(19:51):
and start start helping with the team. But over that time,
I mean we're obviously had our enhanced DBS to commence
training and then got into operational first aid communications and
five and two's and all those, all those sort of
good things along the way. Those were some of some
of the sort of more formal training. And then we've
managed to get out with the team on exercises as well,
(20:11):
which was a real eye opener because that's where you
get the sort of like everything you're learning clicking into place.
And yeah, that was that was a really good, good
part of it.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Awesome. So is it a big.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Team that you're in reasonable size? Yeah, I think there's
about sixty active members at the moment. I think, as always,
more is always better, But yeah, the team have been
great with working on a scene and we've we've had
sort of ten ten recruits in our in our intake,
the sort of past past qualification on Sunday just gone.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Amazing, that's pretty good. So was the ten to start
with or if you sort of whittled down to the
ten qualifying.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Yeah, there are a few more to start off with. Yeah,
I think realization of commitment is always a challenge of me.
It's definitely an eye opener for me. But it's sort
of yeah, yeah, it can always make it work, but yeah,
I think it sort of wigs on to those that
really wanted to be there.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Amazing. Yeah, definitely. The a commitment side of things is
if you're not really sure what you're signing up for
can be very daunting. That from experience from some new
duly qualified technicians and the other they're going, oh, I
have to do this, and I have to do this,
and then I have to commit to this, and you're like, yeah,
(21:34):
this is what we told you at the start, and
it's amazing how many people to sort of glaze over
that initial introduction to the team. So did you have
to do anything before you did just fill out like
an application form.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Or yeah, yeah, so sort of, yeah, an application process.
You filled out a bit of formed bit of a
brief TV if you like or sort of what you're
looking to do it. Then there was an interview process.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Sorry.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Prior to that, there was an information evening where they
sort of talked about them nice that was involved, which
I thought was a really nice thing to sort of
be able to go along to find out a bit more,
meet some of the team members and like say, get
that pretty vital information.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, try and put your off.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Yeah, it's a big investment right in training someone up.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
So I sort of I get it. I think it's
a good thing to have in place.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Lovely stuff. So what have you enjoyed the most about
becoming a search technician.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
So it's sort of hard to have sort of narrow down.
I mean the navigation and operational first aid. It was
great to get back and refresh the old skill sets.
It was amazing what had changed over the past twenty
odd years since since I did my lifeguarding qualification. The
missing person behavior sessions that were put on by a
search plan was really really interesting to start getting some
(22:49):
of the maths and statistics behind it. But I guess
probably one of the biggest things I learned. Maybe it's
a bit more of a realization was just what a
massive resource the team is to the other urgency services,
like the expertise, equipment and the people power they bring
to searches for vulnerable missing people is massive.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
Really.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, It's almost like that missing piece of the puzzle
that no one really knows about, but it's always there.
It's just, you know, the volunteer side of search and rescue,
or the whole search and rescues as a whole, it's
just hidden behind layers of police blue lights at blue lights.
(23:28):
It's crazy, but that's wicked. And what have you found
the most challenging?
Speaker 4 (23:34):
I think definitely forgetting some of the old, old learned
stuff was was testing. Definitely benefited from the factor. I
don't know if you've heard the Albert Einstein saying, if
you can't explain it to a six year old, you
don't understand it yourself. I very frequently find myself being
that six year old. And the team have been great,
and like the expertise and the passion and the team
(23:56):
for it has been great, and everyone's always really happy
to help out, really happy to get involved. There's never
any sort of scolding or anything, you can get it wrong.
It's all very very positive sort of development throughout the process.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Brilliant, Yeah, because I mean I think the history of
your team is Barcelona and Rescue. I mean they've been
around for years, if if I can remember, right, did
they have to do you have to do any history
lessons or to get to the team?
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Do you don't have to get into the team?
Speaker 4 (24:27):
You sort of absorb some for osmosis right along the
way bit, Yeah, I believe them right and saying they're
one of the oldest teams in the in the country,
which is a badge were of pride. You certainly see
some of the Alsa, which I think was the predecessor
to b Elsa out there still and certainly our call
sign still being c BEV, which was the original call sign,
(24:50):
is a bit of a nod back to that.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Yeah, different times back then. It's like civil defense and
all of that side of things, which was unheard of
in most free eighties people. They don't even know what
it was, but it's amazing. Well let's move on to what, like,
what gear do you get as a as a search
technician in the team?
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Yeah, so we get a few bits provided by the team,
So we get a very snazzy red polo shirt, nice
Keeler Stratus jacket which is a great bit of kit.
Been really impressed with that and got a couple of
bits from Keiler since then Hiver's jacket and helmet, bit
built in safety glasses. Then there's sort of the bits
(25:34):
that at the very beginning of the process they sort
of say sort of essential for you to provide sort
of the hiking boots, some sensible trousers, personal first aid kit,
a decent torch, which I think your perception of what
is a decent torch changes pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Is he get into the team and how many how
many you need? Is it like a backup for your.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
Backup or yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
That's brilliant. And also that sounds good. I mean most
most teams don't issue helmets, so that's that's pretty good.
Unique to that teams, that's that's good. I mean, obviously
mountain rescue they normally provide that side of scenes, but
for learning rescue teams, helmets they're sort of a strange
one fork issued. Some teams do, some teams don't. It's
almost like yeah, depending on where they are in the
(26:21):
in the UK, so and then I guess the important
questions are, it's like, what's the good have you then
chosen to go with? Have you gone down a ruck
sect route? Have you gone down a load rescue?
Speaker 5 (26:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I got myself a lovely artist load vest from a
little place called Sastoor.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
Yeah, that was sort of I was considering that much.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Holf.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
I mean I've got a belt as well. I've been
using that a bit throughout training. I'm at that stage
of looking around the team and what others have and
what sort of cherry picking of what I think is
going to be used for me. Some of the early
bits I bought myself was waterproof pouches for phones and
maps because one of the early so I went on
it was sort of drizzling and someone had a map
(27:02):
and didn't have a wallet to put it in and there, Yeah,
so you got quickly went and fish went out from
someone else's bag.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
So that's good.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
I mean the reliance on phones as well, I think
that's that was something maybe I didn't realize going into it,
whether that's just sort of the admin side of it.
The team email, the team WhatsApps, the workplace, D four
H and qbe apps and navigation apps, which, yeah, so
making sure you've got secondary power on you and those
sorts of things to keep that tops up, because that's
(27:30):
quite a key bit of kit nowadays.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Oh yeah, I can tell you for sure of the
last ten years that that has changed from waiting for
a map to be printed out of a control vehicle
to going, have I brought my spared battery pack today
to charge to my phone as you're going around the
team of going, oh, my phone's just died because the
map is just sucked up all my battery because it's
(27:52):
now cold at night. So yeah, it is amazing of
how quickly we've moved to that sort of reliance on
mobile technology in terms of mapping communications. I mean even
some teams are using Zello on their phones to communicate
via radios and stuff, which is right next level sort
of you know, everything's on your phone. Then you're mapping
(28:15):
your commander, control your you're tracking your communication. You're like wow,
just wow.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Yeah, it's really really useful when it works.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
I think that's sort of the good thing in the
team where they've gone through and they've taught us sort
of the basic map reading skills and how to take
a bearing and those sorts of things and done a
few sessions on that, which is everything with tech is
great until it falls over. Do you don't want everyone
floundering around at that point? So so yeah, yeah, I'm sure.
I'm sure with everything that's coming up and tech at
the moment, that will continue to develop.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then what's next on your trainee journey,
do you know?
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I mean, with the startek under my belt, I sort
of feel like I've been taught to walk and I've
shown I can take a few steps. But yeah, I
think definitely at the moment, I want to sort of
demonstrate to the team and to myself. I guess I
can sort of bed in those skills, get comfortable with those,
get useful to the team with those skills to sort
of yeah, look around and see the water teams and
(29:13):
the medical teams and the drone teams with all their
sort of very flashy kit and yeah, don't want to
get ahead of myself with those bits.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Definitely.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
I mean the next step is bank search, making sure
we've got that in there, and like I say, just
making sure I can be useful out on searches.
Speaker 5 (29:28):
In the next sort of six to twelve months awesome.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
And then like so when you were doing your training
for like actually doing the searching, because like that's not
something that many members of the public actually understand or do.
How did you find that as going from sort of
do I just walk in the woods or Yeah?
Speaker 4 (29:48):
That was I mean that was a big part of
our Star Tech weekend was sort of a bit of
the focus on those skills. So there was Yeah, there
was a lot of cubing and of lot of Northumbrian
rain dancing, which I'm still refusing to explain to my wife.
It's funny just to say Northumbia rain dunce. Look at
the confusion on their face. I think the most striking
thing to me wasn't that these were out there, it
(30:10):
was the power of doing them. Well yes, yeah, yeah,
And I guess that's sort of the key difference. I say,
someone someone going for a walk around the woods and
a search technician going to look for someone. It's it's
that it's that skill set.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
And yeah, it was. It was quite eye opening.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, and it's a it's a it's a skill that
develops with time as well, Like it's amazing, Like you
speak to some people who've you know, done it for
a year and they'll tell you, you know, like wow,
I can I can see things that I didn't see before,
or I can I can find things now that just
don't look right. But I don't know why, but they
just don't look right. And and it's just that resilience
(30:47):
of your brain and your eyes all connecting everything together
and what you've been taught in training to to do
that searching.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
So it's sort of the exercise and things over the
coming months will definitely be yeah, bedding that in then
sort of hopefully it becoming second nature. And we had
a lot of a lot of very mobile next over
the weekend sort of showing that we were cubing doing
our nine boxes.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
So yeah, looking forward to that.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Brilliant. So any tips or advice for people looking to
join a lead rescue team.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean I would say, don't be put off.
If there's things you don't know, anything specialist, anything you
really need to know, they'll teach you. I mean our
intake of recruits, I mean we did have some ex
military person and we had some X Police, X Fire Service,
a few mountain leaders. But it's absolutely not not necessary
to get into it. As long as you're as long
(31:44):
as you have the dedication and the commitment to learn it,
then you'll you'll be absolutely fine.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
Sort of alluded to earlier on.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
My experience has been a team of really professional volunteers
who love what they do and are all really happy
to help newcomers coming into it. They'll give you the
time as long as you're sharing the dedication to it,
they'll give you the time to help sort of coach
and mentor you. I think sort of conversed to those bits,
don't underestimate the commitment needed for it. Yeah, I mean,
(32:12):
I'm fortunately I've got supportive wife. I say, I've got
two young kids, so they can be they can be demanding.
So she was supportive of me going into it. Benefit
from having a job with some flexibility and supportive management
and it, but ultimately being able to attend training and
call out is why I did it, really, and so
(32:32):
I think as long as that's sort of your intent
going in, I think, yeah, you'll be absolutely grand.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah. I think that's some good advice there and some yeah,
key things for people to think about, especially that you know, commitment,
support of their family, you know, all of that things
make a big difference when you when you go to
join a team, especially where you have no idea when
the call that's going to come, which is a really
hard thing for some people to really take on board of.
(33:01):
I need some routine, but there is no routine. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
I was sort of one of the things that sort
of as I sort of learned about how we'd call out,
some the the anatomy of call out as well. Sort
of with my wife, I've been on too, in a
support role sort of when you back, when we be back,
it's like, I don't know when when we're done, and
so I think that's sort of settled in now. But
(33:27):
actually she remains supportive, So that's good.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Awesome. Is there anything else that you want to say
about your journey?
Speaker 4 (33:34):
No, I mean I say that the team have been great.
I'll I'll throw a name out there, Alan Warrington. He
was sort of our training officer, was assigned to us.
He was he was great coaching through each of the
steps he was We got a text every Friday from
him updating us and what the team had been up to.
Nice making sure we knew the weekend sports schedule as well.
(33:55):
It's been a really good nine months and I'm looking
forward to the current months and years.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Perfect. Thanks Jay. We've got one final question, and that
is what we've said to all of our guests so
far this year and last year, was if you had
to describe your team using just three words, what would
they be?
Speaker 5 (34:18):
So?
Speaker 4 (34:18):
Professional and committed would definitely be two of them, and
I'm going to have to go with helpful because they
all the way through the training process. They've been a
huge support, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Thanks so much for coming on and really appreciate your
time and answering all those questions and giving him on
an insight into being a qualified learn and rescue search technician.
Speaker 5 (34:39):
No, that's great, Thanks very much for having us on.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
So Luke for the rest of the season. Then what
work have you got mined up for me? What are
you expecting of me in terms of guests and interviews?
And how hard do I have to work here?
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Extremely hard, cracking lists of potential interviews and lining up
interviews that we've got underway. So I really want to
get talking to some Coastguard rescue officers. Well, you need
to talk to famous Ralph. We haven't spoken to him
(35:20):
for ages. See how everything's.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Going in nor he's still alive. He sends me memes
every now and again, and then I.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Think it'd be really good to hear some from some
women in rescue as well, to see how everything is
from that side of the fence. There's some good movements
out there and some really big social media accounts who
focus on celebrating women in rescue, so it'd be good
to just to talk about that. We've got some big exercises.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
Winter storms, so it'll be good to I mean nagging
Rob Simpson for a while to get him on, so
I will get him on and we can interview him
about all the amazing stuff that he's doing for policing
in the rural country for snow and extreme weathers.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
There's some good like CPD and shows coming up soon
in Liverpool, so it'll be good to hear all the
good things that are happening there.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, because there might be a few events that you
and I are both attending for our sort of well
my work and your voluntary work roles at different things,
and there's a few people I've got to go and
see for other work stuff, some equipment suppliers and things
like that, so i'd like to maybe if we can
tie in some stuff with them. So there's your old
friends at Mere Supplies. I mean there's about a county
(36:49):
and a half between me and there, I'm sure, and
a cross over the border to get to them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah, Well Bradley's always being willing to come on. We
did try once and at technology failed us, which is
really really annoying. Worked every day that broke.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
That's why I thought if I go there in person,
I could at least get him to write down the
stuff and I'll read it out afterwards, really basic technology
in case it hates him. There's a few other technology
people as well that might be really interesting because there
is some real cross platform, cross discipline uses of technology.
(37:26):
Even in the last five years, some of this technology
has moved on so quickly. Yeah, so there's a few
thermal imaging people and want to speak to that'd be
really good to get on and just talk about the
evolution of thermal imaging technology and the accessibility of it
as well drone and uas stuff. And we were talking
about this before we started recording, and as Luke said,
(37:47):
it's the The Ukraine War has changed the game in
terms of a lot of things for deployment of small uas.
When you start looking at the I think it's the
new Matrise forty T which the AI algorithm built into
that that is learning. So I was talking to one
of the reps for I think it was Elite Optical,
(38:08):
but they were saying it started off with it could
recognize that this was a rhino shaped object, and then
it became it could recognize this as a rhino definitely.
Then this is a white rhino. Then this is a
male white rhino, and now it's at the point of
this is the male white rhino we saw three weeks ago.
That's amazing based just on thermal signature, It's okay. So
(38:31):
this is the thing that maybe ten years time will
be stalking me across the mountains and chasing me down,
thank you permit. Yeah, you know, just a skynet. I
don't know, maybe Musk is going to come for me,
powered by starlink. But there are there are some there's
some text ouf there. There's a few organizations within the
(38:53):
anglosphere within the Canadian, US, New Zealand Australian world that
it always a pain to record with those guys because
of time differences. Yeah, and stuff like that, but it
is is worth it, I think, because we know that
you have a global audience for this podcast, and it
is it is listened to around the world every week
(39:15):
surprising places as well. I just just checked on the
statistics and it's quite big in the Philippines at the moment.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
So what's what's happening over there?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Let us know, Yeah, from the Philippines. So is that
something you want people to do as well? If they
they want to come on the shore, if they think
they they're there, or their organization has something to share
with the audience here. Do you want them to get
in touch with you?
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah, get in touch. They can do that via the
website or via discord, where we've got an amazing little
group of people chatting away under a list is and
given advice and helping with guiding us with topics and
just some general good to know stuff, which is which
(39:58):
is great. We've had some interesting things in the last
couple of months come up, including I've broken my kit,
what do you recommend to fix this? Or I need
to replace my radios. There's some really good conversations going
on on our discord. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
I think it's that that community element of this as
well is quite good because you can learn from people
around the world.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
I mean, as long as the biome is roughly the
same and it's not polar people trying to learn from
desert people. And even then, actually there are there is
some overlap a little bit in terms of remoteness and visibility.
Oh god, don't go down that rabbit hole. The cross platform,
cross discipline, cross environment learning is something that should be encouraged,
particularly outside of your own organization, because you can it's
(40:46):
very easy to get stuck in this doctrinal trap of
you should only listen to the doctrine and the SOPs
and the TTPs of your organization that you should actually
maybe look at what other people do, not to change
what you do, but to find out maybe why your
organization chose to teach you in that way, because there's
(41:06):
another different there's these are the other ways, and this
is they work elsewhere but not where you are. It's yes,
I love learning from people who do something parallel to
what I do. I like learning from other educators people
are working in a completely different space, but talking to
them about how you structure a lesson, how you keep
learning engaging for people no matter what the client type is,
(41:30):
you can't surly on the fact that they've been told
to be there by the boss for the day to learn.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
I think that's a good thing about Loan and Rescue
In a ways, everyone has the same standards, but the
way you can teach those standards can vary from you
meeting the criteria of that qualification by going you must
learn point one point two point one? Right, can you
use a compass? Yeah, well yes I can. All right,
(41:54):
can you use a compass in the dark? Well, that's
not on my one point one point two So it's
just building on that. And the way that people can
present stuff is amazing.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, and there's a parallel learning as well of being
in not necessarily stressful but that growth to stretch zone.
So you're going outside of your normal operational level into
a slightly higher level or to a slightly more frantic,
slightly more pressured environment, because it gives you an idea
(42:29):
of how you operate, how your kit operates, how your
current training standards work in that more pressured environment. But
you can do it in a still a training environment
where you can put your hand up and put a
stop to the situation. If you need to on a job,
you can't necessarily do that. So it's good to find
out where, not necessarily where your limits are, but where
(42:50):
your personal pressure points are and where your strengths and
weaknesses are in an environment where you can go away
and work on them, not finding out that you can't
do this in this environment on the job at three
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
It's raining.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, it's a bit too late to learn then, isn't there.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:07):
Exactly, So that communications there if you have any ideas
for shows, even if it's just wouldn't it be good
to get somebody on from this world, even if you're
not from that organization. If you've heard of somebody doing
something strange, I don't know, maybe there's somebody training air
centing bats in Colorado or something, or strange echo location
(43:30):
for kidava recovery.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, we rough to see. I think we had someone
in the back County Search and Rescue. Is that like
the Great Smoky Mountain International Park?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Back country?
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Back country? Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
I heard a good term a few years ago, which
was side country. So it's not back country, it's just
the bit in between or it's just off to the
side of a trail. Or it's just so it was
in the context of camping. Weirdly enough, it was side
country camping, so that's when you pull off from the
main trail, from the main road and you're just off
to the side, but you're not on a prepared site.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
So yeah, back country start because the further you go
from civilization, the more you the more you have to
consider your own personal safety and your ability to be
in that environment yourself and for extended periods. There's somebody
who I would love to get on the show, which
is Andrea Lankford.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Do you know who this is?
Speaker 2 (44:27):
No, she was a US Park ranger. I think she
was at I think she was at Yosemite and the
Grand Canyon, that's the one. So she wrote a book
called Ranger Confidential, which is a really really interesting book
if you want to hear sort of late nineties, early
two thousands Wilderness SAR and US Park Service SAH for
(44:50):
North America and then more recently. I should have had
the name of the book ready, but she wrote a
book about people going missing on the Pacific Crest Trail
and the stories of people going missing there and then
how she became involved in this search for them. And
(45:11):
there was this huge volunteer lad effort to try and
locate their bodies presumably or to at least find out
what happened to them, because a lot so many people
just disappeared, And she really goes into that. And now
she's involved in these organizations that try and raise money
to either give or to loan out garment in reaches
(45:36):
and satellite trackers to people so that they have more
opportunity to call for help from the middle of nowhere.
So she really really dives into that because she goes
right into costers, lost person behavior and how it pertains
to missing people in back country environments, in the mountain
environments there. So she'd be a dream guest. I do
(45:58):
have a contact details that a mutual friend gave me,
so I just haven't been brave enough to email it yet.
If I can get Andrea Langford on, that's I see
my my tidy contribution to this shows as being complete.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
That'll be amazing.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
So if you're listening, Andrew, please please get in touch.
So what's all the social media for all of your stuff? Now?
Where do people go to to find you? Find the show?
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Find the show is mostly at sarcast UK on most
of the social media's so your X, your Facebook and
your Instagram. If you want to find out about sarstore,
you can have a look at us on Instagram, Facebook
and X.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Yeah, your Stone Street Underscore Starstore on Instagram.
Speaker 5 (46:46):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (46:47):
That's right?
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's the orange logo, which is an
octagonal white logo on orange, isn't it is?
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:55):
I always look it up, but I'm trying to tell
people what there is. But yeah, you've got some great
stuff on there as well. You do the custom kits
a lot as well, now that seems to.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Be yeah, we do. Yeah, it's getting more and more popular.
We're still catching up from last year, which is mental.
We've got two more orders to go. Don't tell the
customers we've got two more orders to go so we
can reopen the books. It's just it's absolutely amazing of
people's ideas of what they'd like and colors and different
(47:25):
little things, which is amazing. So yeah, we've got a
chest pack. Custom chess pack is about sixty percent complete
at the moment for a customer, and we've got a
load of random stuff which we've never done before. So
we're making marker flags for a partly rescue team.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
They like sort of ground signed market flags or what
used to be the mind marketing flags.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, yeah, very similar. This team uses them to mark
entrances into and to help from the trail up to
wherever the extraction and may need to be. And they've
got a couple of they're going to trial some team
leader ones. So they're more like a traditional market panel
(48:09):
with her arrow and reflective like they were in the
military where they had a big sort of square design
bright orange. If you needed to be extracted by a helicopter,
you could stick that out on a mountain side or
and attract attention. And then we've got a bucket load
(48:31):
of incident commander vests that we're making as well for
some teams, which well you can spy some of our
R and D behind us.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah I can. I can. I'm trying to work out, yeah,
which role that is on the thing I'm not allowed
to talk about on the hangar behind you.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
And then yeah, just maintaining are just a product range.
So we're lucky to sell lots of different brands now
from when we first I did say just yeah, keep
it up to date with that. So one of our
latest product. Ranges is the next tool, which is makes
them really good multi tools and little gadgets, so we're
(49:14):
stuck in those now. We continue to stock the Dance
Tough range of.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Socks, so they are down tough as well. I think
I've had three pairs off you now and they refuse
to die.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Yeah, and if they do die, you can send them
back because they're guaranteed for life, so they will send
you a new pair. So it's probably the perfect search
and rescue sock. Dare I say it? Because you can
ruin it and send it back and they'll send you
a new pair, which is bonkers, absolute bonkers.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
I suppose you should do mine now as well, shouldn't they?
Speaker 1 (49:44):
Yeah, yeah, tell us about yours.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Because of the nature of my work, it's sort of
a weird one. I have to I'm on social media
and we have a website. But then I can't talk
about you. I can't be training home and training are
doing the work I'm doing and go, okay the mile guys, Yeah,
here's a photo. So we almost were trying to put
out some more educational content for social media. We actually
(50:06):
spoke to a few of our clients and said if
we saw as doing this, would that affect our ability
to get this contract next time or to be out
doing the next thing, And they said yes, so sorry.
They said we wouldn't affect the contract, so I'm going
to hold them to that. So we are Outdoor Professional
(50:27):
UK on Instagram and I think that's pretty much the
only platform, or I think we're on Facebook as well,
but no one ever goes on Facebook, it seems anymore,
apart from going on there to argue on your local
what day do the bins go out or something like that.
And Outdoor Professional dot co dot uk is where we
have all the courses. We don't run open public courses anymore,
(50:52):
at least not through that brand. I have this whole
parallel life where I work with wild food and hunting
and foraging and fishing for food and doing stuff with
but that's a completely different thing. But Outdoor Professional dot
co dot UK that's where you can list, basically list
all the things we teach. It's not just me, there's
other people involved as well. We have subject matter experts
who come in to teach very specific things because there's
(51:16):
plenty in there that we offer that is outside of
my skill set or all outside of my core skill set,
and I just can't be everywhere at the same time.
So it's me talking, but it's not just me involved.
And yeah, that's where you'll find all that that stuff.
So I don't know when I'm going to be back.
It's with the next episode, but we're going to be
back less in less time than it was between this
(51:36):
episode and the one before. I'm guessing you're going to
make me do it because I've committed to it now
exactly right. So I think it's time to say goodbye
to the listeners and we'll see for the next one.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Yeah, thanks for listening, guys.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Bye bye
Speaker 5 (52:01):
Stop
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