March 26, 2025

Like many people who work in the voluntary sector, my paid role isn’t my only role. I’m also a volunteer with Cockermouth Mountain Rescue Team, and this month has been a particularly busy one on that front…..

There’s one event in the mountain rescue calendar that’s guaranteed to make our toughest team members tremble – and that’s the Remote Rescue Medical Technician course we have to do every year. It’s a pretty tough test (a multi-choice paper and two practical scenarios), because we need skills that are beyond the usual first aid course. Imagine being bumped down the fellside on a stretcher for 2 or 3 hours with a broken leg, and you’ll likely be in no doubt that the ability to administer strong pain relief is a very useful skill! Anyway, I passed that exam – phew!

The 450 mountain rescue volunteers across Cumbria are also an incredible resource during major incidents, particularly some of the severe weather events we’ve had over the last few years. They play a key role in the response, as they’re one of a handful of organisations that can be tasked by the emergency services, stick snow chains on their Landrovers, and head off to a variety of tasks, including driving District Nurses and carers to their patients, and rescuing the most vulnerable people from stranded cars.

But whilst Landrovers are fantastic when the ground’s rough, they’re not known for their comfort, or for being the best vehicles for long distance travel. So why, later in the month, did I find myself getting up at 4am to take a Landrover on a day trip to London?

It was all because one of our local MPs, Josh MacAlister, has been pushing to (re)establish the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Volunteer Rescue Services. In the past, the predecessor APPG managed to establish a process allowing Mountain Rescue Teams to reclaim VAT on many of their purchases, significantly reducing their running costs. Right now, the big challenge is ensuring the sustainability of our busiest mountain rescue teams, who’ve seen a huge increase in the number of incidents they’re responding to over the last few years.

So, after a long drive (and a few security checks) we got a prime parking spot, and spent the afternoon talking to MPs about mountain rescue – as did volunteers from Cave Rescue, Lowland Rescue, the Coastguard, the RNLI, and the Independent Lifeboats (all of whom have a strong presence in Cumbria) – explain what we do, and the issues we currently face. And we made it home for 2am!

Is any of that relevant to the day job? I think it is! Whilst the finer details of rigging a twin tension rope rescue system might not be particularly useful during a normal (*) day at work, I’ve learnt a huge amount from my involvement in mountain rescue that has been useful, particularly around risk assessment, prioritisation, and working under pressure.

And that’ll be the same for most volunteer roles – your professional skills will be useful to the organisation you’re volunteering with, but it’s likely you’ll also learn new skills that are useful at work.

So why not take a look at our Cumbria CVS Volunteering Portal? It’s a great place to search for volunteering roles (including trustee roles), and for your organisation to advertise its own volunteer opportunities. You’ll be relieved to discover most of them don’t involve being woken up at midnight to run up a mountain.

You can watch ITV Border’s report on our London trip below:

(*) I’m not sure there’s any such thing as a “normal” day at work in the new job, but, on the other hand, I haven’t yet had a day where rope rescue’s been needed…….

Carolyn Otley
Chief Executive
Cumbria CVS