Last time with NWCRO: AGM 2025

It would be my last activity with the cave rescue team. I thought the AGM would be a suitable occasion to bow out. I would hopefully be able to hand over my tasks to my successor. And I had to be there, as this would also be the moment we would have a medal ceremony. The king did what his mother had done before, and had issued medals for volunteers with a certain track record. And I was a little bit apprehensive; how many ThursdayNighters would there be on the day I bowed out? And how unpleasant would that make that? But when I got there I wasn't a single one. Excellent!

We always first do a training. If we organise only an AGM, nobody shows up. And what we started with was a presentation about mental health. It can be important for us! I know that the mountain rescue teams already have serious dealings with that, as they have to retrieve people who have died on a fairly regular basis. Only recently, two ladies died in the Watkin pools, and it was mountain rescue who pulled them out. That can be difficult to deal with. We rarely have traumatic call-outs, but we can’t take that for granted.

When that was done we did an exercise in stretcher packing. That's a standard! And when that was done we had lunch. After lunch, we would do another exercise in stretcher packing, but this time in the artificial cave. It is always a lot more difficult to do such things in a constricted space. And we had a bit of a clunky bloke volunteer as the casualty. But we did it. 

 

In the artificial cave

Then it was time for the medal ceremony. The previous time it had just been me handing them out, whenever I bumped into an intended recipient, but this time we had made a bit more of an occasion of it, and invited a special guest. This was Liz Saville Roberts, the leader of Plaid in the House of Commons.

She gave a brief speech, in which she managed to make a credible connection. She knew of some of the venues, and she said that she probably knew some of the people we had had to rescue. And then she handed people their medals. We also had some Long Service Awards for people who had been in the team for 25 years or more. And we had a fair number of people who have been in it for 40 years! If I remember correctly, four of those present got one of those awards. Impressive.

We also took a few pictures of the people who had been recognised with a medal or an award. And then we did a picture with the entire team, as far as they were present. And some of the veterans said that this was the first time ever we had tried to take a team picture. That's quite remarkable if there are people who have been in it for more than 40 years! It was about time. Quite funny, actually, that I'll be in the first team picture ever. And a few hours later I was out no longer a member.

All medal- and award-recipients, plus Liz Saville Roberts

With the pictures taken and we could launch into the AGM. Our chairman tends to keep these very short. I would say that the most important general matter that we discussed was the status of our team. There are two issues with it. The first is that there is a bit of a dichotomy in mountain rescue, with teams that only do cave rescue (which still falls under the umbrella of mountain rescue) by default being some sort of second tier member of the general organisation of mountain rescue teams. And we can apply to become full members, but there are quite some requirements you have to then meet. And only if we make the transition, will we have voting rights.

The second thing is insurance and liability. With the status we currently have, the trustees (that is the committee members and the controllers) being personally liable if something goes wrong. If we change the status of our team, then the team becomes a legal entity, and that creates one level of distance between the individual members and, for instance, claims for damages if something goes wrong. And I think there should be one. Is it fair that a volunteer ends up financially ruined if some other volunteer in their team makes a mistake? Just because they were extra kind and willing to take on a role with more responsibility? And on the other hand; if it is, it might become increasingly difficult to find people who are willing to be trustees. There are scary stories from the mountain rescue world of volunteers actually getting injured, so things do go wrong sometimes. Although it is of course a lot more likely if you have, say, 320 call-outs per year (as Llanberis MRT did in 2024) than when you have 7, like us. But with these things taken together, we clearly have a case for changing our status, and that means becoming more professional.

The other big thing was to fill all our committee positions. Most committee members were standing for another year. I obviously wasn’t, but some young chap that we had only recruited in the last year, but who had already been part of South Wales cave rescue so wasn't on his first rodeo, was willing to take over. Success!

That was us done. And quite uncharacteristically, there was a call to go to the pub afterwards. It was still quite early! So I thought why not. And with some eight people we went to the pub in Dolwyddelan. It turns out to be a lovely pub! And we had some fruitful discussions.

Then it was time to really call it a day. We all went home. That's it! No more cave rescue for me! But I wish the team well. Especially with their new drive for professionalisation. I suppose it's inevitable in this day and age. I'm sure I'll sometimes hear how it's going if I am on another ladies’ underground trip…