Falmouth Coastguard is recruiting, and you have two weeks

The photographs on the team’s own Facebook page do most of the arguing. A winchman hanging off the side of a church tower. Two officers roped down a wet cliff face. A mud rescue sled being pushed out across a black estuary somewhere well after dark. That is the job being advertised, and as of this morning there are places going.

Falmouth Coastguard Rescue Team has opened recruitment for new Coastguard Rescue Officers. It runs for two weeks, and then it shuts again.

📷Credit: Falmouth Coastguard Rescue Team

Applications open today and close on 28 August

The window opened this morning, Friday 14 August, and closes on Friday 28 August. Applications are made online through the government’s volunteer as a coastguard page.

The team has been clear about the deadline. Recruitment is open for two weeks only, so this is not a rolling waiting list that quietly accepts names in October.

📷Credit: Falmouth Coastguard Rescue Team

What the team is looking for

Full training is provided, which means nobody is expected to turn up already knowing how to work a cliff top rope system or read a tide. What the team has asked for instead is three things: people who can work as part of a team, who stay calm under pressure, and who have the commitment and availability the role requires.

That third one is the one worth sitting with for a minute. Rescue teams are paged when the shout comes, not when it suits, and the photographs give a fair sense of what hours those tend to be.

📷Credit: Falmouth Coastguard Rescue Team

An open evening at Tinners Walk on 24 August

Anyone weighing it up can meet the team first. There is an open evening on Monday 24 August, running from 7pm to 9pm, at the station on Tinners Walk in Falmouth, TR11 3XZ, next door to the lifeboat station.

The invitation, in the team’s own words, is to pop down, have a chat and meet some of the team. No form to fill in first, no obligation at the end of it.

Applications close on 28 August.

📷Credit: Falmouth Coastguard Rescue Team

📷Credit: Falmouth Coastguard Rescue Team

📷Credit: Falmouth Coastguard Rescue Team