Lincolnshire Lowland Search and Rescue charity needs your support to grow membership and skills

The Lincolnshire Lowland Search and Rescue, which currently has 16 volunteers including military personnel, policeman and university students, is entirely reliant on donations from businesses and the public.

Helen Foster-Isaacs, secretary, said: “This year is particularly exciting for LincsLSAR as we are growing at a fast rate. Our next recruitment intake is March 8, with already twenty new volunteers in place to start. Just to kit these new volunteers with their equipment will be a cost of £4,000.”

In order to provide the team with the equipment they need, the charity’s supporters apply for funding, grants and explore ways of raising money.

The main fundraising campaign this year is targeted towards buying an incident control vehicle. This will enable the team to transport equipment, provide volunteers with welfare facilities and enable key members to meet privately to coordinate and plan a search effectively.

Helen said: “The team aspirations for the next twelve months are to continue to grow. They are undertaking training in bike search techniques in order to be able to deploy a team equipped with mountain bikes for hasty searches. The team are seeking to embrace future technologies, with drone training. This will require the purchase of a drone with thermal imaging technology but this has already proven itself to be an invaluable new method of search and rescue.”

Professionally trained in search techniques, navigation, first aid and safeguarding, the volunteers help police to look for missing vulnerable people. Those considered vulnerable are people who have dementia, are suicidal, have autism or mental health issues.

Emergency services also count on the volunteers’ support during high-risk incidents and natural disasters.

Recruits are trained at Wragby fire station with practical training throughout Lincolnshire. After qualifying as search technicians, volunteers are invited to take on specialist roles. If you would like to join, email: info@lincslsar.org

If you would like to make a donation to the charity, go to www.wonderful.org/charity/lincolnshirelowlandsearchrescue