The IMRF community congregated once again on 10 November 2022 for the second part of the European Regional Meeting, which was held virtually.

Following on from a packed schedule during the first part of the meeting three weeks earlier, the latest meeting highlighted the ways the IMRF members have worked together over the past 12 months for the betterment of the marine search and rescue community.

Caroline Jupe, IMRF’s Head of Fundraising and Projects, opened the meeting and showcased the latest stages of the IMRF’s official international E-learning platform. The platform, which was announced in April, will enable users to undertake SAR training at their own pace and provide individuals with additional opportunities to enhance their self-learning.

Theresa then briefly spoke about 2023’s Lifeboat Crew Exchange Programme, which will return for its first in-person event next year, before introducing John Dalziel, Adjunct Professor at Dalhousie University in Canada, who spoke about the IMRF’s Future Technology Panel. During his presentation, John spoke about just a few of the amazing programmes the panel members have been working on, including examples from Australia, Canada, Germany, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Following this, the winner of this year’s IMRF People’s Choice Award was announced. This year the award was presented to Captain Isa Noah Amwe from RMRCC Lagos in Nigeria for his leading role in a number of SAR operations in 2022 that saved more than 20 lives at sea, as well as his role in promoting and implementing maritime SAR training programmes.

“Captain Amwe is a distinguished and very worthy winner of this year’s IMRF People’s Choice Award for his ongoing contribution to maritime SAR. I want to congratulate him and all of our finalists in this year’s awards. Every year the nominations we get for the IMRF Awards are just the tip of the iceberg, representing all the people of all the SAR organisations around the world. It is a testament to the global SAR family that we have such amazing people to recognise each and every year,” said Theresa.

The next speaker was Rod Elkins, Passenger Vessel Safety & Mass Rescue Operations Specialist at the US Coast Guard, who spoke about this year’s IMRF Mass Rescue Operations Subject Matter Course that took place in June in Gothenburg, Sweden. 

To end the meeting, Theresa reminded everyone about the upcoming World Maritime Rescue Conference 2023, which will be held in June 2023 in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Both the Call for Abstracts and the Registration for the event is now open.