The Board of Trustees and the Management Executive have been monitoring the role and involvement of NCI Stations and Watchkeepers in relation to incidents around the coastline, in particular the role of the NCI in supporting the rescue of people.

At a recent Board of Trustees meeting, it was felt that such actions of Watchkeepers and Stations should not go unnoticed and consequently unrewarded by our charity.
The Board of Trustees have therefore agreed that watchkeepers be awarded an NCI Certificate of Merit, which will be presented at a suitable award ceremony.
The Trustees believe that the NCI Certificate of Merit should be the highest award for watchkeepers to achieve for actually helping to save a life or lives.
This could be through early reporting and then ongoing support to the SAR by watchkeepers or locating the casualty during the request to assist by SAR and then give further ongoing support.
Identifying who should receive such a reward.
Station Managers will be responsible for identifying actions and/or incidents that are seen to have saved lives, and will forward such reports to the relevant Regional Trustees with a covering email and relevant paperwork.
The Regional Trustee will then submit a report to the General Secretary who will chair a Merit Award Review Committee who will sit once / quarter.
The Committee will be made up of the following
Three Trustees including the General Secretary as chair. (But not the regional Trustee who has submitted the report)
The Head of Operations.
One Sector Mgr & Station Manager (not from the sector / station submitting the certificate).
The General Secretary will then submit the review committee’s recommendation to the Board of Trustees for final approval.
The award will be subject to strict criteria as shown below.
Actions taken by the watchkeepers must have contributed to a life being saved and not just rescued.
A detailed incident report time based is available and filed in good order on the NCI National Website.
Confirmation that a life was actually saved should be provided in the form of a letter / email from one or more senior representatives of the rescue services involved i.e.: the Coastguard, RNLI, Police or other recognised authorities.
Start Date
Of course, we will have had many lifesaving incidents in the past but sadly it is not feasible or practical to make the scheme retrospective and therefore the scheme will have a start date covering from the 2nd half of the year 2024 that is the 1st July 2024 onwards
Presentation of the award
We envisage that this award will not be a regular event due to its key element of assisting to saving a life and when awarded, will gain a prodigious accolade within the organisation.
Based on this fact the award ceremony will take place at a suitable venue or be built into one of the key NCI events each year.
The certificate, if practicable, will be presented by one of our patrons to clearly show how much we, the NCI, value our watchkeepers.