This morning Dave Healey, Radio Communications Officer, & Elaine Gilliland, Team Training Officer, jouryned to Lancashire Constabulary HQ at Hutton for a training session in the new Mapyx SARMAN software, which was also officially launched today.
Together with 2 representatives from almost every Team recognised by Mountain Rescue England & Wales, Dave & Elaine were there on a 2 point basis. Firstly, to receive the Goodyear sponsored laptop, which every Team will receieve & secondly, to receive training in the SARMAN plugin for the Mapyx Quo digital mapping solution, also provided free of charge to every Team & Team member.
SARMAN is a Search and Rescue Management solution, which when intergrated with Quo is a very powerful tool for use by the Contol element of an incident.
It allows the Controller to keep a track of
- who is in each party,
- what each party is carrying equipment wise,
- what each party is tasked to,
- where each party are to go / search etc,
- it can also allow real time GPS tracking,
- allow you to print search areas with 1:25,000 mapping,
- and help with the mountain of paperwork after each incident !
The day started early for a Sunday at 09.30 Hrs and with a break for lunch, concluded at 16.00 Hrs.
A very well presented presentation by Ewan Thomas on what SARMAN can do & also some exercise management of a ’Spot Pickup’ incident, which just happened to be a balloon crash in Bolton MRTs patch on Turton Moor !! Followed by a search exercise on Ingleborough and with a urban search in the North East concluded the practical examples.
Our thanks are sincerlely expressed to the following people and companies for a very successful day;
- Mark Lewis, MR EW Communications Officer
- Ewan Thomas, MR EW Water Rescue Officer
- Iain Nicholoson & Simon Harris, Bowland Pennine MRT
- Goodyear Tyres for the sponsorship of the laptops.
- Mapyx for the sponsorship of the software.
Watch the website for details on how Bolton MRT intend to use this software.
Webmaster – It has been reported that despite the fact Dave & Elaine’s work station was next to the Mapyx stand, both of them resisted the urge to spend any money on shiney electronic gadgets, which were just within reach of them both !!
