This evening saw the visit of 17th Markland Hill Scout Troop to our Base / HQ at Ladybridge Hall.

In all, 15 Scouts and their three leaders were shown around the base with special interest shown in the Teams two Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance vehicles garaged at our Ladybridge Hall premises.

The Scouts firstly went upstairs to have a look around our facilities with a chat being conducted by very experienced team member Dave Marsh who gave a brief history on the team, along with a look at some personal equipment individual team members are expected to carry whilst on a call out and on team training exercises.

Meanwhile, in the adjoining room, team members Neil Ramsbotton and Carly Raines were conducting CPR sessions on a continual basis.

It was thought that due to the mass advertising on television recently regarding CPR, the opportunity arose for the visitors to have a ’hands on’ experience with our resuscitation dummies. The Scouts were not told what was happening and were just invited, two at a time, to visit the back room, where, like Vinny Jones in the British Heart Foundation advert, they were asked to ’pump the sovereign spot’. Comments heard were ’gross’ to ’very interesting’. The three leaders were shown no mercy and included in this exercise.

Following refreshments of tea and cordial, our interested visitors left at 21:15hrs, all much more aware of the work of the team. (And also very confident about their CPR skills)

Very kindly a donation by the 17th Markland Hill Scout Group has been promised further to their visit.