Today the team attended the GO Outdoors store in Warrington, at the invitation of Managing Director John Graham and to represent Mountain Rescue England & Wales. GO Outdoors are supporting Mountain Rescue England & Wales (MREW) at a national level, with many of the MREW constituent teams travelling all over the county in order to represent MREW at the many GO Outdoors stores.
The team were also raising funds on behalf of Mountain Rescue England & Wales with all funds raised today being passed to the national executive via the GO Outdoors store.
Team member Ana Toole’s account of the fun day follows….
It was a relatively early start for experienced team member Diane Blakeley, Team Equipment Officer Nick Berry and Ana Toole as they travelled to the GO Outdoors store in Warrington in support of their Superhero theme day. After meeting staff, many who were dressed in costume, we headed back outside to take our place next to George Heyes and his bouncy castle (www.acmebouncycastles.co.uk). George was very generously sharing his takings with Mountain Rescue and already had children jumping up and down.
It wasn’t long before we were soon answering questions about the team and showing people round the vehicle and the equipment on board. Many of the children seemed happy to split their time between playing on the bouncy castle and then sitting in the vehicle and trying out the lights and sirens. However, it wasn’t long before the vehicle played second fiddle as we were joined by the star of the show Boris, SARDA Wales’ newest trailing dog (in the company of team member Steve Nelson and his 2 children). He drew a lot of attention from shoppers who were interested to learn about his skills and how his handler will be putting him to good use across the country.
The day passed really quickly. We met many interesting people including someone who worked for the company that provided us with our new vehicles, a man who was a member of the Duddon Inshore Lifeboat team, a couple who also had working pointer dogs and Malcolm Pritchard and his wife who are friends from the Cheshire SAR team.
The team would like to thank the staff at GO Outdoors for inviting us to their store today and for making us feel so welcome. We are also extremely grateful to George Heyes of Acme Bouncy Castles who not only gave his time free but also supported Mountain Rescue by sharing his proceeds with the organisation. I would also like to say a big thank you to the family who, having chatted with us and walked back to their car, suddenly ran back to us to give us a packet of midget gems. They didn’t last long!
