On Sunday 5th February 2012, six Team Call Out list members were involved in directly assisting two NWAS Paramedics in the treatment and evacuation of a 60 year old lady, Mrs Jean Sharman from cottages near Bradshaw Cricket Club, Bolton. (Please see Incident Report 16-2012 dated 5th February 2012)
We subsequently discovered that Mrs Jean Sharman had unfortunately suffered a serious brain haemorrhage at the time of our involvement and very sadly passed away a few hours later once she had arrived at Royal Bolton Hospital.

On Monday 5th March 2012, the team welcomed to its Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ, Mr Andrew (Andy) Sharman husband of the late Jean Sharman, family members and friends, who all came along to hand over a substantial donation of £1065.00 raised in the memory of Jean Sharman.

It was with great pleasure that on Sunday 29th April 2012, we again welcomed Andy who called in during our base and vehicle cleaning day along with his sister Pam, niece Julie and great nephew Johnathon. Julie works at the Co-operative Store in Adlington, where with the kind support and permission of the management and staff she organised an Easter Egg Raffle. The prizes included a variety of Easter Eggs including one very large egg which caught the attention of the stores customers. A fantastic £257.00 was raised for Bolton MRT from the raffle and Julie brought the money along on Sunday 29th April. Andy also brought along two further cheques totalling £70.00 which he had received for the team in Jean’s memory.

In total £1,392.00 was raised in memory of the late Mrs Jean Sharman, and in agreement with Andy, it was decided to use this fantastic donation to purchase two new full length specialist vacuum mattress splints for the team. (These items have still to be ordered subject to a new production batch being made up)

In talking with Andy and his family, we mentioned that although a great amount of donations to the team ultimately go on ‘operational equipment,’ we also have to fund occasional ‘domestic equipment’ for use at our Base / HQ such as kettles, crockery, washing consumables and the like.

We mentioned to Andy that both our vacuum cleaners (One having been previously donated brand new by Andrew Rhodes, the brother of our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE, and the other, second hand by Garry himself) were in need of replacement, with one being needed for our Base / HQ carpets and one primarily for our vehicles (with a wet / dry function)

Andy kindly gave his agreement to this part use of the donations to his late wife’s memory.

Today we can announce the purchase of two brand new vacuum cleaners against this kind donation;

The following is supplied by our Base / HQ Equipment Officer Chris Tennant;

“The two vacuum cleaners are ’Henry’ cost £95.99 and ’George’ cost £179.99, both including VAT.

These vacuums, made by Numatic, are closely related to each other; Henry, the junior ’brother’ is a very robust and efficient dry dirt remover – ideal for team use! and is used by many professional cleaning companies.

George, its big brother, is able to deal with wet environments and can be used to remove quantities of water and other non aggressive liquids – it has an auto cut-off, so even the average team member shouldn’t be able to flood it!. this model will be ideal to keep the interiors of our team vehicles clean.

It can also be used to wash carpets and hard floors, which will no doubt come in useful especially should we get anymore snowy winters.”

The team would like to thank Mr Andrew (Andy) Sharman for allowing us to use a part of the total donations to the memory of his late wife, Jean Sharman, in this manner.

Please also see website ‘news’ reports dated Sunday 5th February 2012, Thursday 16th February 2012, Monday 5th March 2012 and Sunday 29th April 2012.