For the ninth year running, starting on this Friday evening, 11th October and running through to the late afternoon of Sunday 13th October, the Bolton MRT is organising and taking a full part in an intensive residential Joint Foundation Course in Mountain Rescue based at the excellent facilities of the Bolton Scout Trust Bibbys Farm Scout Campsite & Activity Centre, at Heath Charnock, nestling in the foothills and reservoirs of the West Pennine Moors.
This weekend is annually fully supported by Bolton MRT, in terms of its comprehensive content, exercise venues, arranging exercise casualties, supplying equipment, vehicles & full course catering.
The weekend is aimed at new members of Mountain Rescue Teams and Search and Rescue Teams, all with circa six to twelve months experience, and is intended to cover subjects not generally covered at a team level and to consolidate other topics and course members experiences to date.
Although truly a mountain rescue course, we welcome participation from our colleagues in ALSAR (Association of Lowland Search and Rescue) which we believe may be unique for a course of this nature.
This annual weekend course attracts guest speakers from NWAS, GMFRS, GMP, and SARDA, alongside active participation (Operational considerations permitting) from NWAS HART, NPAS (National Police Air Service) and NWAA (North West Air Ambulance)
A strength of the course is indeed how it demonstrates through the participation of our colleagues from the statutory emergency services, how mountain rescue works within a multi agency approach to incidents within the Greater Manchester and Lancashire areas.
This year we have forty two confirmed ‘trainees’ attending from Bolton MRT, Calder Valley SRT, Cheshire SART, GMP, North East Wales Search and Rescue, Norfolk Lowland Search and Rescue, and Rossendale and Pendle MRT. (All being teams the Bolton MRT has close operational and / or training links with)
All will take part in a series of lectures, presentations, demonstrations, workshops and practical exercises.
Although most of the course takes place within the grounds of the excellent facilities of the Bolton Scout Trust Bibbys Farm Scout Campsite & Activity Centre, near to Anglezarke Reservoir, Saturday afternoon will see course members on exercise in the Noon Hill area of Rivington Moor, whilst Sunday will see course members taking part in a number of mini – exercises in the Lower House area of Rivington.
If any of our readers are around these areas please say hello to us, and our guest colleagues attending from other MRTs / SRTs.
Keep watching our website early next week for a fully detailed report on this forthcoming weekend.
