Today we can publicly announce the absolutely fantastic sponsorship support now provided by VARTA Consumer to all member teams, including Bolton MRT, of MREW.

On Tuesday 13th May 2014 the following was announced to all MREW member teams:

Mountain Rescue (England and Wales) and Varta Consumer are very pleased to announce that they have entered into a sponsorship agreement that will benefit the mountain and cave rescue service in England and Wales. This agreement grew out of the co-operation that already exists between Varta Consumer and Oldham MRT.

The agreement is for an initial period of two years and the main benefits to mountain and cave rescue are as follows.

• In year one of the agreement Varta Consumer will donate to each team 120 size AA and 80 size AAA batteries and also two of their Indestructible range of torches for teams to try out. AA and AAA batteries were selected as from a survey undertaken earlier this year it was evident that most teams used them. In year two of the agreement when an ordering system for teams has been set up teams will be able to stipulate what batteries they want as their gift.
• During the period of the agreement teams will be able to purchase all batteries in the Varta range at cost plus VAT with orders over £100.00 in value being free of any delivery charge. Detailed arrangements for placing orders and making payments will be made known as soon as possible.
• In each year of the agreement Varta Consumer will donate sixty bundles of suitable products to be used by member teams and organisations for fund raising and public relations purposes. The contents of the bundles and how to apply for them have yet to be determined but details will be released as soon as possible.
• In each year Varta Consumer will make a donation of £1,500.00 to MREW central funds.

At today’s MREW AGM and Business Meeting, the ‘Year One’ gifts were available for collection, with our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE duly collecting the kind donation of batteries and two hand torches from the VARTA Consumer staff present.

The two very powerful hand torches kindly supplied free for our evaluation, are from the VARTA Professional Line, a 1 Watt LED Indestructible and a 3 Watt Indestructible.

The Bolton Mountain Rescue team would like to sincerely thank VARTA Consumer www.varta-consumer.com for this very generous and kind supportive sponsorship deal, which will greatly benefit all MREW member teams in their essential battery purchasing programmes.

We would also like to thank VARTA for their promise of an annual donation to our national body MREW.