Yesterday afternoon and yesterday evening, a large number of our members were enjoying seasonal festivities, some with team colleagues at the Manchester Christmas Markets and some with family and friends at Festive meals, the theatre and Pantomimes, and some at work Christmas meals.

This combined with those in work and three members also attending SARDA training activities this weekend, meant that yesterday from mid afternoon until midnight we were low on team members available should the team receive an operational call upon its services.

Some of those team members who were available were included in our contingency plan for the day, which included out basing one of our Team Land Rover Defender Mountain Rescue Ambulances at a team member’s house, and other members offering to collect team vehicles should the need arise.

Very kindly, following requests from our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE to his respective Team Leaders at Rossendale and Pendle MRT (Peter Goble), Bowland Pennine MRT (Kev Camplin) and Cheshire Search and Rescue Team (Simon Lane), all three teams agreed to support us and be available to do so, should an incident occur and we needed help given our low numbers available.

Thankfully we had a quiet evening, and no request was made upon our friends at RPMRT, BPMRT or Cheshire SART.