Yesterday evening, Friday 20th March, Team Trainee member Neil Haigh and very experienced, very long serving team member Mike Marsh, departed for Sandiway Scout Camp, Cheshire, to take part in the Cheshire SART organised annual ‘Search Technicians Course,’ recognised by ALSAR.

This annual weekend course is organised and facilitated by Cheshire SART, and this years course includes trainees / students from Cheshire SART, Merseyside SART and the sole Bolton MRT student, our very own Neil Haigh.

Instructors have been drawn mainly from Cheshire SART, with some external lecturers.

Bolton MRT team member Mike Marsh had been kindly invited and is attending as a full time course mentor.

This weekend course, due to end tomorrow, Sunday 22nd March 2015, consists of a series of classroom lectures, table top exercises and outdoor exercises.

The sessions have included search skills, searcher spacing, the different types of searches, detection versus recognition, search patterns, bank side (water) searching, note taking, briefing and debriefing, human factors, stretcher handling, personal equipment, expectations of external agencies, and this evening, a three hour long practical search exercise.

A full report on this weekend will be posted within our website ‘News’ soon.