This evening team member Steve O’Hara attended the fifth meeting of the Greater Manchester 3rd Sector (Voluntary Agencies) Group, representing the interests of Bolton Mountain Rescue Team.

As previously, the meeting was kindly hosted by the British Red Cross at its Cornbrook Estate, Manchester, offices.
The aims of the Greater Manchester 3rd Sector (Voluntary Agencies) Group are to provide a forum to maximise the contribution of the Voluntary Agencies and Faith Communities to resilience planning and response in the Greater Manchester conurbation, including Manchester Airport.

The meeting was Chaired by Niall Pemberton, Emergency Response Service Manager, Lancashire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester, from the British Red Cross.

Usually in attendance at these meetings are representatives from Bolton MRT, Greater Manchester RAYNET, Rotary, Manchester Airport Chaplaincy, British Red Cross, Civil Contingencies Officers from AGMA (Association of Greater Manchester Authorities), St John Ambulance, and the Jewish Emergency Team.

This meeting is the latest in a series of predecessor meetings over a great many years, previously attended by Peter Hyde of Oldham MRT, and occasionally by our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE which has seen the various voluntary agencies working in Greater Manchester come together to discuss items of mutual interest in cases of emergency eg flooding; gas explosions; major fires and severe weather.

Tonight’s meeting commencing at 19:20hrs and as before, steve O’Hara’s attendance at this meeting was to represent the interests and involvement of Bolton MRT in the Group, and also to disseminate items of mutual interest to those colleague Mountain Rescue Teams operating within Greater Manchester.

There follows Steve O’Hara’s own account of this evenings meeting;

“This evening I attended the meeting of the Greater Manchester 3rd Sector (Voluntary Agencies) Group, which as with the previous meetings was held and hosted by the British Red Cross at its Cornbrook Estate, Manchester, offices.

The meeting was Chaired by the British Red Cross, and on this occasion there was quite a few personnel changes.

The meeting was opened by Niall Pemberton of the British Red Cross, who explained that he had now taken over Kevin Place’s post as Kevin had moved on to work with NHS England.

We then went around the table making introductions and giving a brief overview of our different organisations.

These were as follows:

• Niall Pemberton – British Red Cross, Emergency Response Service Manager, Lancashire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.
• Shabina Ardan and Rebecca Pilling – AGMA CCRV
• Tony Boyd – British Red Cross
• Mike Brotherton – Rotary International
• Frank Woodall – North West 4×4 Response
• Steve O’Hara – Bolton Mountain Rescue Team

Both Shabina and Rebecca have taken over Matthews old role and have only been in post since March of this year.

Frank Woodall is the acting Training Officer for NW 4×4 after the stepping down of Howard Buckley from the group and has been in post a short while.

The previously circulated agenda was followed, then Shabina and Rebecca went on to explain about Exercise Titan II that they are planning for next year.

This will be a large scale multi agency live play exercise that will last for 24 hours.

The scenario for this being a reservoir breech flooding the local area and further down stream.

After that we all gave updates on what each of our organisations had done recently.

Tonight’s meeting commenced at 19:20hrs and finished at 21:15hrs.”