This evening at 18.45hrs we were visited at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ by Christine Ellis, Secretary of Horwich Festival of Racing, who was visiting us to kindly present to us a truly amazing donation of £600.00 to support the work of the Bolton Mountain Rescue Team, and as thanks for our continuing involvement with the Horwich Festival of Racing, formerly known as the Horwich Carnival Races.
.@HorwichRaces organisers show their gratitude to @BoltonMRT http://t.co/zuuaBaSw4i pic.twitter.com/jzoJitFhzt
— Horwich Advertiser (@HAdvertiser) September 29, 2015
Christine handed over this marvellous £600.00 donation to very experienced team member Gillian Leigh, in front of assembled team members, including our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE and Chairman Craig Lamb, alongside Clive Worthington, Chairman of Lostock Athletics Club, and Mark Smith of Lostock Athletics Club Road running Section.
The following press statement has been released by Horwich Festival of Racing regarding this magnificent donation;
Press Release: Presentation of Cheque to Bolton Mountain Rescue Team by Secretary of Horwich Festival of Racing Christine Ellis.
“The Secretary of Horwich Festival of Racing, Christine Ellis, has presented a cheque for £600 on behalf of the Races organising committee to Garry Rhodes MBE of Bolton Mountain Rescue Team for services to provide full day standby rescue cover for the recent Horwich Festival of Racing. Held in June annually, on a unique closed circuit around Horwich town centre, around 800 competitors took part over the weekend of 21 June 2015. One of the best and most popular mixed-discipline events of its type in the country attracted competitors from near and far to take part. It began on Saturday evening at Horwich Leisure Centre with a Mini Duathlon for local primary school children with walking, cycling and running events on the Sunday around the town centre circuit.
Bolton Mountain Rescue Team has been providing cover for the Festival since 2004 and as in all previous years the team had a major deployment at the all-day event to provide standby rescue and first aid cover for the many races.
Twenty Team Call Out members were deployed around the course in four Mountain Rescue Land Rover Defender Ambulances and an incident control vehicle. As usual the team dealt with a number of minor incidents on the day including a couple of injured cyclists. They also assisted North West Ambulance Service to access a residential property within the town centre, linking with race control to allow the Ambulance to exit the road closures safely while races were underway.
Barbara Ronson, President of the Festival said “We are very grateful that Bolton Mountain Rescue are on standby during the Festival, not just to patch up any of our cyclists who tumble off their bikes but also to provide support to the Ambulance service if they need to access patients within the town centre when Garry and his team provide a vital first response and a link to the Race Marshalling Team.”
Garry Rhodes MBE, Bolton Mountain Rescue Team Leader said “The Bolton Mountain Rescue Team is very happy to remain steadfastly associated with this annual fantastic ‘Festival of Racing’ and we would like to express our thanks to the organising committee for inviting us once again to be on hand, in a very publicly visible way, to help at this unique and very entertaining local event.”
Bolton Mountain Rescue Team has been providing a volunteer search and rescue service, covering an area of over 800 square kilometres, since 1968. They cover an area from Darwen in the north to Manchester Airport in the south, Wigan to the west and the centre of Manchester to the east and there are over 150 calls to the service each year many providing assistance to the police and to the North West Ambulance Service. It costs £35,000 per year (£96.00 per day) – at 2014 figures, to maintain the Bolton Mountain Rescue Team and there are details on their website about how to make a contribution if you wish to support their work.
Next year Horwich Festival of Racing will take place on the weekend of 19 June 2016 with details available on the Festival website nearer the time.”
All in the Bolton Mountain Rescue Team would like to pass on our sincere thanks to all associated with the Horwich Festival of Racing and the Horwich Festival of Racing Committee for their kind £600.00 donation, and for their appreciated and continuing support of Bolton MRT.
Bolton MRT is proud of its long association with the Horwich Festival of Racing and its predecessor the Horwich Carnival Races, and will be present providing standby rescue cover for the all day 2016 event, scheduled for Sunday 19th June.
