Today following Incident 13, the few team members who had been involved, were joined by other colleagues at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ to carry out a number of tasks, at the start of a New Year for the Bolton Mountain Rescue Team.

John Dickinson and our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE, helped by our Equipment Officer – Base and Catering Paul Copley, took down and placed back in to storage for another 12 months, all our Christmas Decorations, including the two Christmas trees that had graced our Base / HQ.

Garry also made a liaison call to our colleagues at North West 4×4 Response, (contacting former Bolton MRT member of many years ago, John Forsdick) learning of their direct involvement with the Boxing Day floods, at the behest of Lancashire Gold Control.

Mike Marsh spent time continuing to upgrade all our IT mapping resources with the latest versions available.

A small group, that had also involved Mike Marsh, alongside our Training Officer Alistair Greenough, Matthew Hailwood and Heath Doran continued to carry out works on our Land Rover Defender ‘Bolton Mobile 4,’ which suffered ‘water ingress’ during the Boxing Day Floods, but has now dried out well.

Our Base / HQ also received a full tidy up with thanks to Matthew “don’t tell my mum I’m this good with a hoover” Hailwood, helped by others.

A nameless team member (Gill Leigh) was reunited with her radio handset, whilst Heath Doran was reunited with another bit of missing clothing (black of course!)

Also our Equipment Officer –Medical ‘current’ Steve James and ‘immediate past’ Mark Scott, met to make our answer to the MREW Drugs Register Return for this year.

Numerous other minor task were carried out alongside the above, by the ten team operational members present today from circa 11.20hrs until 16.30hrs for some.