A very cold dry and frosty evening at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ saw everybody assemble at 20.00hrs for a short presentation by our Equipment Officer – IT and Communications Steve Fletcher.

In the warmth of our centrally heated Base / HQ Steve gave all an overview of the SARCALL Team Member SMS Response system which we will be introducing to replace our current ‘Control Pager’ system, once our entire operational membership has received their awareness training.

In total twenty five of our forty four operational members attended this training, alongside six of our probationary members.

All were then split in to two groups at 20.30hrs, and out in to our cold courtyard area, to undertake snow chain and winch use practice, to prepare us for winter team vehicle activities.

Our Deputy Team Leader (and a previous Equipment Officer – Vehicles) Chris Greenhalgh, assisted by another former team Equipment Officer – Vehicles Mike Marsh, showed eighteen fellow operational members and six probationers, how to use our two types of snow chains for our four Land Rover Defender Mountain Rescue Ambulance vehicles.

Former Deputy Team Leader Geoff Seddon, alongside the above showed the same members how to use the teams Land Rover Defender front mounted winches.

Six other team members were involved in the case of our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE and Paul Brain, in planning out all our commitments for 2015 on our Training and Events Programme, whilst Gillian Leigh, Team President Bob Hutchinson, Chairman Craig Lamb and Equipment Officer – Base and Catering Paul Copley, completed our Christmas decorations and readied our Base / HQ for a meeting tomorrow evening of the Greater Manchester Emergency Services Liaison meeting.