Commencing in 1998, every year Mountain Rescue England and Wales has held a one day Team Leaders Seminar in early December, for MRT Team Leaders, Deputy and Assistant Leaders, Incident Controllers and Training Officers.

The venue this year was the Catterick Garrison headquarters of the Swaledale Mountain Rescue Team in North Yorkshire. Swaledale MRT incidentally played a major role in the tragic RAF Puma helicopter incident, the inquest of which was recently made public in the press late this summer, Swaledale were also called to help and assist the Lake District MRTs with the recent terrible Cumbria Floods.

Todays Team Leader event was attended by our Deputy Team Leader, Geoff Seddon, who has been a previous Team Leader of our team, and has unbroken Bolton MRT service since the summer of 1969 !

Amongst the many topics covered today were an update on water related issues regarding mountain rescue, very apt considering the massive MR involvement in the recent Cumbria floods, the Gloucestershire floods, flooding incidents in North Wales, Sheffield, Carlisle and Boscastle.

Sessions also included a profile of the Teesdale and Weardale MRT, and presentations on the rising workloads of MRTs, preventative mountain rescue and public education, and mutual assistance between MRTs.

An account on the proceedings of today by our Deputy Team Leader Geoff Seddon, will appear shortly here.