Long serving team member and team search dog handler David Marsh (Dave) announced recently to our Team Leader that he intended retiring from the team at the Long Service Award ceremony evening, after serving in the team for 20 years over two seperate times in the team over a nearly 30 year period.

We took the opportunity of him being present at the award ceremony to officially and formally honour his retirement from the team by presenting him with an inscribed glass plaque, and his wife Gill also present a bouqet of flowers.

Dave was present at the award evening to receive a 20 year Long Service Award certificate, with his Search Dog Chi, appropriately alongside him for the evening. Dave has been a stalwart member of the team for many years and has supported every team activity whilst bringing up two daughters and running his own business. At various times Dave has also served on the team Council and was solely instrumental in raising over £48,000 in our 25th anniversary year (a tremendous feat that gained recognition at the time within the team).

Garry presents Dave with a thank you for his hard work during his time in the team.

Dave is perhaps better known to readers of our website as our Search Dog handler, teamed up with his Search Dog Chi who is also now facing a life of retirement from Mountain Rescue.

Within the national Search & Rescue Dog Association (NSARDA), Dave has held many positions and also raised considerable sums of money for NSARDA. He has also acted as an assessor and will continue to do so on search dog training and assessment weekends.

Spot the search dog !! PS Chi has the metalwork on his leg

We will all miss Dave in the team (well, perhaps not his loud persistent snoring on overnight team activities!), his humour, his oft-irreverant pager messages, his occasional moans and gripes at how we do things, his quiet guidance to all team members from the trainee right up to the Team Leader, his stalwart support of every team activity, and all those many times he has quietly helped the team in many ways mostly unknown to the average team member.

We wish you well Dave in your retirement from the team and SARDA, do enjoy all those rugby matches and those weekends away with your wife Gill, now you can finally put your feet up and tackle all those jobs around the house and the garden and running around after both your grown up daughters (then again, you might want to consider coming back to the team!)

We thank the Mayor and Mayoress of Bolton for putting up with this little surprise presentation to honour the retirement of Dave and Chi from Mountain Rescue, and they in turn had many a kind word to say to Dave and his wife, and of course a pat on the head for Chi.

Happy retirement Dave, do keep in touch with us, and we hope to see you and your wife at the team Christmas social, and at our team dinner next year.