Today we were invited by Joanne Tarpey, Civil Contingencies Service, Wigan MBC to the awareness day part of Wigan Resilience Week, held in Wigan town centre.
The day got off to a wet start as cloud after cloud emptied their wet contents onto the 6 team members who had volunteered to attend the event.
Alan James; Michael Eddleston; Matthew Hailwood; Alistair Greenough; Nick Berry and Dave Marsh [along with Trainee DVS dog Sasha] were the ‘meeters and greeters’ over the course of the day.
Although the vehicles were parked a little way from the bulk of the exhibitors, we had our fair share of visitors who wanted further information as to who and what the team is about.
It just goes to prove that if you park next to a busy cash machine and have a good looking dog in close proximity, one will get plenty of visitors who not only chatted but made many kind donations to the sum of £75-59 over the course of the day. A big thank you to the ‘Pie Eaters’ of Wigan.
We had on display our Land Rover Mountain Rescue Ambulance BM3, our incident control vehicle BM6 and our SAR Boat. Other organisations present included:
- British Army with a howitzer
- NWAS with an emergency ambulance
- GMP with a traffic car (BMW) with a Traffic PC & PCSO
- GMP with crime reduction advice display
- GMFRS with a pump appliance & specialist equipment vehicle. Their USAR and Fire investigation dog handler (Mick Dewar) was also present.
- RSPCA with a display & a boat
- Environment Agency with their boat
- St. John Ambulance were there with an ambulance; teaching people CPR skills on a ‘Resus Annie’
- Wigan MBC with a recycling display
- RAYNET the radio amateur emergency network
- North West 4×4 Response (the 4×4 drivers who recently kindly provided the team with off road driving)
- Bouncy castle for entertaining the kids
The team is pleased to have been associated with this event and are happy to attend next year’s scheduled event.
