In 2011, Her Majesty’s Government announced an annual grant to be utilised for team search and rescue equipment purposes, open to all teams within Mountain Rescue England and Wales, our national representative body.

The grant from HMG administered and co-ordinated through our national body, MREW, resulted in each team including the Bolton MRT, being able to purchase SAR equipment through MREW to the approximate value of £2,500.00. Orders by MREW teams were placed in December 2011 for ‘draw down’ in January and early February 2012.

We benefitted greatly from the 2011 / 2012 Grant, reporting such in our website ‘news’ items dated Friday 17th February 2012, detailing the receipt by the team firstly of two PELI RALS 9440 ‘Big head’ Lighting Units, at a total costing of £1,440.00, the second part of the grant was for a quantity of Alloy Screwgate Karabiners, received by the team at a costing of £380.00, please see website ‘news’ item dated Tuesday 21st February 2012, and the third and final part was reported on Wednesday 14th March 2012, when we received two specialist M.I.B.S. (Multi Integrated Body Stretcher) Mk 2 Stretchers, from Rescue and Medical Limited of Brynmawr, Gwent, worth £780.00 in total.

In August this year (2012), the news was received that Her Majesty’s Government had confirmed that similar grant support was indeed available for 2012 / 2013, and our national body MREW, invited all teams to select an equipment order in the region of £2,500.00 from a comprehensive ‘catalogue’ of search and rescue equipment, that had been put together by our national officers in MREW.

Today we are very pleased to announce the receipt by the Bolton MRT of the first part of our equipment order set against this kind government support grant for 2012 / 2013.

We have received forty eight latest generation head torch units from LED Lenser which will enable us to personally equip each operational call out list member with a team issue head torch.

The model chosen by the team is the LED Lenser High Performance Line H14 Head Lamp, featuring SLT / Smart Light Technology via a micro controller switch, with an advanced focus system with speed focus function, high end power LED, and hard gold plated contacts.

The light can be programmed to feature power boost, low power operation, dim light operation, blink or ‘SOS’ or ‘Defence Strobe’ function.

In total this model features 2x Energy settings (Energy saving and constant current), 3x Light programs (Professional, Easy or Defence) and 8x Light functions.

All in all, a very impressive piece of lighting equipment, which will greatly enhance our personal lighting on night time team operations.

To date all team members have supplied their own head torches, which given the current cost of appropriate units for mountain rescue use, has incurred a considerable cost on team members personal finances, so this equipment donation has direct benefits to each team member as well as obvious operational benefits to the team.

The value of this order which has been supplied to the team via the Government Grant equipment donation is circa £2,038.00, with LED Lenser very kindly having entered into a discount purchase arrangement with our national body, via this grant, to enable all to benefit from mass purchase arrangements.

The team wishes once again to express its sincere thanks to Her Majesty’s Government for the continuation this year of this direct financial support of mountain rescue in England and Wales, and to our national body, Mountain Rescue England and Wales for co-ordinating the orders and the expenditure associated with this grant.

We would particularly like to thank MREW Officers, Neil Roden, MREW Procurement Officer, Penny Brockman, MREW Treasurer, and Richard Terrell, MREW National Equipment Officer, for their role in the administration and co-ordination of this grant, and their valued help and advice offered to Bolton MRT in enabling us to make our purchases set against this years grant.

Please keep watching our website for details and receipt of other purchases we have made against the 2012 / 2013 Government Grant equipment donation to UK mountain rescue.