Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Diary

June - finally here!

Mon 6th June

I miss tonights first aid session as I'm in India for a couple of weeks (hence the delays in writing the diary).

Sat 18th June

Whilst in India, I'd responded to Mike's request for volunteers to act as casualties for the casualty care exam being held at our base this morning. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but arriving home last night from the sub-continent after being up for 36 hours, I began to question my judgement.

Once I arrived, things looked up. Mike and I took turns to play the casualty in the medical scenario, whilst Geoff and Chrissie did the trauma scenario. I suggested that I could do a realistic impression of someone with Malaria, Delhi Belly and sleep deprivation, but this was overruled. Mike faked a heart attack whilst I suffered an asthma attack. The candidates had to assess us in a logical way, diagnose the condition and provide appropriate treatment, all whilst being observed by a team doctor.

By lunchtime we'd finished, with all the candidate passing the exam. Good news as we now have more team members to carry the first aid kits.

Sun 19th June

Today the team exercise is to cover the Kinder Trog. This is an 18 mile fell race over Kinder. It's a scorching hot day and there's much discussion of the treatment for heat stroke amoungst the first aiders.

We set off to our various positions around the route. I go with Geoff and Paul up to South Head, about two thirds of the way round. An hour after getting there, the leading runners arrive. Our first aid officer, Mike, is not only running the race but is leading the championship this year, so we're disappointed when he's not in the first couple of runners. Mike turns up after about a dozen runners have passed, looking like a man who needs a lie down and a cold beer. Instead, Geoff offers him a drink of water. Mike ingratiates himself with Geoff by taking a drink and then pouring half the bottle over his head to cool down. Geoff splutters in indignation, but Mike's already off towards Cracken Edge.

We hang around as the remainder of the field pass us, including Jane and Darren from the team. Just when we think we must have seen the last runner, three figures appear over the horizon. Eventually, the first of the three arrives and tells us that he is the back marker and that there are two runners behind him - apparantly it's a new role of being the third from back marker!

We let the last two runners pass us, stop them from going up and over South Head, showing them the path round, and then return to base.

Friday 24th June

Tonight is the team meeting, followed by the curry and quiz night, organised by Darts and Doms Mike. Curry - just what I feel like after having had curry for breakfast, dinner and tea for two weeks.

We break the world record for the fastest team meeting, at 35 minutes. Most of the officers are away, so there's minimal reporting. The main item of note is that we're going to stop refering to first aid and start refering to casualty care in everything that we do. Presumably, this promotes first aid Mike to casualty care Mike? I guess that this is a bit like everyone being a senior vice-president in a US company?

So, after a refreshment from the bar, the quiz begins. The SAGA boys (our retired members section, plus Pete and Nigel, who aspire to retirement) have gone off to do the GR20 in Corsica, so have submitted the answers by post. They seem to have an alarmingly high score, so we may need a bit of jiggery-pokery to make sure that they donn't win!

We go through a couple of sections, local knowledge and sport (i.e. climbing), before breaking for the curry. Dart's and doms Mike is a bit of a quiz fiend, so the questions are rather harder than many of us imagined, especially when we get on to the art and music section - this is a mountain rescue team after all.

We have a final count to find the winners and loosers. Winners get a bottle of wine each and the honour of writing the quiz next year. The loosers get a banana holder each - it's a visual thing that I'll gloss over in the interests of taste and decency!

Saturday 25th June

It's 8.00am and I set off with the dog to pick up the team landrover for a fundraising collection at Decathlon, the outdoor shop in Stockport. After loading up with our display boards and the collection buckets, I pick Steve up in New Mills and we drive to Stockport.

There's a bit of tooing and froing whilst we sort out whether to stand by the entrance or the exit and where to park the vehicle. I give the security guard a nasty turn when I nearly reverse the landrover through the Decathlon display window, but luckily he retains his sense of humour. Before long we're shaking our buckets and collecting. Most people give generously, some with notes rather than coins. Many have a chat to us about what we do and hope that they never have to call on our services.

We amuse ourselves by checking out what's in peoples' shopping baskets as they leave. Fishing tackle was the most popular amoungst the early shoppers, with trampolines and tents taking over later in the day.

At 12.15 the next shift of team members arrives and we hand over. I also pass on a cheque from our online shop, the second instalment of our commission. We've also been giving out cards advertising the website, so hope to see an increase in that income stream.

It later turns out that we made over £500 from the days collection, which is a significant contribution to team funds.