UKC

UKC and UKH Readers Help Mountain Rescue

© NEWSAR (North East Wales Search and Rescue)
Last month UKC and UKH Readers got behind the Mountain Rescue Services to help secure some much-needed funding via the NatWest CommunityForce scheme (more about the scheme here). Two of the MRT's we featured were successful in their bids due to the huge number of votes they received from UKC and UKH readers, and this in spite of the complex and protracted requirements of the voting system.

Richard Prideaux commented, "I can only speak for NEWSAR, but we are very happy to receive this £6,000 donation. As we are an organisation providing a 24/7 service we have a constant need for funds to keep the team operating, and this money will go straight into providing equipment and training for our team members. We are very thankful to all those people who have voted for North East Wales Search and Rescue, and to the Natwest Community Force project. UKClimbing and its forum members obviously gave us the final boost we needed."

Four other MRT's were unsuccessful in their bids this time round but hopefully, with slightly better timing, we can get behind all the MRT's at an earlier stage next time the NatWest scheme is in operation.

The difference between the two successful teams and the four that didn't win can almost certainly be put down to the timing of the campaigns on UKC and UKH.

It started on October 19th when I was approached by Richard Prideaux, deputy team leader of North East Wales Search and Rescue (NEWSAR), about getting some support on UKC and UKH for NEWSAR's bid. Richard was looking to run a Premier Post on the UKC/UKH Forums to see if he could get some votes. Instead of doing that we ran a full news report (here) which went live on the Wednesday. Voting finished on Monday 25th October so there was a bit of time pressure.

Richard also tipped off his colleagues at the Aberglaslyn Mountain Rescue Team (AMRT) and Dion Jones got in touch to supply some details about their campaign under the same scheme, but in a different region (ie. they weren't competing against each other).

photo
Aberglaslyn Mountain Rescue Team

The initial report only mentioned these two MRT bids since we weren't aware of others at the time. Additionally, the voting appeared to only allow each person three votes so we were wary of adding more campaigns to dilute the vote. In the end it we discovered that there were two versions of the NatWest scheme - one for Scotland and one for the rest of the UK and you could have three votes on each. As it turned out there was also a nice split of 3 MRT's bidding in the south, and 3 in the north meaning UKC users could get 6 counting votes if they wished.

Sadly we were only able to put together the full report with all 6 MRT's listed on the Saturday morning, by which time 500 votes had been added to the NEWSAR and AMRT. Despite this extra publicity, a similar boost in the short time remaining wasn't possible for the other bids.

Dion Jones said, "Aberglaslyn MRT are over the moon in wining the NatWest Community Force Award. This will now enable us to start building our new base early in the new year. It will enable the Team to respond more efficiently to our ever increasing call outs. All our members are thankful to all those that have voted for the Aberglaslyn Team and also to NatWest for running the award. We feel that the forum members of UK Climbing definitely tipped the balance in our favour and allowed us to finish first in our area. Thank you all again for your much needed support."

For future reference, UKC will be happy to co-ordinate campaigns for mountain rescue team bids for schemes like this so please get in touch.

NEWSAR (North East Wales Search and Rescue) in action  © NEWSAR (North East Wales Search and Rescue)
NEWSAR (North East Wales Search and Rescue) in action

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30 Nov, 2011
A massive thank you once again to UKC, everybody who voted and to Natwest for the support they have given NEWSAR.
1 Dec, 2011
absolutely! Great to see some money going into MR wherever it goes. I'm in an MRT in Lancs and we were bidding for this money too; sadly we didn't feature in UKC's article this time. Hopefully next time UKC will look at MR as a whole and not just those teams lucky enough to get their foot in the door? However - some's better than none, and thanks to all UKC readers who made a vote. Enjoy the funds NEWSAR! (Perhaps get some red jackets instead of yellow?!?!??)
1 Dec, 2011
Thanks mate! But i think you may be a little unfair to UKClimbing here. As the article says, we/I approached UKC at the eleventh hour asking to buy a premier post to help publicise it. Alan immediately offered to put up a news item instead, and to include as many teams as I was aware of in the Natwest project. I only knew of Aberglaslyn MRT, and contacted their team leader. As the news item went up, other teams who were involved in the bid came forward, and Alan added them to the item as they gave him the info. We've got some nice red and black ones already (bottom photo on the news item), but I do like the yellow ones :-)
2 Dec, 2011
Hmm perhaps a little bit unfair yes; as you say it was all eleventh hour (which is normal for us I know) and I was a teeny bit miffed when I saw the original UKC news item asking for people to vote because it really did look like there were only four teams in the running whereas the real number would have been a lot higher. Perhaps I was really suggesting to UKC that a more 'global' approach to MR teams might be cool, and UKC could try asking folks to support the Teams where they climb walk or live? All with the benefit of hindsight I know to be fair to UKC - just thoughts for the next time.
2 Dec, 2011
Hi Initially we weren't even aware that there was a scheme running so when Richard approach me I asked him about other local campaigns. He only knew of the one he mentioned. I actually tried the search routine on the NatWest site before producing the first report and it returned no results for 'mountain rescue' which was curious. It later proved to be a very temperamental search routine that would occasionally turn up with decent results but not always as I discovered. Someone on the thread pointed out some other bids and someone else mentioned that the RBS scheme in Scotland meant that you could get an extra 3 votes. This is how the final list of 6 came about. Anyway, it was a learning experience for all of us. In future if people get in touch as soon as they can, then we can get behind the campaign in a big way since it did prove that, when you mobilise UKC readers behind a cause, they will make a big difference. Cheers Alan
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