As most of you know, (because I've been banging on about it for nearly a year), this Saturday, Claire, Paul (its his bloody fault!) and myself are attempting to complete the Brecon Beacon Fan Dance (you know, the ones the Jedi's do as part of "Selection"). 24Km, a LOT of up, and all with around 45lbs on our backs.

Anyway. Why are we doing this madness on what will probably be the hottest day of the year? Well its like this...

As the local Mountain Rescue Team, our patch covers most of the western Side of Kinder Scout all the way west to Stockport. We go out to assist those walkers and climbers who are lost, overdue, or injured in these high places.

But we also go looking for those in more urban places who have wandered away from home. Some are elderly, some are struggling with life. Not all want to be found and not every call-out is for a rescue, some are known as recoveries (I don’t think I need to elaborate on that phrase).

We train several times a month to cover many different call-out types. In addition to that mentioned above we also provide specialist access into remote places, especially in winter condition, and water search and rescue capability (we form part of the National Water Rescue asset and can be deployed many hundreds of miles away). Most of the team are qualified in advanced first responder casualty management. Some of us were involved last year in the fire suppression operations up on the moorland.

What we all are though is volunteers. We don’t get paid (much to the surprise of the person who said to me last year “it must be great to be paid to sit on the mountains all day waiting to help people” – I’m sure it would be, we aren’t though!)

We are there. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. 52 weeks a year. At 4pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon. At 4am on a winters morning. But only because we have your help.

Our team costs in excess of £27,000 per year just to remain operationally capable. Every penny of that comes from fundraising activities, bucket rattling, good will gestures and fundraising events like the one I, to quote a certain team member have been “voluntold” I was doing  !

So if you can spare a few pennies, or even better, something a little larger, it would be most appreciated, and you can all laugh out loud when you see the state I end up in on Saturday afternoon (and hopefully not requiring the services of Central Beacons Rescue Team!)