 And they’re off! Tim Barker and Sherpa Natalie Murphy from SARA Tewkesbury are visiting all of SARA's six stations on the Severn in four-days, covering the 113 miles between them on foot.
Yesterday morning they started at SARA Wyre Forest in Kidderminster, and they then plan to visit our stations at SARA Upton, SARA Tewkesbury, SARA Sharpness and SARA Beachley, before finishing eventually at SARA Newport... The purpose of this trek is to raise urgent funds for our colleagues at SARA Sharpness, whose station needs urgent repair work to keep operational. You can support their trek by visiting www.tinyurl.com/SARA-TandN. Our organisation and volunteer crew of 180 unpaid search and rescue personnel relies wholly on public donations. We have remained operational throughout lockdown, and as an organisation have deployed to 82 separate incidents already this year.
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 At SARA we are monitoring the situation with Coronavirus very carefully. We have this week taken the decision to focus almost exclusively on maintaining our rescue capabilities over the next few months.
This means that we will only be conducting the most essential training, and you won't see us out fundraising in public. We are also postponing visits to our rescue stations. We love meeting our supporters and hosting visits, and we will get back to business-as-usual as quickly as we can! We also have a number of sporting and other events to which we have committed to providing safety and first aid cover over the summer months. We will be working with all the event organisers individually, to agree what is appropriate. Many thanks for your support. As we cant attend any fundraising events for a while in order to protect both our crew and the public, you can still help us the keep going by donating or helping to 'fund raise for us'. Stay safe. You can donate by clicking HERE.  We are delighted to announce the arrival of the SARA Upton Rescue Station!
The base at Upton-upon-Severn Marina has been created by a merger with the WEIR (Water Emergency Inshore Response) Team, which is transferring into SARA. This base is now named as SARA Upton Rescue Station from 1st of January 2020. SARA had a base at Upton-upon-Severn in the 1980s, and this merger completes a cycle of change. Paul Gray, until December a Trustee of WEIR, was a member of the original SARA base at Upton and commented “The WEIR Team have worked very hard over the past two years to develop a small but professional standard rescue team; I am very proud of what we have achieved and now we are delighted to be re-joining the SARA family. We hope that this will enable us to make a valuable contribution to search and rescue operations across the region.” SARA CEO Mark Carwardine commented “I am delighted to welcome the Upton team as members of SARA and it’s clear that they bring with them significant experience. In 2019 SARA again responded to well over 100 separate operational callouts and we continue to develop the service which SARA is able to provide in support of the emergency services and the community.” SARA Chair of Trustees Jim Hewitt added "by taking back responsibility at Upton, we will fill a gap in our rescue cover. It improves our flood and general emergency response, especially to the people of the town of Upton-upon-Severn and the low-lying communities and waters between our stations at Tewkesbury and Kidderminster and including Worcester.” The SARA Upton Rescue Station is currently the base for 3 rescue boats and a nucleus of 7 trained team members, and is now looking to commence a recruitment and intensive training drive for new members in 2020. To follow the development of the new SARA Upton Rescue Station, please keep an eye on their new Facebook page at facebook.com/sarauptonrs. Recently SARA Wyre Forest were visited by Vicki and Ian Jones; parents of Tom Jones who tragically lost his life in the River Severn at Worcester in September 2018. The team were presented with a cheque from the generous donations given to the family.
We are grateful for this donation and the continued support that we receive from the community. Donations like this enable us to continue undertaking voluntary search and rescue work on land and in water. During May and June SARA has given water awareness safety talks at schools in Bromsgrove, Redditch, Stourport, Bewdley and Kidderminster in partnership with Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, West Mercia Police and other groups working to keep young people safe from harm. https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/…/17711187.we-are-still-in…/  We have been pretty quiet on the news front for a while as the crew have been so busy, however, we have some exciting news to share with this post...
We are very fortunate that the owner of the site planned for the brand new Stourport Marina recognises the importance of Severn Area Rescue Association - Wyre Forest Station and will be providing a section of land to SARA in the hope of getting funding for a new building for training purposes, and to give us faster access to the River Severn when deploying our boats. There is also the possibility of a helicopter pad if required. For more information visit the Kidderminster Shuttle website. On 22nd September 2018 a team of dedicated crew members from SARA Wyre Forest Rescue Station will be taking on a 10km extreme obstacle race (https://xrunner.co.uk) to help raise much needed funds for our charity. The crew are busy preparing for the 6 mile grueling, muddy obstacle course around their existing training and operational commitments. If you would like to show your support and help keep our rescue station operational please donate securely via out JustGiving link HERE. 100% of donations go towards keeping our organisation running as every single member is a volunteer. Thank you. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/saraxrunner  During the recent heatwave SARA Wyre Forest has issued the advice to the public 'Just don't go in'. The advice has been issued during a period of hot weather which has seen many people swimming in open water to cool down. This summer has already claimed numerous lives of people swimming in dangerous waters across the UK, and SARA has already been called to one of these tragic incidents. Please take a few moments to click the link to the BBC News video and educate anybody who may be at risk. www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-44771872/just-don-t-go-in-water-safety-experts-advise   Recently Wyre Forest Rescue Station was invited to the prestigious Goodwood Festival of Speed. Our operational 4x4 response unit known as Mobile 6 was filmed in the parade and shown off on big screens and on ITV to a massive audience. 2018 saw an amazing 70 Land Rovers going up the famous hill climb for their 70th Anniversary joined by our own rescue vehicle being a Land Rover 110 Defender (Mobile 6). This was a great opportunity for SARA Rescue to show itself off to the public at such a prestigious event.
A big well done goes to operational crew members, Sophie and Sam for passing the Mountain Rescue Casualty Care exam!  Wow!
We have been overwhelmed by your response to our Operational recruitment morning on Saturday 28th April. Due to high demand, we have now closed this session. We will be contacting all candidates who have expressed an interest in the next 24 hours. This note refers only to operational roles, we are still actively recruiting for Supporters of SARA (SOS), so please get in touch (HERE) with us if you have some spare time to help us fundraise and run events. Thank you to everyone that has responded and please keep an eye on our page for any future operational recruitment activity |
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