We are thrilled to announce this morning that Bolton Mountain Rescue Team are our new charity partner for the year ahead!

At the start of this year we launched our inaugural charity competition, which was open to all emergency service charities around the UK. We were absolutely blown away to receive nearly 200 nominations for 34 emergency service charities covering the length and breadth of the UK, from volunteers, staff, fundraisers and grateful members of the public who sang their praises in their entry forms.

Search and rescue teams, air ambulances, street support teams and community first responders were just a few of the charities you nominated, telling us about the incredibly valuable work they do and how they might benefit from the prizes we had on offer.

Our General Manager Chris Ward explains why Bolton Mountain Rescue Team were chose:

“Bolton Mountain Rescue Team exemplified everything we were hoping for when we launched this idea; a small organisation with specialist skills that they work tirelessly to improve on and they train their volunteers to a very high standard.

The nominations made clear that Bolton Mountain Rescue Team are a valued resource for the emergency services in their local area who call on them for their specialist assistance, and they are available 24/7, come rain or shine. We feel that they will really benefit from the prizes and the funding will be invested well in training new team members to increase the number of incidents they can attend.”

Bolton Mountain Rescue Team will now receive £1,000 cash funding and up to £1,500 worth of new bags from us bespoke, to their needs. We have already met with the team on their site to discuss first steps and are looking forward to documenting the progress over the coming year.

Andy Wood, the charity’s fundraising officer, commented, “We are delighted to have won and would like to thank the entrants who nominated us as their charity of choice. It costs £40,000 per year to ensure the team is able to deliver a service 24/7 365 days a year. With the funds and products provided, this will help immensely in our ability to continue to provide this vital service to our community. We are also looking forward to building our relationship with Openhouse.”