At their most recent meeting Newcastle Lions presented Mourne Mountain Rescue representative Martin McMullan with a cheque for £1,000 from the money raised during their Christmas fundraising efforts of collections at Eurospar, Barbican and Tesco as well as the raffles at the Burrendale Christmas dinner dances. Martin then gave the Lions a short talk on the history of the Rescue team’s efforts to have a new base in Newcastle. In 2012 50 years after the establishment of the team the decision was made to try and have a base of their own as they had always been “squatters” in other premises. This became really important when the premises they were in was condemned and they were moved to smaller premises which do not allow the full team to meet together never mind having room to dry out equipment after they return from a rescue. They were fortunate to link up with Lidl and a submission was made to Planning in 2019 for premises which were estimated to cost £650,000. They had raised £300,000 toward the cost of the building but due to there being issues at planning and due to COVID they lost 3 sets of funding which would have allowed completion. Hurdles have now been overcome but unfortunately costs have escalated to £1million. The Group put out an appeal to the public which raised over £100,000 and this was added to the donations that they had gratefully received over the years of the project. Just before Christmas the group were notified that they had been given £1/2 million pounds from the Community Ownership Fund. With the contingencies built up this will allow the premises to be built without any debt and it is hoped to be ready in November/ December 2025 to allow the group to carry out their amazing work which has greatly increased due to the larger number of people visiting the Mournes. Martin thanked the Lions for their very generous cheque and in turn the Lions would like to thank the public who supported them very generously during their fundraising.
