Scottish Mountain Rescue Teams are fortunate to have some fantastic partners who support the individual teams through grants. This goes some way to covering team running costs (approximately 25-50%) but we still need to fundraise for the remaining costs.
The Scottish Government pays a grant each year in recognition of the work carried out by Scottish Mountain Rescue Teams within Scotland. Currently the annual grant is £312 000. This is distributed between the 28 civilian teams via a funding formula managed by Scottish Mountain Rescue.
Established as an Order of Chivalry, St John Scotland has supported Scottish Mountain Rescue for many years by offering grants for specific needs such as Team Bases, Vehicles and national conferences.
Scottish Mountain Rescue simply would not be the organisation we are today without the support of St John Scotland and for this we are very grateful.
So far St John Scotland has provided 12 team bases for Scottish Mountain Rescue including those at Aberdeen, Arran, Arrochar, Dundonnell, Lomond, Moffat, Ochills, Skye and Tayside.
Between 1998 and 2009 SJS purchased a total of 25 vehicles for all the civilian teams and two Police. In 2010 it began a replacement scheme (£20 000 per purchase) for these vehicles as each completes 12 years of service. All the vehicles purchased are owned by the individual team.
By the year 2020 St John Scotland total support for MR in Scotland will exceed £3million.