MAGPAS Air Ambulance and Bedfordshire Freemasons
MAGPAS Air Ambulance
Bedfordshire Freemasons have a long-established relationship with MAGPAS, both as a Province and through several of our Lodges.
MAGPAS provide 24/7 Air Ambulance support across Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and the East of England, generally.
A couple of years ago the charity faced a serious challenge when development forced them to leave their base at RAF Wyton and relocate to their current base at Alconbury Weald.
The Provincial Charity Fund Trustees were pleased to answer their appeal for help with funding for the move. £10,000 was granted and we then successfully applied to the MCF for this grant to be Match Funded, making a total donation of £20,000.
On March 13th Martin Wilson and Steve Joyce, were given a full tour of the very impressive new Alconbury facility by the CEO, Daryl Brown MBE DL and Head of Fundraising, Lucy Chapman.
The duty pilot, Captain Pete Kersey, told us that his first Air Ambulance role before coming to MAGPAS was covering the Isle of Man TT.
With a helicopter and a fleet of four vehicles, MAGPAS carried out 1,872 missions in 2024 principally involving people being taken ill, injuries and road traffic collisions.
They also conduct CPR training with over 7,500 people trained in 2024 – something as a Province we will be investigating further.
While there, we were pleased to top-up MAGPAS’ supply of TLC bears, who are always on board in case children are involved in attended incidents. This time we donated a supply of some very appropriately coloured bears – in MAGPAS orange.
To learn more about MAGPAS just visit their website https://magpas.org.uk/