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Established in 1998, Trossachs Search and Rescue Team (TSART) is a volunteer-led charity dedicated to supporting communities across the Trossachs, Strathard, Strathendrick, and beyond.
Our team of highly trained, unpaid volunteers dedicate their time to life-saving efforts and public education, delivering skills like Community CPR and First Aid. We also manage around 100 Public Access Defibrillators, ensuring they are rescue ready 365 days a year.
Many of our team are trained Community First Responders working on behalf of the Scottish Ambulance Service to get to rural urgent care cases ahead of an ambulance team. Supporting Clackmannanshire and Stirling Health and Social Care Partnership’s TEC Service, we respond to falls, silent calls and welfare visits during alarm activations at nights/weekends where we can reach calls quicker than carers.
We also provide First Aid support at a range of events, from Highland Games to the Dukes Weekender Cycle races and beyond.
Our community work also involves partnering with other resilience teams during floods, heavy snowfall, and severe storms. In these conditions, we’re often called upon to use our 4x4s to deliver medication, food, and generators to elderly or unwell individuals in rural areas who are unable to leave their homes.
Our highly trained urban, open area and scent specific Search Dog teams are always training to hone their skills to be prepared and search ready, in all weathers to assist Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue Services, The Coastguard and Scottish Ambulance Service in the locating of missing and vulnerable people anywhere in Scotland.
Trossachs SAR was recently presented with the highest voluntary award, The Kings Award For Voluntary Service an achievement we are extremely proud and honored to have received. We recently celebrated the official opening of our base in Callander, honoured by the attendance of Lord Provost Elaine Watterson, Alan Simpson OBE, Lord Lieutenant of Stirling and Falkirk, and representatives from Police Scotland. Joined by past and present team members, along with valued supporters and sponsors, we celebrated our team’s achievements and the important work we do.
We dedicated our team base in fond memory of our dearly missed founder Stuart Ballantyne who will always be at the very heart of Trossachs Search and Rescue Team.
We are deeply committed to raising awareness of life-saving skills and are eager to expand our work by sharing our expertise with local communities and offering talks to businesses about what we do. We welcome interest from organisations and communities looking to learn more, support or sponsor our work, or even join our team.
Passionate about saving lives, we offer free Community CPR classes to groups and businesses across the area.
If you’d like to learn (or refresh) your skills, or find out more about what we do, please get in touch – secretary@trossachs-sar.com
