Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance – Mission Impossible 2

The 2026 Annual general meeting of Collingham and District u3a was held on Wednesday 24^th June. Unfortunately this coincided with a scorchingly hot day and the committee would like to express our thanks to those members who attended and ensured the election of officials could go ahead.

The AGM was followed by a talk by Andy from the Lincs and Notts air ambulance. We heard about this organisation at one of our first meetings of our u3a and we were interested to find out what had been happening since then.

Andy made use of videos showing the people involved and the helicopters in action as part of a very informative presentation.

We heard that the service covers a staggering area of 3500 square miles and costs £13 million a year to run, with no government funding involved.

As a charity the service relies on the efforts, ideas and expertise of volunteers who raise both awareness of and funding for their life saving work.

We heard that amazingly the clinical crew offer an enhanced level of pre-hospital critical care including advanced life-saving interventions, either at the site of the emergency or in the helicopter itself.

And as to the future? A second helicopter  has been ordered and is currently under construction. The total funding required for this is not yet in place but attendees at the meeting were happy to contribute in some small way to this most worthwhile project.