RE-APPOINTMENT OF COMMISSIONER DARREN KLEMM AFSM The Minister for Emergency Services Francis Logan MLA has announced the re-appointment of Mr Darren Klemm AFSM as the Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner. Mr Klemm’s re-appointment will be for five years beginning on 20 March 2019, and it will provide important continuity in the work he is undertaking with the public sector reform, including the best outcomes for DFES whilst delivering the necessary efficiencies. Mr Klemm has both the operational and strategic capacity to lead the Department, successfully shaping the future of fire and emergency services in Western Australia, and further strengthening relationships with our emergency services partners.
Monash SES has a group of volunteers comprising mainly retired people, known as Red Team. This team predominantly, although not exclusively, takes on the role as call-out crew during daylight hours on weekdays, when the majority of volunteers are at work. Other volunteers are able to join with Red Team when they are available. Red Team members’ ages range from the 60s through to the mid 70s, which means the team members bring a lot of experience to the organisation.
The team has former engineers, teachers, financial advisors, mechanics and production workers in its ranks. This has given Red Team a broad knowledge base, which they readily apply, when facing the problems presented in requests for help from the community. Red Team has an excellent record of response to requests for assistance. The team has an average of responding to one hundred RFAs, per member, per year, with a couple of the members reaching close to two hundred responses.
“One of the great things with this team is the camaraderie, knowing we can depend on each other and get a job done efficiently and effectively, with enthusiasm”. said Peter, a team member of five years’ experience. “What I like about leading this team is, I don’t have to give a lot of instructions or directions, when arriving on a scene” said John, a Team Leader. “The members know what they have to do to set up the scene safely, allowing me to make an assessment of the task. It really aids the Team Leader’s role, knowing I can rely on these people.”
“The Monash Unit is very lucky to have such a dedicated and responsive group of people.” the Unit Controller, George Haitidis, said. “It means we can provide excellent coverage and service to our community. It makes my job so much easier, knowing they are there ready to respond.”
Submitted by Peter Kelly
Printed in the Phoenix which is the Official Lournal of the Victorian SES Volunteers Association Issue 193 September 2018
No operational callouts were recorded for September.
Training:
Regional Exercise On Saturday and Sunday, September 8 & 9, 6 Volunteers from Kalbarri SES attended the annual Midwest-Gascoyne Regional exercise. This year the exercise was held in Jurien Bay with attendees from across the region camping at the Jurien Bay Fire Station for the weekend. The exercise consisted of various scenarios with volunteers setting up a communications network on Saturday and then responding to a number of simulated storm damage incidents effecting single and two storey buildings. This necessitated setting up roof safety systems and making temporary repairs to prevent water ingress. Sunday saw the participants conduct foot and vehicle searches for 2 missing fisherman in the Sandy Cape area. Kalbarri SES utilised their newly commissioned All Terrain Vehicle for the first time. The missing casualties were located and a complex cliff rescue utilising a Larkin Frame and a further rescue from a underground tank were successfully completed. The annual Regional Exercise is an excellent opportunity for volunteers to gather and practice their skills and build relationships with other units.
AFAC Conference Two volunteers from Kalbarri SES attended the Australasian Fire Authorities Council Conference at the Pert Exhibition Centre on September 5, 6 & 7. The conference is a annual National event and included a trade fair with hundreds of displays as well as panel and plenary sessions on numerous subjects including volunteering, welfare, emergency management and equipment. The attendees came away with lots of information and were able to source some new equipment
Rope Rescue Systems Kalbarri hosted a Rope Rescue Systems training course over 4 days during September 14 to 17. Students from around the region and from the metro area learned how to set up systems used for vertical rescue. Local volunteers gave up their spare time to support the course and instructors and assistants. The course utilised Kalbarri SES HQ for theory lessons while practical sessions were held at Gregory Rock and Hawks Head.
Community Engagement:
On the evening of Friday September 21 SES volunteers launched their newly commissioned All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) with a presentation held at Gilgai Tavern. Much of the funding for the ATV and purchase of other rescue equipment including our rescue mule was raised from the weekly meat raffles held at Gilgai Tavern each Friday evening. This was a great opportunity to show people that the money that they donate through the raffles is going directly to support their community through the purchase of rescue equipment. Many thanks go to Gilgai Tavern for supporting the weekly meat raffles.
Fortnightly Training:
Kalbarri SES holds training at unit headquarters every 2nd Monday from 1845hrs to 2100hrs. The training is interactive with volunteers responding to various scenarios and developing and practising various responses. These sessions are also where we maintain our equipment to ensure that it is in operational condition when it is required.
Hon Colin de Grussa call for changes to DFES training and moved the following motion in Parliament.
HON COLIN de GRUSSA (Agricultural): Without notice: I move — That this house calls on the state government to immediately review emergency services training with a view to — (1) provide nationally accredited and recognised training to emergency service volunteers and recognising prior learning of volunteers; (2) ensure localised and regular delivery of this training to regional volunteers; and (3) ensure training packages are developed in consultation with each of the volunteer emergency service associations. This motion is reasonably self-explanatory. Obviously when we talk about emergency services, it is important that our services are adequately trained and that training is adequately available to people no matter where they are based or live, no matter what service they are in. From my perspective, I bring this motion to the house for consideration to reflect on some of the meetings I have had around the state with various emergency organisations and to look at some of the issues that they have raised with me about training, to try to see if we can find a way to improve things for them and to see what is happening in that space within government. Every year as we head into the bushfire, cyclone or storm season, we are constantly told, rightly, that we as a community need to be ready for those events. We need to prepare our homes, have our bushfire plans, to tie down trampolines when the big winds come and that sort of thing. I think that the community is well aware of what those needs are. In addition, our emergency services have to be adequately prepared—that is, in terms of equipment and people. Given that most of our emergency services are volunteers, it is important that we have enough volunteers in the services, and part of that is having adequate training. Adequate training not only ensures that those volunteers have the right skillset to do the job, but also is a good way to attract people in the first place to join volunteer organisations, which are desperately crying out for new volunteers.
Read the full speech. This is a large documents so the SESVA has highlighted the section which are of most interest to SES Volunteers.
Manage Our Volunteers, Assets and Training (MOVAT) is software developed and maintained by Stuart Romero (a current WA SES member). Starting at Belmont SES in 2009, continued development has seen MOVAT recently expand to be in use at thirteen State Emergency Service units and two Bush Fire Brigades. MOVAT is a centralised location of information to assist BGUs in reducing administration, simplifying reporting (NOAR, IRS, OEP) and improving transparency. Features include:
repository of member particulars;
capture of membership attendance through electronic sign in;
production of reports based on membership attendance, including NOAR (Non-Operational Activity Report), IRS reports (Incident Reporting System) and OEP requirements (Operational Efficiency Payments);
synchronisation of contacts to a Google account enabling mobile phone address books to be easily maintained;
tracking of PPE / PPC issued to members;
tracking of assets, including acquisition, inspection and disposal;
maintaining records of ongoing training;
import of eAcademy records for assistance in training needs analysis, simplified reporting and integration of the data;
tracking of ongoing tasks via an action board;
sharing files amongst users; and,
sending and receiving SMS;
MOVAT is inexpensive at $150 per calendar year and SMS are 10c each. Electronic sign in is via a touch screen laptop, tablet or similar device (at BGU expense). If you would like to know more, please contact Stuart by sending an email to stuart.romero@movat.com.au, visit www.movat.com.au and access a trial site, or join the Facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/MOVAT.
AFAC Conference 2018 Perth and AFAC18 saw a record number of delegates – 1,493; record number of exhibitors – 592 and 729 visitors to the exhibition. There were over 40 international exhibitors from 14 countries. We got a look into the future of emergency management at the trade exhibition with the world’s smallest fire tanker ‘Squirt’, firefighting robots and the latest virtual experience technology that showed you what our emergency services staff see every day in the cockpit of our Rescue Chopper. Astronaut Colonel Mike Mullane had strong lessons learned around normalizing risk that we can all take away. If you wish to see presentations of speakers you’ve missed, please visit the AFAC website - https://www.afacconference.com.au/. Presentations will be available for download sometime next week.
Conference Survey DFES would love to get some feedback about your experiences so we can continue making our events better every year. We will be sending you a short post-awards survey sometime next week, which will be managed by Metrix Consulting to ensure anonymity of delegates. By completing the survey you automatically enter the draw to win a $350 VISA voucher - Thankyou from DFES Conference Team
SES Awards 2018 An inspiring young SES volunteer who made history as the first woman to design and implement a new SES badge for Scouts has taken out the Youth Achievement Award. The 2018 SES award winners were announced at the inaugural Fire and Emergency Services Awards Ceremony held in Perth on Friday night. Volunteers from across the State were acknowledged for their work on the frontline during emergencies and maintaining the high level of training and capability of the SES. Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Darren Klemm AFSM presented the awards to the recipients and commended them on their dedication. “It has been a busy 12 months for our heroes in orange attending over 630 incidents and committing almost 22,000 hours to cyclones, land searches, rescues, fires and storm damage recovery,” Commissioner Klemm said. “SES volunteers are often first on scene during emergencies, and these awards are an important part of thanking individuals and units for their hard work and dedication to protecting the community. “All of our SES volunteers are highly respected and admired and I congratulate all of them for their services in keeping the people of WA safe.” Wanneroo Joondalup SES Training Manager Stephen Faulkner was awarded the Peter Keillor Award for his exceptional commitment to SES Cadets, encouraging the next generation of volunteers and ensuring they’re well prepared for any emergency. The Team Achievement Award was presented to volunteers from Bayswater, Swan, Kalamunda, Gosnells and Stirling who banded together to compete in the National Disaster Rescue Challenge which put their technical and team work skills to the test. The 2018 SES Award winners were presented across three categories: Peter Keillor Award Stephen Faulkner – Wanneroo Joondalup SES Since the inception of the Emergency Service Cadet Corp Unit in 1996, Steve has been the SES Liaison Officer. He has been involved in almost every camp and has used his skills, knowledge and access to equipment to further enhance the cadets’ experience and expand their skill set. In 2017 he became a fulltime cadet instructor taking on the role of the Chief Instructor, and is an outstanding representative for the SES cadet unit, and for the core values an instructor should possess. Team Achievement Award National Disaster Rescue Challenge 2017 – WA SES Team The SES Volunteers Association coordinated a team from Western Australia to participate in the SES National Disaster Rescue Challenge held in Hobart. The team was made up of 10 SES Volunteers from five Perth metropolitan SES units including Bayswater, Swan, Kalamunda, Gosnells and Stirling. The team was exposed to eight rescue scenarios which tested leadership, teamwork, tenacity and the core skills of SES first responders. Youth Achievement Award Sarah Hamilton – Belmont/Victoria Park SES Sarah is already a dedicated volunteer with both Hampton Park Scout Group (Scout Leader) and Belmont SES (Team Leader). Sarah's own initiative, motivated by her desire to encourage others to positively experience the two volunteer organisations she loves, led her to create an SES badge for Scouts. Sarah's coordination and engagement of stakeholders within Scouts WA, SES, DFES and SES Volunteers Association over two years, totalling hundreds of volunteer hours, were key to the development of this badge - this is a significant individual effort which was undertaken in addition to her current volunteer commitments and duties.
After a quiet July, August saw Kalbarri SES volunteers busy with operations, training and community events.
Operations attended in August 2018:
On Saturday August 5 a prospector was reported missing north east of Cue and a search was organised for Sunday August 6. The call was received by Kalbarri SES at 10.30 p.m on Saturday and at 7.00am on Sunday 4 volunteers an 2 vehicles set off for the 520km drive to Cue. Upon arriving at Cue, just after midday, we were informed that he had been located alive and well. After refuelling the vehicles and volunteers at Cue we turned around and drove back to Kalbarri arriving home after dark. A long and gruelling day for us but a good result for the missing prospector.
Training:
Kalbarri SES hosted a 4WD course over 3 days on August 11th to 13th. This involved a morning of theory at the Kalbarri SES Headquarters followed by two days and nights camping out on Murchison House Station. Students were exposed to driving in all off road conditions including rocks, water, sand and mud. They also learned how to recover vehicles from various situations. 8 students including 2 local volunteers successfully completed the course. 8 Kalbarri volunteers assisted with delivery of the course and logistics. Many thanks go to Callum from Murchison House Station for allowing the use of his facilities for the course.
On Sunday August 19 Kalbarri SES conducted rope training at the Coastal Cliffs. 8 volunteers set up rope systems and abseiled from Natural Bridge and Island Point lookouts and collected rubbish from the ledges below the lookouts. A large amount of stuff was retrieved and we brushed up on our rope skills at the same time.
On Monday August 27 we conducted night rope training at the Z Bend in Kalbarri National Park. 9 volunteers attended and practiced descending and ascending in low light conditions.
Community Engagement:
On Thursday August 9, Kalbarri SES volunteers along with local community members, emergency services personnel. Telstra representatives and others attended a dedication ceremony at the new Telstra Communications Tower in Kalbarri National Park. This tower was erected after our ex SES deputy manager Mac HOLT canvassed for improved communications in the national park to improve safety of visitors and improve emergency response to incidents. The site has now been officially named after Mac who attended the ceremony along with his family.
