Flood Water Awareness Training - Part 2

Despite the gloom and rain an excellent practical training evening was had at Barton Farm Country Park last night. Serve On were on hand again to provide expert advice on land based rescue techniques. Well done to Barney for volunteering to get wet for the cause and apologies to those who had volunteered for a soaking but we couldn't fit in. Time and daylight were against us!

(Serve On Instructors demonstrating wading techniques - Barton Farm)

Whilst we won't be entering the water it was good to see how the professionals do it and the sort of kit required.

Our main rescue equipment will be the throw line - a very useful bit of kit - and all the volunteers had ample opportunity to get to grips with it, firstly on grass and then throwing to one of our instructors in the water and guiding him into the bank.

(Our victim is spotted in the water - image Sarah Kelly WC)

(A line is thrown to him and he is pulled to a part of the bank suitable for safe extraction - image Sarah Kelly WC)

(Our victim is rescued and walks off to get wet again! - image Sarah Kelly WC)

(Dave Dunford from Serve On tells us what we have done right or wrong! - image Sarah Kelly WC)

A big thank you to Dave Dunford and the guys from Serve On who did such a great job of guiding us through the various techniques. It was also nice to welcome Sarah and Ben from Wiltshire Councils Emergency Planning Team (Thank you for the images) who came to observe but soon got stuck in with the rest of us! We'll get you in the water next year!

 

(Our Volunteers observe proceedings from a safe distance.)

Thank you to Wiltshire Countryside Ranger Service for letting us use Barton Farm and to Barney for the chocolates to keep us going!

See you next month for Events and our First Aid training day!

Kind Regards



Paul Robertson


CEV Senior Coordinator

Nursing Home Emergency Planning

We have a number of nursing homes in Bradford on Avon which can be highly susceptible to power outages due to the need for heat and specialist equipment. I came across this rather informative US video on YouTube which might be useful for managers and senior staff to watch. If you haven't got your emergency planning sorted out yet this may give some useful pointers:

Kind Regards



Paul Robertson

13th May Training Night Cancelled

Please note that our next training night on the 13th May has been cancelled. Unfortunately Serve On have a late commitment elsewhere.

We are now meeting on Thursday 14th May instead. Muster point is the Tithe Barn side of the pack horse bridge.

Apologies for the short notice, and many thanks for you flexibility with this

Kind Regards



Paul Robertson

Senior Volunteer Coordinator

Flood Water Awareness Training - Part 1

An interesting and thought provoking training session from 'ServeOn' last night for the first of our two part Flood Water Awareness Training. The potential moral dilemmas of whether to act or not to particular potentially life threatening situations was discussed, along with a lot of very interesting information of what to be aware of around flood water. Many thanks to Dave Dunford of Serve On for his presentation.  Next months session will be a practical session down by the river (Not a Powerpoint presentation in sight next time!) - Look forward to seeing you there!



Kind Regards



Paul Robertson

See our new introductory video on the 'Becoming a volunteer' page!

The Concrete is down!

The concrete for the container is now down. Just need to order the container now!

Kind Regards



Paul Robertson

Container Groundworks Started

Good news! - Groundworks has now commenced to put the base in for our storage container. The Wiltshire Fire Authorities contractor has removed the old timber police shed and prepared the ground to extend the shed base. Not long now before we will need to order the container, and then we will have somewhere for equipment!

Good to see progress on the ground at last

 

Kind Regards

 

 

Paul Robertson

 

Senior Coordinator