Vehicle Safety Manual

With the imminent arrival of our new vehicle we have compiled a safety manual for our volunteers to ensure they are using the vehicle safely on the roads. We have uploaded this onto our training page

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Kind Regards


Paul Robertson


Senior Coordinator

Rest Centres Training Night

Our first training night back from the summer holidays was on rest centres presented by Sarah Kelly from Wiltshire Councils Emergency Planning team. Many thanks Sarah for coming along and explaining how they are activated and what functions they undertake.

Sarah has kindly issued her powerpoint slides to us which are up in our training notes section so please do take a look.

Many thanks to all who came along including our colleagues from Melksham Town Council and Melksham Without. You are always very welcome

Sarah briefing us on Rest Centres

 

 

Our vehicle is now at the coachbuilders so it will not be long now until we have a fully kitted up group.

 

 

Kind Regards

 

 

 

Paul Robertson

 

 

Senior CEV Coordinator

CEV Group Starter Pack

If having read through the pages here you've thought that your community could do with a CEV group then why not set one up. We have now produced a starter pack for other communities to learn from our experience and start your own scheme. There is nothing to stop you, whether you community is vulnerable to flooding, snow, power failure, or a range of different scenarios this pack is aimed to point you in the right direction. Whilst it is primarily written with communities in Wiltshire UK there is nothing stopping other communities in Britain or internationally from building on the work we have been doing in Bradford on Avon, and hopefully we in turn can learn lessons from you

With Climate change rapidly quickening the impact and prevalence of civil emergency events across the globe here is a chance for grass-root communities to pro-actively prepare themselves from the bottom up linking in with government agencies and the voluntary sector from the top down. Similar schemes are in operation in other countries from CERT schemes in the US to SES schemes in Australia. If you want to do more to help you community speak to your local community and help to build community resilience where you live

Starter Pack Link

Kind Regards

Paul Robertson

Senior CEV Co-ordinator

Getting Ready For Winter...

Our grant from SSEPD Resilience Fund has allowed us to purchase 3 push along gritters for gritting the steep footpaths we find round Bradford on Avon. Many thanks to SSEPD for this very useful kit. If you are a community resilience group based in the UK check to see if your regional power supplier runs a resilience grant scheme. You have a chance to purchase some real performance enhancing kit

2 of our three new gritters outside our storage container

We have also just taken delivery of 13 Lifejackets for use in our flood warden role. This is very important safety equipment for our volunteers ensuring they can undertake their role safely

A newly arrived Lifejacket with our gritters

Our team is now better prepared than it has been to face whatever challenges the UK weather might throw at us


Kind Regards




Paul Robertson

 

An Excellent Civil War Society Weekend...

What a great weekend in Bradford on Avon this past weekend with the 'invasion' of the English Civil War Society. Our volunteers were out with many other voluntary groups and colleagues from professional agencies to ensure everyone of the thousands of visitors had a safe and enjoyable time at the various events held across the town.


Our new vehicle was much in evidence during the weekend helping to move volunteers and materials around from site to site. A huge thank you to Great Wall Bath dealership for helping to organise the vehicle in time.


A big thank you to our volunteers for giving up their weekends to help. This would never have happened without you. Our advert for volunteers in the back of the programme has already elicited some response which is great!

 Early morning briefing (CEVs in orange)

Skirmish on the bridge (Helping to man the road closure)

Our truck carrying the PA for the event

 

Front row seats for the main battle

Thanks again to all those who made it possible

Kind Regards

Paul Robertson

Senior CEV Coordinator

Our Vehicle has arrived

The majority of our SSEPD resilience Fund money has been spent on the purchase of a 4x4 Great Wall Steed. It arrived by our container this morning and has already been pressed into service helping move cones and barriers around in preparation for the Civil War Re-enactment Event this weekend where we will be crowd marshalling.


Here are a few shots:

Won't be long until it is liveried up and ready for use. We are currently arranging a training programme for its safe use

Kind Regards

Paul Robertson

Senior CEV Coordinator

DEFRA Flood Water training session

A huge thank you to Dave Dunford from Serve On for putting us through our paces on our DEFRA flood water awareness training. It was great for both experienced volunteers to refresh their skills as well as giving new members a chance to pick up these valuable life saving skills.

We were also please to welcome The British Transport Police from Bath Spa who came to observe what we were about. A really good turn out of 13 volunteers tonight with plenty of members of the public stopping and observing us. Really helps to raise our profile in the community

Volunteers readying their throwlines

Being shown some of the hidden dangers on the river

 

 

Its a busy week for the volunteers with Crowd marshalling this weekend for the civil war society event and our 4x4 vehicle being delivered on Friday. Great times ahead!

 

 

Kind Regards

 

 

 

Paul Robertson