Wellington VHF Group, Inc: Online.

Over 30 members of Wellington Amateur Radio Club, Titahi Bay Amateur Radio Club, and the Wellington VHF Group attended a special joint meeting on the topic of radio Amateurs’ involvement with Emergency Management Services for the corridor of Wellington, Tawa, Porirua, Titahi Bay, through to Pukerua Bay.

This meeting followed previous briefings to the VHF Group by firstly Mike Mendonca, Director of City Operations, Wellington City Council, then Trevor Farmer, Manager of Porirua Emergency Management Office, Porirua City Council.

Presentations were again made to this current meeting by Fred MeCoy, Emergency Preparedness Manager, Wellington City, and Trevor Farmer, Manager Emergency Management Office, Porirua City.

Amateurs were recognised as a specialist group who were motivated, interested and have specialist skills. The emergency management people were keen to make the most of what Amateurs were able to offer.

In the spirit of co-operation, a wide range of views and issues were discussed, and a way forward to meet the needs of both groups was developed. The main points are as follows.

Certification Amateurs who volunteer would still be required to be certified, involving a Police check. Fred and Trevor outlined the importance of certification to establish a level of trust which would enable Amateurs to work at Civil Defence Centres and also comply with OSH etc at sites such as Schools.

Training Fred and Trevor agreed to look at modifying the volunteers training to be more appropriate to the existing knowledge and skills already held by Amateurs. The content of this modified training course would still include standardised topics and include assessment to NZQA unit standards for those topics. So, the standards would not be relaxed, just the content of the course would be varied.

(It was suggested that success at this level of training would be a useful stepping-stone to the higher requirements of AREC for SAR work).

Organisation Fred and Trevor were both keen to have a single-point-of-contact, rather than attempt to interact with and manage many radio groups. It was agreed that AREC would provide the necessary channel for this to happen. Initially this would be led by VHF Group AREC people, coordinating the three branches. John Andrews ZL2HD accepted the challenge to lead in this.

On-going participation and practical training exercises The emergency management people would like Amateur volunteers to commit to at least two years service after training, as is required for other volunteers. The commitment is not onerous, requiring participation in four exercises per year. Amateurs were welcome to suggest scenarios for these exercises.

As a result of this meeting, and the on-going work that was agreed, there is clearly the will for Wellington and Porirua Emergency Management offices to work together with Amateurs from the three branches to establish the way for Amateurs to make a valuable contribution to this area of public service.

It was most poignant to write this report just hours after the Canterbury earthquake.

Dick Greenbank ZL2TGQ
President, Wellington VHF Group