Director's Dialogue September 2010

 All of our SAR units this last month or two have been extremely busy with callouts here in our county and other counties as well.  On behalf of the Department, Volunteer Forces and the SAR Council we would like to thank you for all of your time and dedication.

It has been amazing to see our units working together as one and how our members have handled the merging of unit personnel while in the field. It has been a positive experience for all members involved and once again reinforces the fact that it takes teamwork to have successful results on the missions that we are involved with.  Teamwork is what it is all about at all times!  Keep up the great work!

Following are a list of events that will be coming up during the months of September and October.  There are a number of training classes listed that you might want to attend and some events like the Sheriff’s Rodeo you may want to go to just to have some fun.   We hope that you can find the time in your busy schedules to participate.

HELITAC CLASS:  The SAR Council will be hosting this training at Aviation on September 11th.  As of right now there are 25 openings for members from our county who would like to attend.  The training starts at 10 a.m. and will conclude in the late afternoon.  To reserve a space please let me know ASAP at: dnicolet@sbsar.org
If you are interested in reserving a training class for your entire unit please call:
909-356-3800 to set a time and date.

SAR COUNCIL MEETING:  September 15th at Headquarters and it will start at 7 p.m.  We sincerely hope that you can attend this one!  This is going to be the Meeting of the Year!  Send your Unit Representative and make sure to remind all of our personnel that all SAR members are invited to attend.  There will be a number of announcements and discussions about various subjects in regards to policies and procedures.  We will also be honoring some of our SAR personnel for the work that they have done these last few months, let show them our support!  Bring a sharp pencil and a notebook as you are going to have a lot of information to take back to your units.

INVESTIGATIVE TRACKING CLASS:  Want to learn some excellent tracking skills? You don’t want to miss this class.  Daryl Heller and Jeff Joling will be conducting this training on September 15th and 16th.  To sign up call:  909-473-2695.

BSAR:  The first classes will be held on the weekend of September 18th and 19th with the following classes to be held on the weekends of October 2nd and 3rd and 16th and 17th. If you have any members who want to attend please contact Dan Whitten at Volunteer Forces ASAP.  dwhitten@sbsar.org or call: 909-387-0611.

SHERIFF’S RODEO: The SAR Council will have their SAR Booth there for the 4th straight year and Christine Stuehrmann is the chairperson.  She is looking for units who would like to set up displays and for members who could assist in manning the booth.  If you are interested please get a hold of Christine at cstuehrmann@sbsar.org Come on down for a time to PR the citizens of our county and then take some time to attend the rodeo.  

SAR CITY:  The Barstow Desert Rescue Squad will once again be hosting this event in Barstow on October 8th, 9th and 10th.  There will be an excellent line up of classes that are going to be offered and I have been told that there will be more SAR vendors than ever.  This is a weekend of great training with excellent instructors and the place to buy those SAR goodies that we all like.  For more information go to sarcityusa.org

The SAR Council and Volunteer Forces have been working on a number of items to improve our functions within the SAR community.  Some will directly affect our SAR units and some just will make life a lot easier for all parties concerned.  Here are a few things that are being worked on and/or are being considered.  There are even more than what is being mentioned here, but these are the most noteworthy at the time.

As of right now we are putting the final touches on a proposal that has been given to Volunteer Forces for the new County Incident Management Team (CIMT).  VF’s has given the Council their tentative approval with just a few items that we need to finalize.  The CIMT will be made up of qualified SAR personnel from around the county who when called upon can assist with ICS functions at our various callouts.  They will also be available to assist on mutual aid callouts if called upon also to help assist with ICS functions.  We are hoping that we can release the final information about this new resource at the SAR Council on the 15h.

BSAR Patches – We will be giving them out to the units at the SAR Council Meeting to give out to all of their graduates of BSAR.  These patches are done! We have them in our hot hands and will be getting them out to your units.  Each graduate will be receiving one free patch and there will be extras available for sale at $3.00 per patch.  Thanks to Dan Whitten for helping us get these finally.

The SAR Council, thanks to Lt Paterson of VF, has a trailer that has been donated to us to use for our PR Trailer.  It was donated, a little bigger than what we had in mind, but this one is going to work just great and the price was right!  The trailer now is being cleaned up so that we can start working on the outfitting of it.  We will keep you posted on its progress.

Wes Podboy is representing the SAR Council while working with the Department and Volunteer Forces for a new Automated Callout System device for our future callouts.  Wes is in the process of putting together, with Sgt. Joling and Lt. Paterson, a proposal to present to the Board of Chiefs.  If approved and the funds are available this device will be put into place in the next few months hopefully.  With this device notifications are going to be faster, more efficient and very user friendly.   We are hoping that this device can and will cure a number of issues that we have in this area.

The SAR Council's CV Memorial Committee would like to thank Sgt. Joling on his efforts for some new additions to the Memorial.  The wall has been painted a different color; the words Volunteer Memorial are going to be printed on the wall and two rolling CD pictures frames of our hero’s are going to be installed on the wall on each side of the memorial itself.  This will be completed in the very near future; the Department has granted funding and approval.

As mentioned before the SAR Council has found some funding for some purchases of new equipment for the units.  It is being considered that we purchase a number of ETRAC model H GPS’s for all of your SAR units.  This will give the units the option to either assign them out to members who do not have GPS’s or to have a cache of them that they can give out to members when they respond to a mission.  Also being considered are some high-gain antennas for our 155 radios and maybe some new 155’s.  This will be discussed at the next board meeting of the IESARC and a decision will be announced at the SAR Council Meeting.

As you can see there are a number of events coming up and a number of new programs being considered by VF and the SAR Council.  Most of what has been suggested has come from the various units and their members or committees that have been put together by the Council.  As I stated at the beginning of this Dialogue, teamwork achieves successful results………teamwork right now between the SAR Units, VF and the members of the Council have never been better!

I hope to see you at these various functions during the next two months; I will be at them all………….so until then…

Be Safe
Dave Nicolet, Director
Inland Empire Search and Rescue Council
dnicolet@sbsar.org
H:  760-363-7475
C:  760-831-5743