We had a great turn out at the last SAR Council Meeting in January. We would like to thank you for taking the time to attend. With this turn out, it was a perfect time to present our SAR Council’s SAR Member and SAR Commander of the Year Awards for 2013. Paul Butler, our Member of the Year, was recognized for his outstanding contributions and dedication for 2013. He was the unit commander of San G SAR, a member of the ICS Team, who responded to numerous callouts and is an instructor at the BSAR Academy. Paul is also a reserve deputy with the department and has been a member of the department and SAR for over 35 years.
Our SAR Commander of the Year was none other than Larry Ford of the Colorado River Station; more commonly known as Needles SAR, for his efforts in 2013. He had 100 percent attendance to all of the department functions during the year, never missed a SAR Council Meeting or any other event put on or hosted by the Council and Volunteer Forces. He headed up numerous callouts in his area and was responsible for the upgrading of his unit’s equipment and completion of their command post. We would all like to thank these two individuals for their time and outstanding efforts. Thank you and congratulations Paul and Larry!
We had a very successful countywide search near Parker on February 8th. We had over 30 OHVSAR, 20 ground and 4 MSAR members attend. Along with 17 command post and command staff members, it was a total effort by our county to find our subject. One of our mounted unit teams from Apple Valley Posse was able to locate our subject shortly after the teams were deployed. All members were gathered for a large evidence gird search after the find and according to all it went very smoothly and successfully. Nice job everyone and thanks to all who took the time to attend.
BMC FIELD TRAINING: Unfortunately, due to the lack of snow fall in our surrounding mountains, this training has been postponed to next year. We would like to thank all of the instructors and members who attended the classroom portion of this training and for your understanding of this untimely delay.
SHERIFF’S 10K TRAIL RUN: Once again, for the 3rd year in a row, we are going to need the assistance of our SAR members to help with this event. We will need ground personnel, OHV and ICS command post members to help us out. Please contact Mike Ward or myself if you can attend. The run is scheduled for March 16th and once again will help the SAR Council to raise funds to purchase items for our SAR units. The CP will be at EVAC at Glen Helen and we will need you to sign in by 6 a.m. All of us sure hope that you can help us out with this fun run.
SAR COUNCIL MEETING: The next meeting of the SAR Council will be held on Wednesday, March 19th. The meeting will be held upstairs at headquarters and will be called to order at 7 p.m. We hope that we have the same attendance that we had at the January meeting and are looking forward to seeing you there.
HELITAC TRAININGS: The SAR Council will once again be hosting 2 Helitac Trainings this year on April 5th and October 4th. This is not for unit trainings, however, if you wish to do that, please make arrangements through Aviation. We only host this event for those members who have been unable to attend their unit trainings for one reason or the other. The class is for 25 members and it is on a first come, first serve basis. Please contact me if you wish to attend or John Woods at Volunteer Forces.
TRBC TRAINING: The dates are set for April 4,5, 6 and April 25, 26, 27. See the flyer on the SBSAR homepage for more details. If you wish to attend, please contact Dep. John Woods. Please remember that you must be PVS certified to attend this training.
BSAR: The first BSAR academy of the year will be on May 3 and 4, May 16 and 17 and May 31 – June 1. In order for members to attend they must have their orders and be sworn in. Please reserve their spots by getting in touch with Stella at Volunteer Forces, 909-387-0611. Remember, all students must spend the night on all three Saturday nights. Friday nights will be available for those who would like to come up early. NOTE: There will be a CPR class that will be held on Friday May 15, in the evening. for those who need to be certified. More information on this will follow. Remember you can also come up and be recertified in the BSAR Skills if you have not done so with your unit. The days that will be available at BSAR will be released shortly.
VOLUNTEER FORCES PAPERWORK: Volunteer Forces asked us to remind you that your new by-law updates are due and that all paperwork for your MSAR Evaluators are due as well. Please forward what you have to John Woods at jwoods@sbcsd.org ASAP. Thank you.
MSAR COUNTYWIDE TRAINING: Hap Hatch has announced that the training will be held on June 14th at the Heart Bar Training Facility. Stay tuned for more information.
As you can see, this years events and trainings are already beginning to take shape. Once again, it looks like a very good and productive year so that we can continue to be at our very best. With the outstanding assistance, funding and support from the Department and Volunteer Forces, how can we not be the very best at what we do? They have given us every opportunity to be! To show our appreciation it’s up to us, the SAR volunteers, to be at our very best. It’s up to us to train, certify and to participate in our assigned missions when called upon in a dedicated and professional manner. It is up to us, to be part of this ONE TEAM! Remember we volunteer our time…… so that……………OTHERS MAY LIVE!