REDiSupport training

With no activations this year but a few Stanby’s I’ve spent the last two days doing even more training. Red Cross in NSW has raised all new super duper Personal Support teams with this time being able to respond at short notice and at an interstate level with activations lasting up to 2 weeks.

The role of the REDiSupport teams is to supplement the local Red Cross in the disaster affected areas especially where there is little presence, ie in rural areas. REDiSupport is active within some of the other states but still a relatively new concept.

The two days was spent revising Personal Support topics such as conducting outreach operations, inter-agency liaison, NRIS data entry, manning evacuation/relief and recovery centres, team leading, learning about boats, helicopters and other manner of transportation. We also went through the basics of map-based navigation, learning about true north, magnetic north and grid north… geez what a headache that it is to learn. We also had fun navigating using grid coordinates and latitudes and longitudes. We also learnt about portable radios and the proper procedures to use. It seems “10 4 rubber ducky” is not the right vernacular within the emergency services now…. bummer.

As this course is still quite basic we’ve planned for more advanced training, meetings and the ever-present BBQ’s.

All in all it was a great course as we learnt a lot about the more active roles we can undertake as volunteers in order to help the community.

 

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