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What sort of jobs can you assist with?
"It’s not only about going out in the middle of the night in the cold and rain with a chainsaw chopping down trees. There are also office based admin and operational tasks and other types of field work." Within our unit we have two major sections: Rescue -
"Rescue" is the term used to refer to volunteers who go out into the field and perform tasks assigned to them by the Operations Section. Members of our rescue team undergo training in a wide range of skills and tasks. Most of our requests for assitance within the Willoughby - Lane Cove area involve Chainsaw and Storm Damage skills.
Operations -
the Operations section has the important job of coordinating the deployment of rescue teams to where they are required. They must also organise any extra resources we may require.
The Operations team also provide situation reports to Regional Headquarters. Information arriving at local HQ from the public via telephone is processed by the operations team, then prioritised and queued before being tasked to rescue for action.
Operations staff are trained in the use of our computerised tasking system and also given guidelines to allow them to ask people relevant questions to get a good understanding of the caller's situation and needs. Operations staff also operate our radio equipment and co-ordianate shift changeovers when required.
What will the time commitment be? Our unit trains most Monday nights between 7:30pm and 9:30pm (excluding public holidays).
In addition, we also have a regular Saturday training session once per month. Saturday training usually runs for around 4 hours. There is no requirement to attend every training session, however the more sessions you attend the faster you should become qualified.
There are minimum standards to ensure that you build and maintain the professional competencies that are required of a SES team member.
The actual time spent ‘operational’ is controlled by you. As a volunteer, we understand that you have other work and family commitments. We work with you so that the impact to your personal life is kept to a minimum.
What Skills do you need?
Skills, whilst always helpful, are not a must, as you will be fully trained.
You won't necessarily have to climb on roofs and cut up trees.
SES needs a broad mix of people for lots of different jobs.
Age Limits
- All volunteers must be at least 16 years old.
- In order to be a volunteer member of a rescue team, you must be at least 18 years old. If you are under 18 you can still participate as a member of an operations team.
- There is no upper age limit.
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