Good morning, here is the News:
November Hours Due—If you took the Refresher or the
communications CE, or anything else that would qualify for Continuing Education
or volunteer hours, you need to tell me about it. Please have your hours
in before this Friday 5:00pm. You can reply to this email as many do, but
I REALLY appreciate a separate email with subject "Volunteer Hours for
November" makes it stand out a bit more in my mail queue.
New DSW applications—Those of you who are qualifying
for your first DSW card this month (two team meetings, two CE's) can turn those
hours in to me this week also. Again, a separate email with subject
"DSW Qualifying Activities" is very much appreciated.
Continuing Education, Collapse Survival Awareness—Still
open, but registration closes this Thursday. Class is this
Saturday 9:00am—Noon down at NTC. This is a new and unique CE for
us. As CERT volunteers we should NEVER be anywhere near a building
collapse, but we need to plan for and prepare for the unexpected. Bottom
line, this stuff could save your life. If you know you can't crawl for
any distance, this probably isn't your CE, but if you just don't think that you
will function well in this situation, you might want to take this thing and
find out. There will be tight spaces and time spent blindfolded, but
nothing that is unsafe of course. You can get knee pads at Home Depot,
Harbor Freight and very often Big Lots, and that might be a really good idea, I
don't know, remember this is new for me too.
Continuing Education, Hose Loading—Also still open,
but registration for this also closes this Thursday. This one is this
next Sunday 9:00am—2:00pm at NTC. If you didn't take this over the
Summer you have another chance. Hose loading is a real skill. This
is easily one of the most interesting CE's I've taken here at CERT. There
is some physical exertion involved, but the whole point is that techniques have
been developed to keep it manageable and safe. You'll be working with the
SDF&R training engines and real hose, this is the real deal. I just
don't think it is possible to have too many of us trained to do this.
Next Fall if we have a bad wildfire situation, our capability could be vital.
Go here to sign up for either or both of these. heck,
you could shoot down a year's Continuing Education requirement in one memorable
weekend:
December Team Meeting— Our next meeting is on Monday,
10 December, 6:00pm—7:00pm. We will meet in the Mira Mesa Senior Center,
8640 Mira Mesa Blvd. That's between New Salem/Reagan Rd and Camino
Ruiz. The Senior Center is on the North Side of Mira Mesa Blvd., so you
must be going Westbound to get into the place. Enter the first of two
driveways, it is one way going in the first drive and one way coming out the
second. If you miss it, you should to go up Camino Ruiz, turn right on
New Salem and make another pass. DO NOT park at the IHOP, your car will
not be there when you return.
This meeting will be mainly an orientation for new members,
so I especially hope our new people can make it. We will go over what you
need to do to qualify for DSW, and some good strategies for doing that.
We'll also cover basic PPE and other gear, you don't need to spend a fortune to
be effective. You Veterans please bring Go-bags if you want to share
them, and any tips for getting hard to get gear like first aid supplies, gloves
that fit and such.
Occasional Rant—As this year draws to a close, I want
to thank you all for your commitment to CERT. Many of you are going well
beyond the minimum requirements, because being ready is what's important.
There is always a solid contingent of Mira Mesa people at every CERT activity,
which says a lot about us. I am very proud of this team. Thank you.
All for this week. Questions, comments, you know how
to find me.
-Steve
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