Emergency Services crews brave cold to feed NavShield competitors
BY LAUREN MARTIN
Have you ever cooked breakfast for 450 people? That’s a lot of eggs! Salvation Army Emergency Services (SAES) Response personnel and volunteers do it all the time. You could say they ‘eat that stuff up for breakfast!’.
But a recent SAES call-out in NSW was a bit more demanding than usual. For most of the past 12 years, the SAES has been on hand to support NavShield, an inter-agency emergency services navigation competition. This year, it was held at Barrington Tops in the Hunter region. And it was cold!
“For this activation, our personnel and volunteers need to camp onsite because it is so remote,” said Norm Archer, NSW/ACT State Coordinator. “We took in 1400 eggs, 150 kilograms of fresh meat and we were serving breakfast at 6am in zero temperatures to 450 competitors in a 90-minute window of time. That’s serving about three people a minute!”
And that breakfast would have been important to competitors, who test their bush and compass navigation abilities through 100 square kilometres of wilderness terrain.
According to Norm, the event is important in the SAES calendar because it’s not an emergency. Therefore, it gives emergency services personnel and volunteers a chance to support and chat with emergency services personnel and volunteers outside of a critical incident.
“We are considered now, having been there year after year, part of the NavShield set-up team. There’s a strong camaraderie,” said Norm. “Due to having developed relationships over that many years, we are now starting to develop faith pathways when the opportunity arises.
“We fed hundreds of competitors and members of the organising crew, and many of them made the trip back to the feeding site to say thanks for the meals. And a heap of people pulled up in their cars to say thanks as they were leaving.”
SAES volunteering opportunities
Are you looking for a volunteering opportunity that gives you experience in emergency services and disaster recovery?
The Salvation Army Strategic Emergency and Disaster Management (SEDM) team is looking for volunteers to join our Salvation Army Emergency Services (SAES) teams or disaster recovery teams, as we prepare for ‘disaster season’.
“We can’t predict when the next disaster will be, but we do know that we could not respond to disasters and emergencies 365 days a year without our valuable and dedicated volunteers,” said Norm Archer, NSW/ACT State Coordinator.
“We are asking personnel to sign up to join the pool of volunteers. SEDM will contact you when volunteers are needed, and you have the flexibility to take on emergency events that suit your availabilities.”
Employees can access five paid days of leave to support a Salvation Army program.
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