The July meeting of ARES of Champaign County was held Wednesday, July
5, 2006 at the Fire Service Institute. Here are important notes
from that meeting and other news.
ATTENDING
N9XDC, KC9HND, N9DN, KC9HXY, KC9LMM, KC9IHX, KC9IKL, WB9HFK,
KB9KAI, KC9DSS, K9MLT, AB9FJ, W9DML, W9EML, W9ADS, KB9TIQ, N9XDH (17)
NEW WEB SITE
The new Champaign County ARES web site went live on July 10.
The redesigned and updated web site has information on Membership,
Activities, Training, Emcomm links, and much more information. In
addition, there is a "Member's Only" area which contains the membership
roster, net check-in list, scripts, and other CCARES documents. A login
and password is required to access this portion of the web site.
Please contact me or Debbie, N9DN, by telephone or at the next ARES
meeting to obtain a login and password. We will not send these
out via email nor give them out over the air, for security
reasons. Documents will be updated and posted to this portion of
the web site as needed.
I will also start posting the net control stations for the weekly nets on the Nets page of the web site.
FEMA TRAINING
The main topic for our July meeting was FEMA training that is
required by National Incident Management System Requirements. Under the
requirements of this program, even volunteers, are required to have some basic training for NIMS. The two courses required, as a minimum, for volunteers are FEMA IS-100: Introduction to the Incident Command System and FEMA IS-700: National Incident Management System (NIMS), An Introduction. Two additional courses strongly recommended at this time are FEMA IS-200: Basic Incident Command and FEMA IS-800: National Response Plan (NRP), An Introduction. These courses are available online at the FEMA Emergency Management Institute web site.. There is no charge to take the courses.
Under current regulations the first two courses must be completed by
September 30, 2006. If they are not completed, you will not be allowed
to work with Champaign County EMA as an ARES volunteer in an emergency
or disaster response. This may also extend to working with the Red
Cross in such disasters.
More information and links to the FEMA Emergency Management Institute can be found on the WA9RES web site.
When you complete any of the FEMA courses, you will need to send a copy
of your course completion certificate to me so your training file can
be updated and we have a record of your completion.
JULY NET CONTROL STATIONS
The weekly ARES net is held each Tuesday, 9:00 p.m., on the 444.100
repeater, CTSS 162.2. An updated net check-in list is now
available on the web site.
July 11 KC9DSS
July 18 KC9IKL
July 25 K9MLT
Aug 1 W9DML
NEXT MEETING
The next regular meeting will be on Wednesday, August 2, 7:00 p.m. at the Fire Service Institute.