skills&training

Water bombers at the Cherry Gardens Airstrip

So where are you?
The Cherry Gardens CFS is one of the oldest in South Australia. We celebrated our 75th Anniversary in 2009.
That’s pretty amazing really. We still have people, who are members of our Brigade, who have been with the Brigade for more than half of that time. Sure, they may not be operationally active, but they are still part of the Brigade and this community.
As it is now there are over 300+ households in the district, a significant number more than when I first joined back in 1980.
I did a quick tally earlier in the week, to count up exactly how many operationally active members we have in the Brigade and it made for some interesting analysis. Let me spell it out; we have 29 listed members; 6 are Air Support, 1 is a Deputy Group Officer, which = 7.
That equals 22 active fire-fighting members, 9 of whom are from outside of Cherry Gardens, which means that we have 13 local members, of which 3 may be in the district during the day in the working week. Yes, that’s right just 3. OK, we’re coming in to the holiday period, which increases the likelihood of more people being around during the work week, but that’s not a certainty.
It really concerns me, for a whole range of reasons, that there isn’t a lot of interest from local people to come along to their own Cherry Gardens CFS and considering lending a hand.
I don’t know why we don’t have more locals and I’m concerned that the Brigade will fade away and be lost from the community. That would be a sad and tragic loss for a Brigade that has a long, proud and honourable history, full of great deeds, innovation and humour and is respected in and across the broader CFS.
Do you know that we have 7 female members? Do you know that we have members who are in the final year of their High School education, members who are tradespeople, accountants, nurses, trainers, cleaners, administrative staff, retirees, part-time employees & full-time employees. Just regular people, who want to be involved. Regular people who are parents, partners, uncles and aunts and family members just like you.
The current situation is that we are having real trouble getting daytime crew and the consequence is that another CFS Brigade has to respond in our place. Oh well, someone else picks up the slack, right? No, it means that another 10-12 minutes goes by before another Brigade even gets to roll a wheel and now they have to come from further away because they’re not local. It could be that you need them, or your neighbour. An extra 15-20 minutes waiting for the CFS to turn up can make a situation go from bad to truly awful.
Maybe you don’t know what it is we do? Or think you can’t join in? Maybe you’re ideas of the CFS isn’t matched by the reality of who we are? Perhaps you think the CFS isn’t interested in having you as a member, or that the CFS hasn’t got a role that you could perform?
One thing I do know is I need to hear from you all, as to why you haven’t considered being involved in the CFS and what we may be able to do to make it possible for more locals like you to be involved. Please take a moment to contact me. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Or to borrow a phrase from a recent, but somewhat controversial Tourism Australia advert, ‘So where the bloody hell are you?’