Yolo County ARES Meeting Minutes

Yolo ARES Meeting Minutes for 3/20/2012

EC Greg (KG6SJT)
AEC LaVonne (K6LAV)
AEC Ken (K6WLS)
AEC Gary (WA6TQJ)
Bill (K6BIL)
Bryce (K7DWO)
Todd (KE6GCV)
Rob (N6KIX)
Rick (N6KLB)
Will Chin (guest)
Bill Martin (guest)

Presentation
Bill Martin, Emergency Services Manager for the Yolo County Office of Emergency Services (EOC) attended. His presentation included information about the status of the ham shack at the EOC. He noted that he has been a longtime advocate for ham radio in Yolo County. Discussed ways in which we can integrate Yolo ARES with the EOC. The challenges in engaging more with Yolo ARES were discussed and included: 1) the “quiet” nature of disaster needs in Yolo County (last full activation was the Jan 2008 wind storms) and 2) there are quite a few volunteer agencies in Yolo County, so decisions need to be made as to whom to pull from in emergency/disaster situations. Ham services and volunteer communications people are needed at EOC. It would be good to have an EOC-based “team” similar to a CERT team. Consensus was there needs to be increased collaboration between ARES and EOC, including training, drills, etc., to keep the volunteers engaged and informed. It is important for EOC to find out the capabilities and capacity of Yolo ARES members.
1)  How does Yolo ARES want to be involved with EOC
2)  Availability of ARES volunteers
3)  Update the MOU between EOC and Yolo ARES
4)  Yolo ARES volunteers need to sign up as Disaster Services Workers (to be covered under Workers Comp) in the event of an emergency/disaster event.

Treasurer Report will be deferred to the next meeting as Treasurer Bill (K6KN) is vacationing. Members who still owe dues can pay next month.

Net Control / Message Sign Ups
EC Greg (KG6SGT) requested that members sign up to do the Net Control and Message. Greg will send out the dates for which volunteers are needed for the nets in April.

Cache Creek Horse Ride – May 12
Volunteer hams are needed for the May 12 Cache Creek Horse Ride. The ride is from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. For this event, hams will require 2 meter mobile units. The Walker Ridge (Williams) repeater will be utilized. Contact EC Greg if you are able to volunteer for this event.

Background and Red Cross Live Scan
Will Chin, Emergency Services Coordinator for Yolo County Red Cross reported that he is still working on finding out the status of Yolo ARES members in the Red Cross database (training, background checks, DSHR). Yolo ARES members who are interested in the Red Cross background checks can go through the Red Cross website. The Red Cross pays the $3.50 fee.

Ken, K6WLS, show the lightening arrestor that he purchased for installation at the Davis Police Department.

Greg, KG6SJT, handed out a modified version of the ICS-213 for that we use that now includes a place for the incident name that is now on FEMA ICS-213 forms.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:45 p.m.

Yolo County ARES