[SaraHap] SARA Happenings October 2010

[Kester Whyte]

Hi All:

SARA Happenings is issued to foster communication within the Search and
Rescue community in Alberta. It is going to 226 e_mail addresses that are
listed as the primary contact of SAR Alberta member groups or which were
requested to be added to the mailing list.

Subscription and unsubscription information is at the end of the newsletter.


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STANDARDS COMMITTEE REPORT
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The Standards Committee has been hard at work. We have put the finishing
touch on 4 levels of man tracking. They are SARA Beginner Tracking,
Intermediate Tracker, SARA Tracker member and Tracker Team Leader Standard.
This goes well with our SARA Team member standard and the three vehicle
standards already completed, ATV, Snowmobile and Boat Operator standard. At
the moment we are working on a Dog Standard and finishing up Swift Water
Level 1 and 2 standard.

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RESCUE PHILOSOPHY
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Hardly any submissions this month – room for a change of pace –

I’m sure all of us in the rescue community watched the rescue of the Chilean
miners. Here is an extract from a commentary by Michael Vlahos, Professor of
Strategy at the United States Naval War College.

"Miners. Trapped. No way out. Miraculously rescued. Happy end. End of story.

Not so fast.

The resurrection of Chile’s lost miners is a testament to the power of
belonging and meaning in human life.

We live because eternal hope lives in our collective self. We draw meaning
from the river of humanity. Only in this way can we take comfort from the
desperate enterprise of life — because our life is eternally shared. Because
we belong to a river of life that must go on, our single summer night has
meaning. In the end it is all right — because we go on together.

We all have the same deep_wired drive to make our lives make sense joining
ourselves to the river of sacred identity.

My work focuses on how "civilization" — complex post_Neolithic groups of
societies — created a celebratory ritual we call war. In history war has
always served to create identity, to celebrate identity, and to help
identity migrate and transform. War is perhaps our most special human
vehicle for framing and reframing consciousness, and for helping
consciousness to change.

But thankfully war is not our only ritual of identity. Consider the Chilean
alternative in the same sacral Christian_national context.

Buried, the miners have come back to Chile — to the body of the nation —
from a Stygian sarcophagus. Moreover the lingering and overhanging evil that
may have placed them there — Latin America’s daunting legacy of racism and
iniquity and latifundial_corporate evil — was instantly expunged by a
Presidential commitment to Chile’s buried own. Ancient legacies can be cast
off. The nation can find celebration and renewal without war — and create
that sacred moment when the people are one and whole again."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-vlahos/chilean-transcendence_b_762475.html

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SARA HAPPENINGS SUBMISSIONS
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Our regular publication date for mailings of SARA Happenings is the middle
of each month. Please note that the deadline for material is the 14th of
each month.

Does your group have an event posting for the SARA Happenings mailing? If
so, please send information 1_1/2 months prior to the dates you wish
advertised. It will then give ample time for those reading it to respond.

Please send all material to the editor; Chris Hoare at choare at shaw.ca
<XS>PLEASE DO include contact information for members to gain further
information.

To subscribe or unsubscribe visit
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will need to click on "EMail My Password to Me". You can subscribe and
unsubscribe on the same page.


-- 
My fantasy "Rast" to be released by MuseItUp Publishing in March 2011.
"Arrival", "Deadly Enterprise",  "The Wildcat's Victory", and "The Wildcat's
Burden" are available here --
http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/eAuthor.php?Name=Christopher%20Hoare

See my website at http://www.freewebs.com/chriskander/ and blog
http://thewildcatsvictory.wordpress.com
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