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<P><B><FONT face=Arial>Hi All:</B> </P>
<P>SARA Happenings is issued to foster communication within the Search and
Rescue community in Alberta. It is going to 328 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.</P>
<P>Subscription and unsubscription information is at the end of the newsletter.
</P>
<P>
<HR>
</P><B>
<P>SEASON’S GREETINGS</P></B>
<P>Keep warm and stay out of the ditch.</P>
<P>
<HR>
</P><B>
<P>2009 PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE</B> </P>
<P>April 24 to 26 </P>
<P>Hosted by Parkland SAR </P>
<P>see </FONT><A href="http://www.parklandsar.org/"><U><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT
face="Times New Roman">www.parklandsar.org</FONT></U></FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial> or </FONT><A href="http://www.saralberta.org/"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT
face="Times New Roman">www.saralberta.org</FONT></U></FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>
for info - register at </FONT><A href="http://www.ticketweb.ca/"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT
face="Times New Roman">www.ticketweb.ca</FONT></U></FONT></A><FONT face=Arial>
</P>
<P>
<HR>
</P><B>
<P>EMERGENCY CONTACTS</P></B>
<P>So your team is on a search and you've found out that your subject is<BR>from
the far end of the province. You'd like to ask the SAR team<BR>there to spend
some time with the family and help develop a subject<BR>profile for you. Or your
search is becoming really big, and you want<BR>to ask for help from teams you
don't work with so often. How are you<BR>going to get a hold of other
teams?<BR><BR>Do you know that you can have a list that tells you how to get a
hold<BR>of every SAR group in the province? Download it from<BR><BR></FONT><A
href="http://www.saralberta.org/emergency/index.html"><U><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff>http://www.saralberta.org/emergency/index.html</U></FONT></FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial><BR><BR>Why not put a copy with your team's resource list or give
copies to<BR>your search managers?<BR><BR>Subscribe to the notification list and
you'll be told every time<BR>the list is updated.<BR><BR></FONT><A
href="http://castrov.dyndns.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sara-contactannounce"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT
face="Times New Roman">http://castrov.dyndns.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sara-contactannounce</FONT></U></FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial><BR>If you have any questions or see any corrections,
contact<BR>Brett Wuth <</FONT><A href="mailto:wuth@acm.org"><U><FONT
color=#0000ff><FONT
face="Times New Roman">wuth@acm.org</FONT></U></FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial>>.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Arial>
<HR>
</P><B>
<P>FROM THE PRESIDENT’S VISIT</P></B>
<P>New Zealand groups looking for Canadian Sister teams</P></FONT><FONT
face=Arial>
<P>In October I was invited to attend and speak at New Zealand's national search
and rescue conference in Palmerston, North. The conference, held November 21-23,
had a theme on partnerships and how organizations and government agencies work
together. Two other international speakers were also invited, Mike Rose with the
Devon Police, in England, and Sigurdur Olafur Sigurdsson – Siggi for short- from
ICE-SAR the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue. Mike Rose’s
presentation focused on the policing partnerships being developed in his area
and also around the issues of using search and rescue for evidence searches.
Siggi discussed the history of Icelandic SAR – as a point of interest there are
just over 350,000 people in Iceland and over 18,000 search and rescue
volunteers. Both provided some great ideas that I think would be of value to
teams in Alberta and I will be writing about them in the future.</P></FONT><FONT
face=Arial>
<P>New Zealand search and rescue has a great deal in common with SAR in Alberta.
Though only a third of the size of Alberta they have about the same population
base – however they have more teams than us – with over 70. The teams are very
grass roots orientated and have a lot of autonomy, like here some work very well
with their local police – others have a different relationship. Most groups
started out as "tramping" clubs and evolved into SAR groups. Like us they have
issues with training and standards as at this point there is no national
standard for search and rescue in New Zealand. Like Alberta they have gone
around and around on this issue but seem to be making some headway now with some
new initiative by Land SAR and the government.</P></FONT><FONT face=Arial>
<P>On a national scale New Zealand has created a National Search and Rescue
Secretariat model on Canada’s NSS and they also have a national volunteer
organization – Land SAR- which represents the volunteers at a national level.
There are a few key differences – there is only one police force in New Zealand
but it is structured similar to the RCMP with regions set out that SAR teams
belong to. Another difference is that Land SAR has hired staff and I was told at
the conference that funding is about to be increased to help with both training
and administrative issues. </P></FONT><FONT face=Arial>
<P>SARINZ, a not-for-profit training organization is another difference. They do
the majority of training for search and rescue in the country at the moment and
have been instrumental in developing material and courses in search and rescue.
One of the key people with SARINZ is Ross Gordon who used to have a private
company teaching SAR. He did his training with the folks from Washington State,
the same people who are responsible for the training that originally came to
Alberta – thus there are some major similarities in the way we do things.
</P></FONT><FONT face=Arial>
<P>After the conference I had the opportunity to travel around the South Island
of New Zealand meeting with different SAR teams. I was able to gather some great
information that, again, I will be sharing as I think there are some really
simple and very useful things teams here can learn. While talking to the teams,
some suggested that they would like to hook up with a team in Canada to have as
a sister team, I told them I thought that would be a great idea and would pass
that on. So if you have a team that might be interested in sharing information
and becoming a sister team with a team in New Zealand please let me know. There
are only a few teams in this at the moment in New Zealand, but it was a rather
informal request – so other teams may be interested as well. The New Zealand
teams believe they can learn a lot from teams here – and I was told repeatedly
that Canada is seen as one of the leaders in the world in search and rescue.
Though we don’t always value it, other countries see our ability to work in
partnerships and to bring various organizations together as one of our greatest
strengths. I was honored to speak on behalf of the volunteers in Alberta because
I know, having traveled across Canada and to numerous other countries that we
have some of the best SAR teams in the world right here. And despite all our
issues when the call comes – we do work well together.</P></FONT><FONT
face=Arial>
<P>I will be writing more in the next few days to update you on SAR Alberta’s
activities – there have been some good things happening and some issues we need
to deal with – but overall things are moving forward and I am looking forward to
a productive new year.</P></FONT><FONT face=Arial>
<P>I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and may your New Year be a happy and
prosperous one.</P></FONT><FONT face=Arial>
<P>Sincerely,</P>
<P>Monica</FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman"> </FONT><A
href="mailto:mavada@cruzinternet.com"><U><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT
face="Times New Roman">mavada@cruzinternet.com</FONT></U></FONT></A><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></P><FONT face=Arial>
<P><B><FONT face="Times New Roman">
<HR>
</FONT></P>
<P>SARA HAPPENINGS SUBMISSIONS </P></B>
<P>Our regular publication date for mailings of SARA Happenings is the middle of
each month. Please note that the deadline for material is the 14<SUP>th</SUP> of
each month. </P>
<P align=center></P>
<P align=center>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. </P>
<P align=center></P>
<P align=center>Please send all material to the editor; Chris Hoare at </FONT><A
href=""><U><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff>choare@shaw.ca</U></FONT></FONT></A><FONT face=Arial> PLEASE DO
include contact information for members to gain further information.</P>
<P align=center></P>
<P align=center> </P>
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