Training Coordinator
Jim Yoder, W8ERW
ARES was active last evening when severe weather moved through the Ohio Section. Shelby
in Richland County was hit rather hard with a possible tornado and destructive winds. This
is what we prepare for and hope we don’t get to see.
Seneca County ARES was activated and placed in an active standby status for possible
support to our friends in Richland County. We have been fortunate not to have had many
ARES activations in recent past. However, training and a readiness posture are necessary,
and our focus should be on being prepared for those events that place us in a position to
serve.
Our training numbers have been steadily increasing with many of our members taking
advantage of the higherlevel FEMA courses and locally offered opportunities to acquire
additional skills. There are currently 1,027 active ARES members in the training database,
804 at level 2 and 154 at level 3. Overall 580 of you who have submitted training credentials
have also registered with ARES Connect. A total of 8,154 certificates have been recorded in
the database.
As I look over these numbers and the individual registrations on ARES Connect, the overall
statistics are similar. However, many who have submitted training documents have not
registered on ARES Connect and many of those who have registered have not submitted
training documents. The disparity is rather large and our goal moving forward should be to
close this gap in both directions. I encourage everyone who has not done so to get
registered on ARES Connect and where appropriate, report your hours for those activities in
which you participate. I also suspect there are many who have not submitted training
documents who have taken the 4 FEMA NIMS courses as well as many others that are
appropriate for ARES activity.
I certainly understand that not everyone is comfortable with all the computerization that we
now live with every day. The benefits of a simpler life without all this electronic genius often
sound attractive. One way we might increase participation is to schedule training sessions
and facilitate an easy means to get more members NIMS trained and registered both with
ARES Connect and submitted to the training database. I challenge all of our EC’s to explore
with your groups any possible means to increase our use of ARES Connect and to assist
those who desire NIMS training.
Are you counting your time spent on NIMS and additional training and reporting it to ARES
Connect? I’d like to hear your thoughts on this, and I am working on a method to report at
the Section level, all the time on a monthly basis as I see documents submitted to the
training database. I would anticipate an average time of perhaps two hours per certificate
submitted and reported based on the certificate date. Certificates for Aux Comm and others
would require substantial more time. Let’s hear your thoughts and ideas on how we can
insure this time is captured and reported.
ARES Connect registrations are compared to the training database to verify reporting of
NIMS training. When you register on ARES Connect and indicate you have taken NIMS
courses, please make sure that you have also submitted those documents for inclusion in
the training database. It is also important to indicate correctly your county of residence on
ARES Connect. Training documents are stored under your Residence County. You may
associate with other than Residence County which is fine and often does occur. Let’s not
confuse the two. Please do let us know as you submit training documents, both your
Residence and Serving County. This will insure that we can quickly find your data when we
need to respond to an emergency or disaster situation. I often receive training documents
with a name only, no Call, No County information and no means to contact you. Folks be
proud of that Call, you worked hard to earn it and please when you submit documents,
identify yourself with your Call. Without this, I’m guessing at who you are and where you
belong. All of this information is necessary to efficiently and quickly identify you when
necessary to support and document you to our served agencies.
Thanks to each of you who through your dedicated effort are supporting ARES and our Ohio
Section being the very best. Please do not hesitate to contact me or any of our Ohio Section
Leadership if you have questions or concerns. We are all here to assist you and make our
hobby both enjoyable and productive for you.
Thank you for your support,