Wisconsin ARES/RACES

12TH Annual WI ARES/RACES Conference another Success!

The conference was once again held at the Hotel Mead in Wisconsin Rapids with a welcome by Bill Niemuth, President of WeComm, Ltd. Bill gave an update on WeComm’s accomplishments for the year 2010. A new repeater is in the works at Seeley.

Don Michalski, Wisconsin Section Manager, gave a brief report. Don also reported that Skip Sharpe is resigning as WI SEC effective the end of the year. We thank you Skip for your years of leadership. Don also mentioned that next year’s conference will be a one day free event and will be held at the Wisconsin Rapids library which is across the street from the Mead Hotel.

Skip, with Don's help, handed out several volunteer awards to deserving members. (Full details will be on the website and in the forthcoming WI ARES/RACES news.) Other award winners were: EC of the year, Larry Nolden, NZ9I—Waukesha County. Special Recognition went to Kathy Schramm, KB9UAZ, for her work in recruitment and the website design committee and to Wally Kruk, N9VAO, for his service as ARES/RACES HF net manager.

Guest speaker was Randi Milsap, who is General Counsel - Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs Office of the Adjutant General. Randi spoke on Volunteer liability and Chapter 323. It was a very interesting and well received presentation. Randi’s main message is “Do not show up to work any event for any served agency that you are called out for until you officially sign in at that agency’s incident command post or headquarters. If you do not sign in, you do not have a leg to stand on in the event you are injured during your participation” She could not emphasize this strongly enough. Her entire PowerPoint presentation is posted on the ARES web site.

Tyler Allison, President and CEO of AllisonHouse LLC, presented his thoughts on must have technologies for the well prepared weather spotter.  He is the primary developer and manager of “Spotter Network.”  His company is a provider of data aggregation and integration specializing in weather related data.   We thank Tyler, KI4BUM, of Wheaton, Illinois, for joining us Saturday afternoon at the conference.

There were a number of breakout sessions Saturday afternoon.  Here is a summary of who was leading these sessions and what was covered.   Tyler Allison continued his general session with a q&a open mike opportunity.  Don Michalski presented a session on Organizing Communication Support for Public Service Events.  Skip Sharpe lead a review of the 2010 SET and also a presentation on designing an Incident Action Plan.  Denny Rybicke presented NTS Messages in 30 Minutes or Less.  Joe Senulis presented  a session on the WEM Radio Station and covering how it is utilized.  Jim Darrow presented a session on Digital Tools – WinMor.  Kathy Schramm lead a group on promotion of ARES/RACES and the hobby.  Gary Sorensen lead a discussion on tools for administering membership and training records.

Saturday night, with participation from the Rapids police and emergency services along with the Wood County Sheriff’s department, an exercise involving a lost boy was conducted. You can read the story here.

Many thanks to Dave Levorson, N9KNY, NE DEC for organizing and running the exercise. Also thanks to the participating municipal agencies. This is how they understand what ARES/RACES can do. A special thanks to Bill Niemuth and WeComm, LTD for their support for the conference.

Sunday morning the group was kept guessing as to what calamity or coincidence would occur next as SEC Skip Sharpe took us through a tabletop exercise utilizing incident planning.  The comments heard later were very positive given this was a great way to review procedures for counties dealing with issues internally such as who would be available at what times.  From that point things expanded to the neighbors by calling for mutual aid and working through their DEC, another worthwhile review.  As things sounded more serious there was debate as to proper timing for assistance requests to be placed to the State EOC at WEM.   Given the session ran out of time we can only hope the Brewers did go on to win the World Series, that Internet and Skype are still available here, all radio systems are fully operational and Wisconsin ultimately survived. You say that doesn't make sense? You had to be there.

Hope to see you at the next conference, Saturday, October 22nd, 2011, at the Wisconsin Rapids Public Library!  It will be a one day event with no registration fee.

Story by Don Evenson, Newsletter Editor with contributions by Gary Sorenson, Richard Engel and Kathy Schramm.