For many months Cannock rotary club members as part of D1210 resilience team have attended meetings and training with the civil contingency unit (CCU) Staffordshire as part of a group named SVEN. Staffordshire Voluntary Emergency Network. The aim of SVEN is to form a team of volunteers from a host of organisations who can respond to emergencies and or critical incidents.
The group exists to coordinate the collective activities of voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations and Staffordshire Resilience Forum (SRF) partners with the aim of maintaining and developing engagement, capacity and capability in order to support emergency preparedness, response and recovery to disruptive events
Over the many months we have worked on formulating a framework and terms of reference to work within under the guideline as laid down by Government
We are now there and Rotary are ready to jump into action where needed
We are not a Blue Light organisation so we cannot tackle fires, floods or attend major accidents but we have expert knowledge and manpower to assist in many ancillary areas.
We cover a vast area of Staffordshire with clubs located at many strategic points. Near motorways, flood areas, countryside locations and we have numbers to call upon in an emergency
We may be asked to man emergency rest centres, offer food to those at rest centres, knock on doors to see if vulnerable / elderly people are ok, distribute supplies, or simply support local authorities with admin tasks .
We are also now part of another group SRWG. (Socialite resilience working group) whereby SVEN members are looking at self resilience and planning for emergencies. Looking at how people and small communities can prepare and be ready in the event of amber, yellow and red warnings. Simple things like what to do in a power cut situation, how to prepare for severe weather and storms.
Self resilience is key and people need to have information on how to prepare
