More than 2 dozen of Devon’s communities came together at the Devon Community Resilience Forum event on 22nd November 2017. Over sixty delegates heard presentations on CONTEST (the UK’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy), the response role of the British Red Cross (BRC) and community case studies from Devon and Somerset community groups.
Thank you to Wendy Dunnett from Special Branch and Debbie Carrig (BRC) for their time. Geoff Jung from Woodbury, East Devon, illustrated his talk about flood alleviation with photographs and maps. These highlighted the impact of excessive rainfall on the community, how they have mapped incidents to help understand the issues and what actions they are taking locally to protect their community.
We welcomed Lynne Easton and her husband Alex, from Chew Magna in Somerset who focused their talk on the role of volunteers. Lynne also joined Kate Pearson from the Environment Agency in delivering an afternoon workshop on volunteer recruitment which was particularly well received.
Other afternoon workshops were provided by Came and Co. and 6 Rifles Brigade. Vicky from Came and Co talked about insurance and responded to a wide range of challenging questions from concerned delegates. WO2 Elliot Drake focused on the need for good communications in the event of an emergency to ensure victims and casualties are dealt with effectively. Delegates learned about establishing a control centre and how to pass messages between volunteers on the ground and the centre.
After the event 90% of respondents to an exit survey said they now felt more ready to tackle emergency planning locally.
“congratulations on what I thought was an especially worthwhile event”
“Thank you very much indeed for holding (this) event, I really, really benefitted from attending, it was incredibly helpful”
