August 2000 Newsletter
Hello Team Members:
Yes, FL 2 DMAT is still alive
and well. As you know the first part of
each year is rather quiet, but Hurricane season is upon us and once again they
are predicting a lot of action.
Our year 2000 on call months for the east coast deployments are
March, July (missed out on those
months)and (probably the BIG MONTH) November.
During the first part of
May- 6 Executive Officers from the
team attended the National Disaster Medical System Conference in Las Vagas: Gary Lindbergh- Unit Commander, Bill Bishop
–Deputy Commander, Connie Bowles- Administrator, Joyce Mason- Training Officer,
Rich Holdsworth- Logistics Officer, and Julie Kszych- Public Relations Officer. Once again we attended classes –(some mandatory),
gained valuable information to help us maintain our readiness as well as
networking with NDMS and other teams.
Often some of the best information comes from other teams who “have been
there, done that”. And from talking
with the other teams they are struggling with the same issues that we are:
recruiting and maintaining members’ interest, storage and maintenance of the
large amount of NDMS equipment, employees releasing members from their job,
attendance at meetings or exercises etc etc.
Once again, the State of
Florida has informed us that they do not have the funds to provide us with the
annual December Brooksville Exercise.
For those of you who were never able to attend or who are new –this was
a fun weekend where the State provided us with didactic and hands on training
with many aspects of providing the necessary tools we needed to deploy,
maintain field survival and readiness for the 5 teams in Florida.
FL 3 (Tampa Team) has been
working with area agencies to provide a large scale exercise during this or
other weekends but so far it has been cancelled each time a date has been set
so we cannot count on this occurring in the near future. We are presently
looking into a local full-scale mock disaster exercise around the end of the
year. More information to follow.
We have received our $8,000.00
annual training and maintenance funding and will be purchasing equipment and
providing for training with these funds.
Uniforms
and orientation information.
If
you do not have your t-shirts or uniforms NOW is a good time to work on
obtaining them as we are going into the Hurricane Season. You will be too busy when we get the call up
to hunt down a uniform store.
The
uniforms can be ordered from Joyce Mason- home ph 941-656-0112.
The
jacket is $35.00- this price will include the patches and sewing them on.
The
pants are $25.00- you must have two.
The
T-shirts are $8.00-each- it is mandatory that you purchase at least 2-3 and
Barb Goodwin- home ph 941-481-5706 -is your contact person. The black boots and tan utility belt can be
purchased at any store or army/navy outlet.
Belt buckle that is steel versus brass is preferred since you will not
have to polish it. There are several
suppliers available -contact Gary 941-458-0112.
Also
alphanumeric pagers are mandatory. It
is your responsibility to make the arrangements with Metrocall ph
1-800-791-2337 or other paging systems.
Please
remember to promote our team to friends and co-workers and interest them in
joining.
Please
note: everyone needs to know the location of our warehouse facility, Bill
Vernay North American Van Lines, as this is where we will be deploying from.
During our busiest times of trying to get deployed, a few people were calling
to find out were the warehouse was located.
Take
a test run to reduce your anxiety in finding it.
Bill
Vernay American Van Lines
5674
Enterprise Pkway
FT
Myers, exit 24 off I-75
2000
is 2/3 gone and many of you have not paid your 2000 dues of $20.00.
Please
send it ASAP to Connie Bowles 1153 SE 32nd Terrace, Cape Coral, FL
33904. Paying dues is part of your
agreement to be a member of FL 2 DMAT.
Our equipment is supplied by the Feds but the misc. expense, which is
the only working capital we have, comes from dues.
Thanks
for your support
Connie
Bowles, RN, BSN, CEN
FL
2 DMAT Administrator
1153
SE 32nd Terrace
Cape
Coral, Fl. 33904