Refreshed logos

Well, after some discussion and debate about whether we should refresh the logo or not, the new logos are now available to the CDEM Group EMOs for use. The team at Blacksheep have put together a CD and branding kit that I'll be circulating shortly.

The branding kit comes complete with all the files in various forms, guidance on how to use the logos, the CD circle - it looks a little different but does meet the regulation description, the Group logo and a variation on the theme for localised use where a resource is not relevant to other areas.

I'm happy with the look and have already used it in a draft advertisement for the Are You Prepared booklet, and Jock has received it for use on the Eco Bags being made for the Group. We don't intend to make a concerted effort to replace the old branding but will gradually introduce the new look as the opportunities arise.

Storm warning...

Many of you who have seen the wallpaper on our EM laptops have commented on the fantastic shot. This week, I've been chatting with Mike Hollingshead, the awesome photographer who captured this image, about purchasing some good quality shots for our storm campaign coming up soon. I asked Mike what the light is in the middle of the storm... its the sun!

Mike has come to the party with some great images that will enlarge without going all pixellated. We used CuteSendIt to tranfer the files (they were pretty big - like 40Mb).

Check out Mike's gallery of stock images here.

SpillEx preparation

In preparation for the next national spill exercise, members of the National Response Team have gathered at the Marine Pollution Response Services base in Te Atatu. The purpose of the training session was to practice using the WebEOC incident management system, clarify roles and outline expectations for the exercise.

Good progress has been made in developing the system but the exercise will provide an excellent opportunity to put the system (and staff) under a little more pressure.

While there, I took the opportunity to take a few snaps of some of the stores. When necessary, equipment located in the regions will be supplemented from the national store and a good system is in place for mobilisation of the kit.

CDEM Group Managers SIG

The annual get together of the Special Interest Group for CDEM Group Managers was held this week. As well as getting an update on activities across the Groups and MCDEM, a number of other subjects were covered. These included the national Emergency Management Information System, our joint EMNet project on the GIS web portal with HB, training and exercising, response teams, the Director's Guide on 2nd generation Group Plans, fast moving consumer goods and fuel supplies.

Towards the end of the session, I requested that a formal request from the meeting be forwarded to MCDEM for the development of a programme for Emergency Management Officer professional development. For some time now we have lacked a training opportunity for EM professionals to get together to work through legislation, Director's Guides, national level documents and other material that will help EMOs come to terms with their new jobs or developments in the sector. The proposal was endorsed unanimously and Gary Bedford, as the Resouse Managers Group representative, offered to write to John Hamilton on our behalf.

FYI - the CDEM Group Managers SIG is one of several SIGs recognised by the Regional Councils' Chief Executives Forum. Each SIG has an executive representative from the Resources Managers Group to provide a link back to RMG.

e-Bulletin

The latest version of the e-Bulletin is now available on the MCDEM web site.

CDEM Group Plan update

The review of the CDEM Group Plan is making steady progress. Chapter 4 Readiness and Chapter 5 Response are due to go to the Co-ordinating Executive Group early next week. A copy of these chapters has been placed in the Google Group. There is still some work to do on the roles and responsibilities and the assistance of MCDEM has been sought in this area. We are very aware that other Groups are likely to cut and paste from some parts of our Plan so we better get it right!

Evan Lloyd is working on the Risk Profile chapter and Brendan Morris is working on the Recovery Manual and Recovery Chapter. The draft Communications Strategy is also going to CEG next week but this is still to be refined by the Public Information Managers.

There are a number of supporting documents still to be developed or reviewed, not least of which is the Triennial Business Plan for the Group. Still, we are on track with our project timeline.

Field Days 09

The team are all go at the Central Districts Field Days 2009. The emergency management display is again part of the emergency services stand. Our focus this year is on floods... rainfall and river levels and getting people onto the flood warning system. The first day of the show was busy in the morning but quietened down in the afternoon. Hopefully the weather will be kind to us for the rest of the show.

The display that Evan seems to be guarding is comprised of a rain gauge stand (foreground) and a stilling well tower model (with the green cabinet on top). Pull-ups (not the training nappies) explain how this technology works and around the back are displays of the 2004 floods. Cargill and the hydro boys have spent several late nights building and getting the models working - thanks guys.

As an aside, the earthquake cubes from last year are heading over to Hastings in the next few weeks for an Expo there.

Progress report - EMNet GIS

It seems that we are making steady progress with the development of the prototype EMNet GIS web portal. Adrienne has been working hard to establish the business rules behind the portal and we think we've got it pretty well sorted now.

We've started looking at some of the datasets that might be included in the model and although we've only looked at a couple of agencies, we are up around 130 different data layers already - now you know why its important to have the rules sorted out! Over the next wee while, we will be looking to survey a number of potential data contributors to test the rules and to determine whether the desired outputs can be achieved.

Just yesterday I met Emma Doyle from Massey University who is interested in our project. Emma has funding from the Foundation for Research Science and Technology to investigate ways of making science advice relevant to emergency planning. I think the EMNet GIS web portal will play an important role in this, particularly for immediate/intermediate response planning.

Sean Hodges was also doing some further investigation yesterday with a possible interface for the EMNet GIS. While its still early days, we like to check out these things as they come along.

Here is a really good example of what we are trying to achieve (without spending $2M!!!). Check out this demonstration of the new ESRI interface.

Whether the weather be fine...

I stumbled across a nice little site over the weekend while looking for local webcams to put on my Google homepage. This is a weather station maintained by Pete Marcroft about 1km out of Turakina (in Rangitikei District). While I don't know Pete, and can't vouch for the quality of the data, I really love it when I spot local initiatives like this. I suspect data quality is reasonably good... someone who goes to this much effort is usually a bit of a weather geek (that's a good thing Pete).

Congratulations on a nice site... I've sent a link to our guys as an example of cool Flash content.

Check it out here.