Someone's just told me it's Christmas

How did that happen?? The team were leaving the office and said see you in the New Year! It certainly has been a busy year and the Emergency Management Team in the Group has been pretty busy. Our main benchmark for the year was the approval of our CDEM Group Plan (which you can download from here).

We got off pretty lightly this year, with no significant emergencies - just your usual snow storms, wind storms, heavy rainfall, storm surges, earthquakes and flooding. We also activated and evacuated for a potential tsunami which was a little out of the ordinary I must admit. All in all, I think the team is pretty well set up and working together. The level of co-operation across the Group's membership is excellent and if we need to circle the wagons for an event I have confidence in our ability to work together.

Next year will have a few interesting activities and I've been working on my work programme for the first 6 months to try and squeeze it all in. I'll post more on that in the New Year.

On that note, I'll sign off for the year and wish everyone a very happy Christmas and prosperous New Year.

EMIS implementation phase

The Ministry have yet to announce the successful provider for the national Emergency Management Information System but are forging ahead with planning the next phase of the project. This week nominations have been sought from the CDEM sector for two Group level and two territorial authority level representatives to be on the EMIS configuration team.

David Coetzee is suggesting that the first roll-out of the EMIS will be in the middle of next year (which fits well with my earlier predictions). The Config Team will be looking at the basic structure of the EMIS and setting up work flows and processes, as well as some templates as part of the core package. A 'straw-man' will be developed by MCDEM staff for presentation to CDEM Groups as a teaser and to solicit feedback on ideas and preferences of the Groups. Once this presentation has been completed and Groups had an opportunity for input, the Config Team will set about producing the core EMIS.

The time commitment of the Config Team is not insignificant and could be 3+ weeks. It is important however that we get it right as the future of CDEM will be significantly influenced by the EMIS. If you are interested in being nominated for a role in the Config Team, contact your CDEM Group's Manager for the terms of reference and nomination process.

Viewing the calendars

On the sidebar, there are a couple of links to Group calendars. It is our intention to use our Google calendars as the source data for our calendars. This means that no matter where you find an on-line Group calendar, it should be drawing its dates and detail from the same location. We're starting with the calendars here on the blog but you may find soon that we also have the calendars on the Horizons website and also on the CDEM Group website once this is finally up and running. If you want the code to link our calendars to your site, please let me know.

In the past, we've posted a pdf of our calendar to the website - not only was this long winded, but often we would get conflicting calenders. Using an on-line calendar will hopefully eliminate this risk - with the current on-line version being the latest.

I have discovered that you need to be logged into a Google account to view the calendar - its pretty painless and you can use your existing e-mail account to create a Google account (if you don't already have one) - I'd strongly recommend it. Just follow the simple instructions and don't forget to verify your account from the e-mail they send you.

Emergency Management Summer Institute

I have received a wad of brochures in the mail today for next year's Summer Institute. The programme runs for 5 days from 15 - 19 March 2010 at the Massey University Wellington Campus. The programme is co-sponsored by GNS Science, Massey University, University of Canterbury and MetService.

The programme looks good with an impressive line-up of speakers covering

• Emergency management planning,
• Developing effective all-hazards warning systems,
• Evacuation planning and welfare,
• Classroom in the coach, and
• The role of public education, community engagement and public participation in building resilient communities.

For more information about the programme, you can download the brochure here.

Benchmark reached!

It's been a few days since my last posting... a few of the team have been tied up with the National Special Olympics Games being held here in Palmerston North. Last Friday morning however was an important date for the CDEM Group! The Joint Standing Committee met and approved the new CDEM Group Plan. This is the culmination of about 18 months worth of planning and consultation and is the start of the next era of CDEM for our Group.

The Plan will be available on the Horizons web site in the next few days. We will also be publishing hard copies of the Plan for distribution.