The March meeting of SESVA was held at Volunteer Association House 177 Great Eastern Highway, Belmont at 7 PM on the 4th of March 2013.
At 5PM the committee met with Deputy Commissioner Capability Steve Fewster for an update on current issues within the Department of Fire and Emergency Services
Committee Meeting Agenda
- Opening
- Apologies
- Confirmation of minutes
- Business arising
- Correspondence
- Treasurers Reports
- Editors Report
- President Report
- Secretary Report
- Regional Representatives Reports
- General Business
- Close
Following is a brief summary of items discussed at the meeting:
1. DFES have scheduled the next awards night for Saturday September 21
2. DFES have scheduled the next Volunteer Conference September 21/22
3. The SES will have exclusive time for Saturday afternoon and an hour on Sunday morning
4. The SESVA is discussing with DFES some of the feedback received about the 2012 Awards night and the 2012 Volunteer Conference
5. Provision of VLOs to the State and Regional Operations Centres was discussed and although the Association members believe this should be a staff role previous history by FESA means that the SESVA will remain involved
6. The SESVA tabled 7 goals that it will use as submissions for the Legislative review
7. The meeting with DFES in relation to the 48 dot points from the 31 January meeting of SES Volunteers was tabled and discussed
8. The DFES discipline policy issued to the portal late January was discussed. The SESVA is not happy the way this was issued nor are they happy with what is in it and how staff appear to be treated differently to Volunteers
9. The difficulty of access and the fact that Volunteers have to search for what is placed on the DFES portal was discussed at length
10. The next SES Journal will be released to units later this week
11. Sponsorship with Woolworths for Easter was explained and all Local Managers have been or will be contacted this week
12. Disappointment by SES Volunteers about the media coverage in the Pilbara during TC Rusty only mentioning career staff with no mention of SES Volunteers was tabled and discussed
13. There was much discussion about the DFES Commissioner advising SES members that he is their champion
14. The Association appointed life member and past District Manager, Bernard McNamara ESM, as the SESVA representative for the Metro South Coastal district until the election due in October 2013
15. The Association appointed Keith Squibb as the Kimberly representative until a replacement can be found
16. Discussion on the Driver Training for 4WD recovery techniques was discussed and DFES need to sort this out
17. Discussion on the increase in training time by Volunteers for some courses was tabled and discussed.
18. Members were made aware that some information from the face book page ends up in DFES
19. Many SES Volunteers are writing to MPs and others about what they see as current issues within the Service
20. The Association to write to DFES about the discipline/grievance situation to do with Volunteers
21. It was also outlined that DFES has an oversight of the SES under the act and cannot directly discipline any SES Volunteer. DFES have then taken the stance that a Volunteer will be banned from all operations, DFES training, DFES buildings and DFES organised meetings or functions if they decided to do so (and have in a least one instance done this)
22. The SESVA is being assisted on its strategic communications strategy by Darren Brown – a registered lobbyist with the Government. Darren is also assisting the Bush Fire Association
