The Upper Great Southern Regional Exercise was held over three days from Friday 16th September at the Dryandra Woodland Village in the shire of Cuballing.
Exercise organisers Kerry Keys (Pingelly SES) and Cherese Green (Gosnells SES) pulled together a remarkable weekend of learning, team building and getting to know one another.
More than 60 SES Volunteers travelled from Units in the Upper Great Southern, SouthWest, Goldfields-Midlands and Metropolitan Regions, as well as having the support of the Communications Support Unit, and SWORD SES Logistics from Perth.
Volunteers from Pingelly SES, Gosnells SES, Northam District SES, Mundaring SES, the NDRC ‘Black Swan’ Team, Serpentine-Jarrahdale ICV, Pingelly BFB and the SES Volunteers Association, along with DFES staff from Narrogin and Armadale manned a range stands on Saturday. The stands included Water Operations, Land Search, Operations in the Field, Radio Communications, Map Reading/Navigation and a Vertical Rescue system challenge.
WA Police OIC from Narrogin played an active role in the land search and rescue exercises on Saturday and again on Sunday, as well as arranging a thought-provoking drone demonstration by the WAPOL Drone Pilot based in Albany.
The exercise and its organisers received a lot of praise for a job very well done from those attending, at what can only be classified as an excellent venue with great catering by Pingelly SES volunteers. The question is already being asked “when is the next one?”
