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[Phil Garcia]

Hi Alison,



Thanks for the welcome,



We were really busy as we cover Kent,Surrey and Sussex. The weather was really bad with major roads being closed by the Police due to the road conditions being unsafe to drive in, luckily Kent police were allowing our drivers through as we have good working relations with them and we were also helping to clear some obstructions for them, whilst on our way to other callouts, so they were then able to reopen some motorways. There were places where our volunteers were encountering 4 - 5 foot snow drifts to get to some locations.



I was the Duty Controller for the January call outs and we took over 500 callouts via the phone, and email (Rob Wiles, Kent County Council EPO) all requests were covered by the 50 volunteers we had at the time. Our membership has grown to approx 80 now. I think this is down to the radio interviews, 3 Tv interviews in our area that were done during the snow plus also getting half page article in the Daily Mail and a two page spread in the "ingear" section of The Sunday Times. We are recruiting heavily all the time so our membership will hopefully grow over the next 12 months.



We have kindly been donated a Trunked Radio system which covers our whole area and more which will help us massively with our communications which we will be able to expand as we do. Some very kind instructors have offered reduced rates and sometimes free registered training to us, and members of the public have donated money to the cause. We really have been very lucky.



I have learnt a huge ammount during the December and January call outs as have the group as a whole, we have had debrief meeting as well as debriefs and disscussions on our forum with some very good suggestions coming from the members, We are also developing a management team which I am part of to help take some of the strain off of the committee and make use of some of the excellent skill and contacts our members have.



How was it in Norfolk?



Best,