Benjamin Cummings, Alana Tandy, Christine Welsh, Corey Rawlinson and Holly Johnson all serve as volunteers for the Seymour SES Unit.
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A local volunteer group known for lending a hand to the community needs your help.
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The VICSES Seymour Unit is undertaking a membership drive, and is hoping to welcome aboard a band of new daytime volunteers.
Unit controller Christine Welsh has been volunteering at the Seymour station for around 16 years, and said it was a sense of fulfilment that kept her coming back.
“The biggest thing (in volunteering) is giving back to your community; I know a lot of people who like to give back to the community and are looking for ways to do that, and SES is a really good way to do it,” Ms Welsh said.
“I guess it’s the same for everyone: we like giving back, we like being able to help people. I get a lot of enjoyment from going out and just chopping trees on the road, making it safer for people to drive.”
The unit is particularly searching for individuals who are able to volunteer their time during the 9am to 5pm period, with many of its volunteers being unable to turn out during those hours due to work commitments.
Ms Welsh said the team was looking for one particular feature in its prospective volunteers.
The Seymour SES Unit is on the hunt for local volunteers to pick up a wide range of responsibilities.
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“A willingness to want to join would be the biggest one — just an interest in coming in and having a look,” she said.
“We’re pretty much open to anyone for anything, whatever role they would like to do, we’re open to.
“There are so many different things that volunteers can do. Everyone thinks, ‘oh, you know, you join SES and you have to go to fallen trees or to road rescues’, but there are admin roles, radio roles, there’s coming in during big storm events and being on the incident management team.
“There are so many different roles that aren’t operational but are still really, really required.”
While Ms Welsh said satisfaction derived from helping the community was the main reason volunteers turned out, accredited qualifications were also an incentive driving applications, with members of the unit being able to walk away with an expanded resume as well as a strong sense of volunteerism.
As part of its membership drive, the unit is inviting the community to an open day on Saturday, November 8, where locals will gain an understanding of what the SES is all about, and will be able to see the unit’s flash new lockers put in place with the help of an almost $17,000 donation from the Rotary Club and Community Bank Heathcote and district, and Nagambie.
“We’ll be doing a road rescue demonstration on the day — just giving people an idea of what we do in our area,” Ms Welsh said.
“There’ll be a number of different displays, like a sandbag station, a road rescue demonstration, a rooftop system set-up. Hopefully people will get a lot out of it.
“We’ll also most likely have a PowerPoint presentation at some point during the day, and we can go through what we do because there’s so many things that SES volunteers do.”
The open day will be held at the SES Seymour Unit, 115 Wimble St, from 10am to 3pm.
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