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|Home|Past
events|Community Education Day| |
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A
Community Education Day
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One
of the little challenges we have here in the rural suburban fringe of
Canberra is that our area is subject to a great deal of rural residential
development. This means that we have a continuing influx of new residents,
many of whom are new to country living and who may be unaware of the functions
of the Rural Fire Service and of fire safety in general. In November 2001
we resolved to meet some of these new residents in a friendly spirit to
make ourselves known and to provide access to information.
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We
pitched camp in the middle of the latest rural subdivision and offered passersby
free sausages, a cuppa tea, balloons and colouring books for the kids and
fire safety pamphlets for the mums and dads. A gang of firefighters and
backup crew was there to give advice, burn sausages and onions and show
people around. |
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The
Barretts' tent served as our HQ.
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A
couple of firefighters show new families the trucks and answer questions.
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parking our most conspicuous assets, our fire trucks, outside the tent,
we soon had a steady stream of families coming in to investigate. We had
letterbox dropped the area previously, so they knew they were welcome. The
only problem was that radical surgery was needed to extract a couple of
small boys from the trucks when their parents wanted to go home. |
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I'm
not sure exactly what technical point John is making here, but he may
be explaining what his kelpie does to fire trucks.
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the interest was there among the new residents, and several of them have
since done their Basic Training with the brigade, or helped us out at fundraising
activities. |
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Boys,
big and little, always want to see who can squirt the highest.
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day took a bit of time and organisation, what with moving trucks, erecting
tents, setting up displays and providing food, but it did show the value
of going out there and meeting new people in the community, rather than
just waiting for them to find us. We intend such days to become a regular
feature of our community education. Meanwhile, a brand new house is appearing
where we pitched our tent and in many adjoining paddocks. Welcome to all
those new residents, and if we didn't meet you last time, we will probably
catch up with you next time. |
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All
photographs on this page by Graham Scofield.
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