Minutes Of The Meeting

The President Larry Pugh called the meeting to order at 1400 hours.

The secretary made roll call with the following teams represented;

Black Mountain Fire Department SAR Burke County SAR

NC SAR Dog Association Randolph County SAR

Down East SAR Durham County SAR

Wake Canine SAR Inc. Albemarle SAR

NC Parks & Recreation Snow Camp Fire Rescue

Brunswick County SAR

Officers Present were:

President Larry Pugh Vice-President Mac Morgan
Treasurer Dave Cook Secretary Ken Anthony

Minutes from the previous meeting were read with no additions. Motion made by Mac Morgan that the minutes be approved as read. Second by Dave Cook. Approved by vote.

Treasurer report was read and the total money available was discussed. Dave reported that we had not received money from NASAR from the LAST Conference. There had been some changes made to the documentation and the final amount was correct. A copy of the breakdown was given to all members to review. There has been $460.00 spent on textbook reimbursement, $840.00 has been reserved by teams for upcoming classes, leaving a balance of $ 1200.00 for future reimbursements.

There were no committee reports available.

Old Business

L.A.S.T. Conference – Larry Pugh reported that overall attendance was down this conference, but it was an overall success. A spreadsheet was handed out with the breakdown of all expenses and profits. Larry has spoken with Danette Miler at NASAR and the final closure to the LAST Conference contracts for money should be ending soon. The total profit from the conference was $2100.00 and $30.00 profit from the tee shirts.

Web Page – Everyone on the council commended the secretary for the work on the web page. It was discussed the reason for only Burke County photos on the page. Ken has not received any photos from other counties. It was stressed that anyone with pictures, stories from their teams, or announcements should e-mail Ken. New home page should be up and running soon. Resource Directory to be added soon and the information from the NCEM Resource Directory would be used to add only team members to the web page directory.

Brochure – Ken agreed to work on a brochure for dissemination to all interested. The brochure would include our mission statement, the teams that represent us, and instructions on how to join the council. Larry is to get Ken an old brochure to go by.

Textbook Reimbursement – Dave Cook reported the available monies from the previous treasurer report. Teams needing reimbursement should e-mail Dave Cook with a list of the team members. A check will be mailed to the team and can be dispersed to the members as needed.

Training Standards – The council had voted in previous meetings to adopt the Training Standards set by North Carolina Emergency Management. Letter had been set to EM but was awaiting response from Eric Tolbert. As of this date, we have had no response. Kirk Driver from NCEM would check into it and get back with Larry as soon as possible.

New Business

State SAR Coordinator – Kirk Driver was introduced and he explained his duties to the group. He explained he was inexperienced in SAR but was willing and ready to work with everyone and help in anyway possible. Larry reminded him of getting in touch with Eric in reference to the training standards and Kirk acknowledged. Kirk stated that the state would be collecting more data in SAR and have improved avenues for reporting same.

SAR Exercise – Larry reminded everyone that the Burke County Exercise would be held in Buncombe County this year. Craig Bannerman reported that everything is starting to come together. He is getting a lot of request for registrations. He also reported that everyone needs to be aware that there are no full hook ups at this campground and the bathhouses are small. There is no electricity and sewer available. All levels of the exercise will be working out of a tent. Skyland Fire has agreed to do the logistics for the exercise and all assisting agencies are working well together. Craig advised we would put the coordinates for the command post on the web page for everyone’s planning purposes. NASAR will not have the bookstore at the exercise. Craig offered the council the opportunity to sell the tee shirts for the exercise. Motion by Dave Cook to accept the offer and second by Mac Morgan. Voted and approved by all. Ken Anthony is to obtain a price from a local vendor in Drexel.

Fall Exercise – The purposed dates for the Fall SAR Exercise in Robeson County is September 28,29,30 and October 1^st. This is going to conflict with the NASAR Conference. Larry suggested that we back it up to the end of the month and it was decided to table this matter until Robeson County could be contacted.

Elections – The president reported that the council has been off on the elections and we need to get back on track. The by-laws state that the new officer takes office in January and we are scheduled to nominate and elect them in the winter and spring. The president stated he would like to wait till fall to elect the new officers and this would put us back right. Motion was made by Gordon Deno and second by Ken Anthony to hold vote in fall meeting for offices. Approved by vote

Future Exercises – Mac Morgan stated that the North Carolina Sheriffs Association has their convention in Wilson in July and has offered the council a tract for one hour each day. The council could develop a presentation on the council and could present what we were all about. Mac Morgan will be handling and anyone interested in assisting should contact him. Larry stated that the LAST Conference was what was bringing in a lot of the extra money and there is another one scheduled to be held in 2001.

Instructor Pay - Dave Cook reported that had been some discussion among members about the pay for instructors at the Martin County Exercise and the LAST Conference. The discussion was that some instructors were being paid excessively and were on participating a short period of time in the event. There was also a wide range of pay scales. The question Dave had was should Council Members be paid as an instructor and how much should outsiders be paid. Dave is going to work on a pay scale and get back with the council. Everyone needs to be thinking about it so a decision could be made before our next sponsored event

Radio Frequency – Benny ask the council if a statewide SAR frequency had been established for response. Larry reported that 155.160 had been set as the responding SAR frequency.

NASAR – Craig Bannerman reported that there would be some changes in NASAR in the future. There will be additional information coming out in about a month. He stated that teams would have a wide variety in course offerings. Craig also reported that the textbook restriction had been lifted by NASAR. Instructors could purchase as many books as wanted at the bookstore. Craig reported the new mission for NASAR is SAR Team Leaders as their primary focus. This does not mean that individual members are not wanted at NASAR, but the SAR Leader would be their primary focus. NASAR is working on a nationwide resource directory for SAR and it should be posted on the web. A database for nation wide searches should also be available soon on the web for teams to report their missions so the data could be used nation wide. Other items to be published soon are action plans and Board of Directors minutes from their meetings. These things will be published on the web.

Announcements – Everyone with training additions get with Ken after the meeting and all training classes will be posted.

The next meeting for the council will be March 25^th, 2000 at 1900 hours at the Western North Carolina SAR Exercise in Buncombe County.

With no further discussion, the President Larry Pugh closed the meeting at 1550 hours.

Minutes submitted by:
Kenneth R. Anthony
Secretary, NC SAR Advisory Council

kranthony@hci.net