Social Media in the 2011 Victorian Floods Report http://ow.ly/6JdKh found over 320 000 social media mentions . . . . . .

SHAPE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT in the RFS. Nominate to join the Community Engagement Consultative Sub-committee
http://ow.ly/6IYcp

Greetings from new team member

Hi everyone!  My name is Nicole Miller and I'm a new Community Engagement Coordinator here at HQ in Lidcome.


My LinkedIn profile is http://www.linkedin.com/in/millernicole so you can read a bit about me.


My career includes film and television production, project management, internal and external communications, and community engagement. My previous position was at the University of Western Sydney where I managed a free community legal clinic and legal teaching program.  I grew up in the Hawkesbury Region (Bowen Mt, Kurrajong and Richmond) and was a member of Grose Vale brigade as a teenager.  Cumberland Zone HQ took very little time to sign me up on Open Day (see pic below).  My father, Rick Miller, has been a volunteer for Hawkesbury brigades for as long as I can remember and he is a volunteer fire investigator on the Central Coast.


I look forward to meeting many of you and sharing Community Engagement tips, resources and strategies.

Some interesting reading:

Liverpool City Council's Community Engagement toolkit - http://bit.ly/q2siLU. I like their ‘10 Principles for Community Engagement’. Their planning tool on page 2 initially looks a little scary (lots of coloured cells on a grid) yet it actually is quite a useful tool for breaking down a big program or project into bite sized jobs.


Best wishes,

Nicole

PS - I hope your Open Days were a great success.


Photo caption: Senior Deputy Captain, Ron Freeman, signing up Community Engagement Coordinator, Nicole Miller, at Cumberland Zone HQ Open Day 2011.

Bush Fire Survival Plan - be honest, have you read it?

Hi there,

At the recent Community Engagement forums we have been spending a fair bit of time talking about our products and the tendency to use 'fire fighters jargon'. When you talk about a subject regularly it is easy to forget how difficult it can be for someone with little or no fire experience to understand words that you use all the time. We have had some really good discussions around some of these words and phrases such as:

• bush fire prone land
• ember attack
• APZ
• fuel and fuel load
• asset
• treatments



Have YOU read this document?

 What has really surprised, and yes alarmed and even confounded me, is how very few of our members are familiar with our Bush Fire Survival Plan. I am still coming across groups of members who have not yet seen the new booklet.


How can we communicate with you more effectively about new tools and products? I would love to hear any suggestions on how we can improve communications, especially about new products and community engagement events such as the regional forums and road shows.


For any of us working with the community on bush fire safety, the Bush Fire Survival Plan should be our main resource tool. It is the document we need to know back to front and upside down. The messages in this document are absolutely core to what we do.




Do you know what order you may receive these?

 

How is YOUR knowledge? Do you know how many plans are actually in the Bush Fire Survival Plan? Do you know the importance of triggers when developing a plan? Do you know what PREPARE. ACT. SURVIVE. means?

There has been a lot of change to our products such as the Bush Fire Survival Plan, Neighbourhood Safer Places, Fire Danger Ratings and even the Emergency Survival kit we now recommend. It is a hard task to stay up to date and to use jargon free language when our products can be very complex - but it is a challenge we need to embrace and encourage each other to actively try to master.

What ways can we improve our product knowledge?

• read the Bush Fire Survival Plan - even one page a week
• pick a page in the Bush Fire Survival Plan and discuss it with your family - how do they interpret it, or your brigade - encourage the discussion
• speak to your Fire Control Centre to see what information they have
• have a look at our new fact sheets
• join our community engagement Facebook page RFS NSW Community Engagement facebook page and become part of the conversation and knowledge sharing
• ask questions about the Bush Fire Risk Management plan for your area
• surf our website http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/

For me being involved in discussions is a really good way to learn and remember important information. It is also a good way to challenge my own interpretation and understanding of a topic. Even if you are confident that you are up to date with your understanding of our products, I encourage you to engage others in conversations about our bush fire safety messages so that together we can all improve our knowledge.

The power of the conversation should never be underestimated!




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Cheers from

Tanyia