Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

The members of EMSINA would like to wish everybody a Happy Festive Season and a great 2015.

It is the dedicated people like you that keep so many communities around Australia safe .  

Thank you..!

EMSINA Meeting - Canberra Wrap up

And...there ends another successful EMSINA meeting.  Safe travels to all flying or driving home tonight.

The meeting was well represented by 27 people from most jurisdictions. Excitingly, there were some new faces to welcome, including the new Chair of EMSINA Victoria, Andrew Wise from ESTA.

The spatial topics discussed during the meeting, as per normal, were wide ranging. A brief summary of the topics and important points are as follows (talk to your jurisdictional rep if you want to know more):

• Wayne Patterson stood down as Chair of EMSINA
• Aaron Cashion (Tas) and Steve Forbes (ACT) took on Co-Chair roles 
• The secretariat role remains the same (Kane Orr - GA)
• Their first item was to discuss the roles and responsibilities of the Chairs / Secretariat and Hosts.
• A vote was successfully taken in favour of giving Wayne an honorary Life Membership to EMSINA.
• There were then a number of exceptionally good presentations and subsequent discussions around: 
• Rapid Impact Assessment technology
• National Impact Assessment Model
• Fundamental Data importance
• Symbology
• NEXIS developments
• The National Situation Awareness Tool
• CAP-AU standards
• Potential funding for capability holes
• Website development and document access
• We were also lucky enough to get great tours and inside knowledge as to the the workings of the Australian Crisis Coordination Centre, the AFP Watch Floor and the Joint Tsunami Warning Centre.
• Meeting minutes and actions will be sent around soon.

The next meeting will be in Melbourne in mid April. More details to come in February.

Couple of Life Members

Congratulations to Wayne for his near 10 year stint as Chair of the EMSINA Group. A unanimous vote to give Wayne a life membership of the Group was also very fitting.

It was also great to see the only other life member of the Group, Mark Garvey at the meeting. It is always great to see Mark and learn from his many years of experience in the EM field.

Couple of great guys!