Many thanks to those of you who have volunteered in support of the Community Spirit Team, your help is greatly appreciated. However, more pledges of support are needed.
The aim of the Community Support Team is to be there to help the 'whole' community in time of need or emergency. Your pledge of support can be anything from giving your time to help in any general way, through to someone possessing a particular vital skill.
The reason behind the team, is so that the emergency and/or council services can work with a defined group within the community to help target aid in that community.
If you are a volunteer with the church or some other group, you can still volunteer for the Community Spirit Team, as the team will be representative of all the village community groups.
This your chance to put something back into your village community
....WE NEED YOU ....
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Original Message:During the last summer, there was growing concern about parked cars in the village, blocking access to emergency vehicles. As a result of this, Pippa Young (Parish Councillor) and myself had a meeting with Martin Rawlins (Cornwall Council Emergency Planning Officer, for West Cornwall)
During the course of this meeting, there emerged a deeper concern for 'at risk persons' in the community in the event of a major emergency or disaster scenario. Whilst Pippa and I were reassured by Martin that extensive plans were in place at local and national level to be implemented in the face of a major emergency or disaster, Martin told us that numerous rural and isolated communities were now working with the council's emergency planning department to help 'localise' these plans and provide local knowledge.
To help enhance the emergency services plans at a local level, a community looks in on its self to gauge how many people may be at particular risk and as to what resources there are within the community that could be mobilised to help alleviate the effect of any major emergency.
A major emergency could be any range of events, including severe flooding or storm damage, prolonged loss of electricity or gas or food or fuel shortages due to bad weather and as currently, snow and ice.
Having discussed this matter with a number of other village residents and a representative of the Perocial Church Council, there has been considerable enthusiasm for such a scheme, so I am therefore proposing that we set up a Community Spirit Team.
Community Spirit Teams have been set up successfully throughout the country and have helped build a 'sense of community'.
The team needs a small number of key members who can when requested, coordinate local resources and liaise with the Emergency Services or Council services as required. The team also needs anyone who can pledge help to the community in times of extreme difficulty. This pledge of help can comprise any skill or service, such as people who can supply emergency transport in a 4 x 4, a trade skill or medical skill, volunteering to staff an emergency feeding or coordination centre, or indeed just any general help of any kind.
This help can be invaluable to the emergency services, who at the end of the day, only have finite resources and local knowledge.
If anyone is interested in helping in this way, please contact me and I will then arrange for Martin to come down and talk about the involvement of local communities in emergency planning.
I can be contacted on 711808 shop hours, 710587 home or on perrancrafts[at]googlemail.com
Kevin Sansom
1 Greeb Way
Perranuthnoe
