South west SES units call for new members as part of recruitment drive

The Port Fairy SES unit controller is calling for new members as part of a region-wide recruitment drive and said volunteers gained great satisfaction from helping others in the emergency response role.

Mr McDowell said the last two years had been the busiest on record for VICSES and the Port Fairy unit, and across the region needed more volunteers to help meet demand.

State-wide, 2021 was the busiest year in VICSES history in terms of the number of requests for assistance.

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In the last 12 months, there were almost almost 3,500 requests for assistance in the south west, which is around eight per cent of the state-wide total of 46,000 requests.

South west region volunteers make up around 13 per cent of the total Victorian volunteer workforce, committing a total of 22,500 hours work in the 2020/21 financial year.

The recruitment drive has come about due to an increase in jobs per year," Mr McDowell said. " Across the state, the SES has seen some of its busiest years in the last two years and that's been reflected in units locally, including ourselves."

The workload increase following two La Nina seasons in a row, in addition to the COVID-19 challenges may have led to some volunteer attrition in some units. Despite this, overall Victorian volunteer numbers have remained steady in the past five to ten years.

Mr McDowell said the Port Fairy unit had a total of 18 members, nine of those attend callouts. "We had 140 jobs last year, so nine people attending to those 140 jobs is a fairly steep workload."

He said additional volunteers would also help the unit provide surge capacity to other units if there was a significant event and the recruitment campaign was about making sure services continued to exist.

"At the end of the day it's a community we're serving and that's what drives us, is doing it for our local community. If no one volunteers you're not going to get anyone to turn up when you're in trouble."

The Port Fairy unit, which services the broader region, held info sessions this week. It will have a display at the Koroit Irish Festival on Saturday and will be recruiting for the next month.

To volunteer for any south-west unit go to the website www.ses.vic.gov.au or call 1300 737 101.

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