KILMORE State Emergency Service, SES, is opening its doors this Saturday for an official open day to promote its services to residents.
Starting from 10am, with a break between 12.30pm until 2pm, the open day will showcase life-saving techniques as well as two road crash rescue demonstrations, presented at 11am and 2.30pm.
Residents can talk to volunteers at the life-saving displays, while refreshments and children’s activities will be provided, including giveaways such as emergency grab bags to promote safety.
Kilmore SES unit controller John Koutras said the open day was for everyone across the Mitchell Shire.
“We’ve had some great support with Mitchell Shire Council as well, who’s supporting us for this event,” he said.
“It’s basically showcasing what we do, opening up to all the community, hopefully families will come along and see what we do.”
Mr Koutras said the community needed to know that SES was available in case of an emergency.
“Whether it’s flooding or water coming through the roof, sometimes people aren’t sure what type of assistance is available out there for them and that’s what it’s about getting the message out about, what our services are,” he said.
“Our community is growing, there’s a lot of new people moving into the area, who really may not know where the local emergency services are, may not know that we could possibly have flash flooding, and when and where that is.”
Kilmore SES currently has about 50 volunteers – increasing from last year’s count – and always welcoming newcomers.
“If anyone’s interested, message us, come and see us on the day, we’ll have information for them and they get a tour of not only our facilities but actually what we do,” Mr Koutras said.
“When people consider volunteering, you bring your own life skills to it and we train you to do the rest, so you don’t have to know everything that we do. It’s your volunteering and we will teach you what you need to learn.”
Kilmore SES takes donations of used cars for its rescue demonstrations, accepting cars of any size all year round to prepare for real world scenarios.
“So far, we’ve had an absolutely amazing response for that, [we] can never have too many because we need them to practise … so it’s been a great response from our community,” Mr Koutras said.
“It gives us some continuous practise with rescue skills as far as cutting up vehicles and all vehicles are very different. We do train once a week and we need vehicles to do that training.”
To donate used cars, which Kilmore SES can arrange to pick-up, contact their Facebook page at SES Kilmore Unit. The page also includes updates and insights into their services.
Kilmore SES Open Day will start at 10am, at its headquarters, at 24 Green Street, Kilmore.
