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Emergency Management/VOAD Private Meeting Minutes Revealed for YOU

FRAMINGHAM @ Massachusetts Emergency Management Bunker

 On July 14th, Massachusetts Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster held their monthly meeting to discuss its organizational structure while also preparing for future disasters such as Hurricanes Sandy and Irene, the four tornadoes that hit central Massachusetts, ice storms and floods.

 

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While www.massvoad.org is always available as a resource for disaster preparation, relief and long term recovery, [and please take advantage by clicking through the website] the actual minutes from a meeting rarely get into public view. Although some of the meeting topics, such as organizational and leadership issues, and coordination among its many members and communication with state and federal disaster relief agencies may seem a little tedious, these decisions can make the difference in life situations, and even life and death when disaster does occur.

 

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Please feel free to browse through these short-handed minutes as efficiently put together by Sara Hamilton or Boston Cares. To help you understand the information better in this confusing world of acronyms, the minutes will be preceded by a few key definitions:

 

VOAD – Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, the coalition of non-profits and churches that assist in disaster preparation, relief and recovery. VOADs exist in every US state.

 

COAD – Community Organizations Active in Disaster, local coalitions that include non-profits, businesses and government entities that prepare for and assist before and during disaster. COADs are not set up in nearly enough cities and towns which is unfortunate and a key activity being worked on by MA VOAD and state emergency management as these are the people who would react first in times of disaster.

 

LTRG, Long Term Recover Groups, the local organizations put together to work in areas where disaster hits. Ideally, COADs would be in place and coordinated with VOAD and emergency management for quicker and more effective disaster response and long term recovery.

 

CERT, Community Emergency Response Team, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help. They are trained in advance to assist in various aspects of disaster relief.

 

MEMA/FEMA, Massachusetts and Federal Emergency Management Agencies.

 

Now, here’s the Minutes and please be prepared and involved in order to assist yourself, family and neighbors in times of disaster.

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Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) Meeting Notes - 7/9/14

 

By phone:

Basil  Maurice - Stavros Center Independent Living, Springfield 

Sherry  - All Hands

Ariel Low & Kate Dischino - AmeriCares

 

In attendance:

Steve Napoli - Red Cross

Kevin Hall - Church of Scientology

Doug Forbes - MEMA

Sara Zalieckas - MEMA

Arlene Magoon - FEMA

Larry Rosenberg - Red Cross

Ned Polan & Brinkley - HOPE Animal Assisted Crisis Response

Sara Hamilton - Boston Cares

Mike Crouse - Boston Cares

 

 

REVIEW OF CHAIRMAN ROLE and BYLAWS:

Steve:

Apology last months meeting notice

Current term coming to an end.  By Laws 2 year tem, 2 term limit.   First term has ended.  Need to amend bylaws or elect new officers.

Open to discussion on what need to do, may need some update to leadership

 

Kevin: 

Bylaws 10 years old, is not how we operate now. 

Need to address how we operate

Problem with 2 year limit: someone else has to want to be there, can be slightly amended to "if someone else doesn't want it"

 

Steve:  

no limit on shuffling around in exec committee - just limit in one role

 

Kevin:

Willing to rewrite bylaws to bring to exec comm to go over for approval and voting

Easier for one to  write and others review

 

Arlene: 

Who are positions?

 

Steve:

Chair me

Secretary Sara Hamilton

Paul Leslie is co-chair

separately, Kevin director of marketing/communications

Steve and Paul both at term limit, Sara only 6 months into term

need to nominate at least chair and vice chair

After reviewing bylaws can vote on change or nominations

 

Arlene: are we operating under these bylaws now?

Steve: not really, haven't been following all of them

Arlene: surprised to see government can vote, have not voted before.   

Would be nice to have Steve step to vice chair, someone else become chair

 

Steve: yes, that would be wonderful.  I don't have any intention of leaving the group.   Could become vice chair, or could become "past chair"

 

Larry: has anyone talked to Paul?

 

Steve: yes, I've reached out, haven't connected.   Will reach out to someone else to see if we can get Paul back to group, or someone else

 

Sara Z: Is there criteria on how much exec comm need to be involved, to get a sense of commitment

 

Steve: Minimal.   Exec comm does not meet separately often.  by laws say 4 meetings per year,  not much time to put together an agenda and such.  As we work to take on a few projects - bylaws, esf7, etc - might pick up a little bit.   Not very heavy lift.  At a point where we need to call for nominations...

 

Arlene: think we should put a call to nominations between now and next meeting

 

Kevin: if it came to it, I could take chair if Steve took vice chair, but would prefer to stay in public affairs

 

Larry: I could do vice chair if Steve stayed chair, but that puts it to all Red Cross again, which we're trying to avoid

 

Arlene: at nat'l conf, 80% of VOAD chairs Red Cross.  Who takes over if you're deployed?

 

Larry: I don't deploy, Steve does

 

Steve: Only reason talking about it is I looked at bylaws and realized, wanted to make sure people don't think I'm taking over, I'm happy to stay in this role

 

Basil: don't see any reason to have term limits if people in there are doing a satisfactory job, up for election every 2 years, can vote out but don't have to. Get rid of 2 term limit. 

 

Steve: Agreed - we can stick with 2 year terms, no term limits, vote every 2 years.  

 

(group consensus - lets do it)

 

Basil: example of national leadership for 28 years

 

Steve: very good suggestion, I like that 

 

Kevin: can have a vote anytime during those terms if others want the role, reason for limit is getting more organizations involved

 

Steve: consensus among folks is to first check with Salvation Army and Paul, if they're interested in staying involved, do a call for nominations.  Can nominate current leadership again.   Take a good look at bylaws to adjust the two year term with no limits.  Other things we can update to fall in line with other VOADs.  Can take a look at using current bylaws as template, or there is a national VOAD template, may want to look at those.   

 

Kevin: bring suggestions to the table next meeting, give people time to give suggestions

 

Steve: Will be out of the country for next meeting.  Move to Aug 13, 1:30-3:30, probably same location, although we may move it.   

 

Steve: open it up to other business

 

Kevin: Public relations, we have about 17 runs of half hour and hour long VOAD meetings each on cable tv.   Got in the patch, put on the website, will do again with the minutes.   Sent data on why people should start VOADs to the legislature. 

 

Arlene: Few things going on around the region

-Maine actively working on state-wide LTRG, preparedness to connect with VOAD, COAD, etc.  Will work with fund to support unmet needs after a disaster.   Getting set up now, working with insurance companies, state, etc.   MA has a state run fund, but not talked about for unmet needs

-VT talking about web based tools, Crisis Cleanup.  Trying to use for some non-declared disasters as well.  

 

(Doug: New Bedford flooding, just Emerg Mgmt Dir, not LTRG, no COAD

Arlene: seems hit a lot, might want to create a COAD

Paul deployed often, sent to help rather than sent to coordinate

Arlene: conversation to have with Salvation Army.  They can lead the charge, but other orgs would like to help if needed

 

-CT still working on Sandy survivors, some people still out of their homes, working through insurance.   Lots of VOAD orgs out there.   Might be interesting to talk to Chris Baker, VOAD Chair, to see how that worked and set up properly.

 

-NH struggling with leadership and how orgs work.   Sits under Volunteer NH.   

 

-RI new leadership tomorrow, Jay Burdick will stay at helm

 

-Training opps for all:  howcalm.com or .org - free web base, go in as faith based org and put in information so if disaster hits we can look at the site and ask churches to get involved with pop up shelters and other ways.  Helpful to know where our faith based partners are.   How to respond, help with recovery, mitigate possible damage at church, coop planning

 

{Follow up from Arlene: WWW.HowCalm.com this is a website for churches to register their willingness to assist in disaster response or recovery. Churches assess their capabilities and resources and add them to the site. It is not a commitment, just a potential opportunity to help when it is needed most.

 

Stay tuned for information leading to the Faith based Seminar in April 2015. The Seminar will focus around Church resilience activities and congregation preparedness. Additionally the Seminar will provide sessions that include church response to community recovery such as Sheltering, Mold/muck-out remediation, case management and long term recovery.}

 

 

Volunteers and Donations training program in January.  Invitational travel.   Suggest 2 people from VOAD and at least one from gov.   Will send info for minutes.   

 

Faith based workshop - very exclusionary, only faith based - national preparedness, coops, talking to congregation, what does a church do when it needs to respond.   April 2015

 

Preparedness in FEMA office wants to get involved, bring preparedness info, plug in anywhere VOAD wants.   

 

Steve: when you say preparedness, prep for FEMA and other orgs can be different.  preparedness edu?

 

Arlene:   Want to learn and plug in where can.  Coop planning, teach employees or congregations on how to be prepared at home.   Different from what I do

 

Steve: would certainly welcome that

 

Arlene: Best book I've read in years, Help and Hope Disaster Preparedness and Response Tools for Congregations.   Everyone can use it.  Has different authors for each chapter.   Questions to make you think at the end of each chapter.  Arlene sending ISBN

I'm hoping that within the next year this group will come up with some committee work.   After taking new volunteer and donations program, I'm scared - we're not prepared to take in donations of stuff.   And I'd really like to talk about how we can better utilize COADs and VOADs.  This state is doing really well and so much better than the other states - lets not loose that. 

 

Steve: talking with my director, former chair NY VOAD, they don't have COADs at all.  The support we have from gov agencies to set up has been tremendous.  

 

Arlene: group led by Lee (public health agency for Cambridge, seat for region 4b medical reserve corps)  Emerg response officials, public health, volunteers, etc group.  Her and Tracy Rodgers work going in to work being done in NH and VT.   How do we work these connections when disaster strikes.  

 

Steve: have invited Lee before.   CERT and MRC not volunteer, not response, but maybe we change that.  We weren't giving them a vote, but maybe we can.   That might be holding some folks back from joining the group. 

 

Basil: what about amateur radio operators?   

 

Kevin: we have a couple who are members

 

Steve: active within the state, but we haven't seen them in a while.   Tie in locally

 

Basil: a lot of our ham radio ops also  part of SkyWarn, ARES and RACES.   

 

Steve: they are members, but haven't been sending anyone to our meetings

 

Basil: also a member of RACES and ARES and SkyWarn.   

 

Steve: can you reach out to your leadership and start sending someone again. 

 

Kevin: see who is on our massvoad.org, email mavoad@gmail.com to put up as member group. 

 

Basil: been active for Sandy, tornado 2 years ago, etc

 

Sara Z: as information changes and we update contacts, I want to encourage info to be passed along to the state.   during esf 7 annex review putting together packages.  Any new info that would be good for that.   Pass info onto Kate

 

Steve:  Mike at Boston Cares working on updating now,  been working on a while and finally have some movement on it.   When get new list will send out. 

 

Arlene: would it be helpful to send out questionnaire to ask people what they'd like to see/do in this group?  

 

Steve: can look at that, always leave room for other business in agenda, but could do a doodle or something a few weeks out

 

Arlene:  I will put together ideas for a quick survey to this group and see what they think.  

 

Steve: want to do another summit, might be good to pick a date sooner rather than later.  New England VOAD summit?   looking at that as well. 

 

Arlene; haven't heard from our partners on that.  Great things going on, lots to share.   

 

Steve: on summit, don't need to pick a date right now.  For sanities sake, after hurricane season?  Oct or Nov?  More central location?  More conference style?  More presentations.  Break out sessions were great.   Maybe another high profile person.   National VOAD?

 

Basil:  Amateur radio relay league holding annual convention in a couple of weeks - july 17-19 in Hartford, keynote is Craig Fugate.   (note: 100th anniversary, and he is an amateur radio operator himself)  AARL

 

Steve: David Meyers?  Spoke at Red Cross fundraiser a few years ago.   

 

Arlene: more likely for a 6 state event, than a 1 one state.  will find out more. 

 

Steve: we put together a committee for that last year, should do that again.  Can hold off on it, but lets plan for Oct/Nov for sure.   

 

Arlene: First week of Nov?   

 

Doug: Seabrook exercise on Nov 5

 

Steve:  Maybe Thurs or Fri?  Lets keep open Nov 6 & 7th.   

 

Kevin: Arlene would like to bring org chart up to date with the national VOAD, language, terms, titles, etc.   Will put it together and bring for vote next week.   

 

Ned: Tracy Rodgers and Cindy can't be here - Berkshire and Pioneer Valley.  Both really cranking.  Just finished emergency ops plan and COAD directory.   At both meetings have JD Herbert (west mass behavioral health team coord).  Manuals available as a PDF, can send out and put up on website. 

 

Sara Z: anyone MEMA reg 3-4 involved?  

 

Steve: they're aware the group is working

 

Ned: they'd be delighted if VOAD leadership wanted to come to a meeting.   Berkshire.  260 people displaced Irene trailer park, still 200 need permanent housing.  Higher Ground working on fast construction.  No place for them in the town they want to be in.   60-80 in trailers not condemned.   Some still in hotels.   Fast tracking construction, but still may be 2016. 

Will ask Tracy and Cindy to forward.   (Steve has and will forward for distribution with minutes)

 

Sara Z: will send notes to Pat in region 4 to make sure he is looped in

 

Kevin: can get a map on the website of where they are.   

 

Ned; They'd like to vote too!

 

Steve: Operating right now, supposed to be have COAD leadership to vote, but individual groups don't.   

 

Kevin: but individual groups can join

 

Steve:  we can have that discussion, but it might be easier to stick with COAD chair having vote with VOAD.   But, it org is truly state-wide, they should probably join VOAD as primary affiliation

 

Arlene: does it say that in by laws?  it should.

 

Kevin: we need to adjust by laws to fit that

 

Steve: anything else for the good of the group?  once? twice?

 

Steve to wrap up: Call for nominations, explain to group, intent to amend bylaws as well, training opps Arlene mentioned, start to get ready for summit in first week of Nov.   

 





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