[gcares] - FEMA IS-700 NIMS Course Offered 12 September

[w8lly at sbcglobal.net]

All GCARES members and other Greene County hams who have not yet completed
the FEMA IS-700 NIMS certification course are encouraged to attend the free
course being offered Tuesday evening, September 12.

NIMS is the acronym for National Incident Management System.  All personnel
of (and/or involved with) first responder agencies (Fire, Law Enforcement,
EMA, etc.) are required to complete this course prior to an October 1, 2006
deadline in order for their agency to be eligible for future Homeland
Security Grant funding.  Thus, it also is likely that GCARES members and
other hams who might be assigned to a served agency's EOC or other strategic
facility will be required to complete NIMS certification in order to receive
proper credentialing (which is coming).  You can learn all about NIMS, ICS,
NRP, and FEMA course on the internet.  To start, search on "IS700"

For our part, the NIMS course is primarily an awareness course for us to
understand the incident management system being used by the people and
agencies for whom we will be providing auxiliary communications support.
The course can be completed online at anytime or in a classroom setting upon
available.  Thus, the upcoming September 12 opportunity.

As you may recall, GCARES has been promoting IS-700 NIMS, IS-800 NRP
(National Response Plan), and the IS-100 and IS-200 Incident Command System
courses for the past year or two.  Many GCARES members, and others, already
have completed IS-700 NIMS along with other of these courses online or in
local classes when offered.  Please seriously consider attending the
September 12 class and becoming "NIMS-compliant."

The September 12 NIMS course will start at 6:30 PM at the Greene County
Media Center on Ledbetter Road (just off US-42, south of Xenia), and is
expected to last 2-1/2 to 3 hours.  The course is being offered in
conjunction with the monthly CERT training session.

Hope to see you there.

73,

Fred W8LLY
EC, GCARES