WHEN there’s a fire at your place, you hope to god that the local CFA fire fighters will turn up.
But at the end of the day, these men and women are mostly volunteers, so it’s a big ask, day after day, year after year for them to be ready to serve.
Which is why local brigades take such time and effort to honour the service of their volunteers, like they did at the annual dinner and presentation night for the Mirboo North CFA at the Mirboo North Hotel last Saturday night.
“We probably had a fairly quiet year this year, I’d say about 30 callouts, but it’s been like that for a few years through COVID,” said Mirboo North CFA brigade Captain Dave Smith.
“Our numbers are pretty good, at the moment, but we’d always welcome a few more and we’re pretty right for equipment as well having got a second-hand tanker from Leongatha a few years ago when they got a new one. We’re pretty right.”
But as much as it’s been “fairly quiet”, you’ve still got to be ready and you only need to look to those members of the group who experienced the bushfires of 2009, including the local incidents before Black Saturday and then that terrible events that followed, for inspiration.
“One of our awardees tonight, Mark Bourke, was our captain in 2009 and we’ve still got quite a few who were involved then. It’s good to have that sort of experience to pass on,” said Captain Smith.
It’s also why the levels of training have to be kept up and Dave Smith said last Saturday night that the commitment to training by the group had been excellent through the year.
As well as the 5-year, 10-year, 25, 30 and even 40-year awards on the night, there was the ‘2022 Captain’s Appreciation Award’ to Tim Bessell-Browne for his support of the captain’s role and the annual ‘Steve Groen Memorial Encouragement Award’ for Josh Hillman.
Commander for the CFA District 9, Emma Conway, was on hand to make some of the presentations and she acknowledged the tremendous work of each volunteer by reading out their records of service, many of them lengthy and a lot of them through several units.
CFA Service Awards were presented to the following:
- Doug Parke 5-year certificate
- Matthew Polglase 10 years
- Noel Hough 15 years
- Craig & Heather Barker 25 years
- Jason Barnes 30 years
- Frances Wilson 30 years
- Mark Bourke 40 years
There are still some other service awards to be presented.
