[Tom VA3TS]

ARES and GBARC Explained

This is a brief history of ARES and its relationship with the Georgian Bay Amateur Radio Club.

ARES has been a long-time entity in the counties of Grey and Bruce. This goes back before the 1990's and was separate from the GBARC and has remained that way for a couple of decades.

At the beginning, the ARES group was part of GBARC and was made up of some dedicated leaders like Bob VE3LKD and Jon VA3CIC and others.

This arrangement was fraught with issues and there were many who refused to participate in ARES as they felt, ARES should be FREE to join and they felt they could not justify dues to GBARC for the ability to join in with others interested in ARES.

As a result, participants dwindled and it was obvious that something had to change. At the time it was felt that the best way to solve this issue was to remove the ARES group from anything related to the club and therefore anyone who wished to, could join the ARES group and participate as they saw fit.

This of course, did not prevent GBARC members from participating and so everyone co-existed quite well for many years.
So, after many years (mid 2010's), the then group leaders, expressed their will to move on to other things in their lives and this resulted in the ARES group not having leaders and the group fell into a state of non-activity.

At the time they used yahoo groups to maintain a mailing list and provide a means to send notifications to the whole group who has volunteered to help.
Around the same time as the ARES group becoming non-functional, yahoo groups decided to cease their operations as well.

So, what was left was the GBARC webmaster (me), who felt that we should include ARES on our website so that ARES would not disappear altogether.
However, the issue of GBARC membership still remains, there are those that will not participate so long as GBARC asks for dues or any type of membership fee.

If the current leaders of ARES/ACS/Auxcomm wish to see their group grow, they should embrace the separation from GBARC as well. These days we have groups.io which performs the same function as yahoo groups did and can also be a free of cost option.         

 GBARC is a hobby club, not a service group.

Our membership is here to enjoy our hobby, operate for fun, get on the air and get together for social/operating events. If at the same time, members wish to participate in ARES, they obviously can, and are encouraged to do so. But...the ARES group cannot make arrangements with counties or other external groups without first satisfying the requirements of our by-laws, specifically By-Law 4 Resolutions. see below

BY-LAW 4 RESOLUTIONS

A.        Statements of policy of the club to the public, governing departments, and
           officials of such governing departments, and affiliated bodies, and officials of
           such affiliated bodies, or to the media, shall be by resolution, duly motioned and
           seconded, and voted on by a Quorum of full members as set out in the
           Constitution.
B.      No member, either FULL or ASSOCIATE shall make any statement of policy, as
          set out in BY-LAW 4 (A) without direction and permission of the club as set out in
          that BY-LAW.

[MD7323]

Thanks for the very good history of ARES and GBARC. I've found this important very useful. This is the first time anyone has fully explained the history or ARES and it's relationship to GBARC to me, this includes the information I was provided when I took over as the new ARES EC from Bruce County in the spring of 2020. 

Questions I posed to RAC and the ARES section manager were unanswered. I was also not able to get a good explanation from several of the previous ARES EC's. What I encountered was a confused situation which no one could help me short out. 

Tim Eaton VA3RTE was the previous Bruce County ARES EC. He advised that that last actual organized Simulated Emergency training event has taken place at the Bruce Nuclear site in roughly 2012. That event was organized by EMO and the ARES EC's from Bruce, Grey and Huron were all invited, however there was no actual amateur radio component to that exercise.

I fully understand that ARES was and is not a part of GBRAC. This has been made abundantly clear. The separation between Emergency Communication and GBARC is now even more clear now that the  Auxiliary Communication Service (ACS) has formally replaced ARES under RAC this new organization is clear that ACS operator work for a sponsoring agency. Such arrangements are organized between the ACS volunteers and the sponsoring agency.

If the Canadian model follows what is being done by ACS in the US, each agency will be responsible for creating it's own volunteer communications program. The primary training will be done using something called a "Position Training Task Book" (PTTB). In theory this would outline specific "job functions" with an emergency response team but also could include developing a community based amateur radio volunteer response network. At this point in time, Bruce County, nor any municipalities have created their own PTTB's.  

ACS certified operators (AuxC) operate under the auspice of any agency who engages them as part of their Emergency Response Team. Our function(s) within that team might include helping that agency, either at the Provincial, County, or Municipal level to incorporate amateur radio into a formal emergency communication plan. I've been working on doing that for roughly the past 5 years. It has been a very slow process. Frank has been doing something similar at a much faster pace in Grey County. 

During an actual emergency event, with or without a formally declared emergency, Frank and I would likely be asked to organize so manner of amateur radio network across both counties. The objective would be to provide emergency managers with real time situational awareness. Participation is such a network is entirely voluntary and would be entirely outside any club sponsored activity. 

During an actual declared emergency, where communications are out, Frank and I would be a conduit between local EOC's and our communities. Participation is any kind of local communications network would be up to individuals who might wish to opt in. 

Getting to this point has not been simple or easy. RAC has changed direction multiple times and been exceptionally slow in moving the process ahead. Linking the new ACS program to Provincial funding has added additional complexity. I continue to see evidence that somehow things are getting sorted out so remain hopeful that money and time spent will be worth the effort.

I have seen ACS in action during several actual emergency events in the US so know that it works. 

73
Marvin