Training!

1. Participation and Training Submission Report Training! Scott Phillips N8SX

2. Who are you? • You’re Ohio ARES leadership volunteers and guests • Official Emergency Stations • EC and their Assistants • DECs and their Assistants • Our SEC and his Assistant • A couple of others • You represent 38 counties • You represent all 10 districts 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference participation

3. 80 total registrations District participation: 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Participation con’t

4. Training database began in April 2012 At that time, it was a single PDF file of 108 pages, unsorted, with files going every which way! (many unreadable) 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Training!

5. Massive data quality issues • Duplicates, sometimes dozens of pages apart • Low-res black and white  unreadable • How could we ever reference these images as “documentation???” • Volunteers were annoyed! • “I already sent these to so-and-so other guy!” • …and? You didn’t send it to me, and neither did he! • Email is cheap. Resending isn’t the end of the world, so settle down. 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Training con’t

6. Matt W8DEC’s vision: • “Clear, reportable documentation for ARES leadership training qualifications.” • But how to get there from here?? • Needed an organized, sorted system of filing these documents that could be easily searched and expanded to all volunteers, not just leaders • Standards and disciplined consistency required! 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference How to fix all of this??

7. Standardized on the PDF format • That’s what FEMA sends • Truly multi-platform • All file orientations corrected • It goes into the database the way you’d read it on the screen. Period. • Minimum legibility standards enforced • If I can’t read it, it bounces back. 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference How to fix all of this??

8. Directory convention: • District XX • County_<EC_CALLSIGN> • 01_EC_<CALLSIGN> • 02_AEC_<CALLSIGN> • <volunteerCallsign1> • <volunteerCallsign2> • Filename convention: • <CALLSIGN>_<AGENCY>-<CERTIFICATION>.pdf 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference How to fix all of this??

9. Ex: 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference How to fix all of this??

10. Good question. Frankly, for county volunteers, I don’t have a roster and really don’t need one • County rosters are highly volatile and widely inaccurate / outdated • This allowed us to focus on appointed leadership: • 65 ECs • 5 ADECs • 10 DECs • Matt W8DEC and myself (yes, we count, too!) 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference What about the roster?

11. Adapted Scott N8SY’s ARES leadership roster into a training tracking document: 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Tracking the leadership

12. Makes acknowledging new documents easy: just put an X in their FEMA course column! “Complete” / “Incomplete” field auto-updates when all four required training docs had been X’ed off “Incomplete” highlights yellow – quick attention grabber (“dink list”) Each district score automatically calculated and reported back to Matt W8DEC weekly 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Tracking the leadership

13. Early in 2013, we opened up the training database to the entire section. • Frankly, the first couple of weeks were pretty rough. At one point, I was 5 weeks behind acknowledging documents sent in email • If you were waiting on me: sorry! This year had a very busy start • Results were mixed. Less computer savvy volunteers quickly presented themselves 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Submission Guidelines

14. It quickly became clear we needed some sanity guidelines for how to submit to the database • Gotta have your name • Gotta have your call sign • That’s how the folders are named • Gotta have your county • Won’t know what parent folder to use otherwise • District if you know it • If not, no big deal. It saves me a little time if it’s there 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Submission Guidelines con’t

15. Blank emails will be rejected outright • I don’t have time to puzzle over your email address or the nickname you use in your From: line to figure out who you are • Blank emails are very passive-aggressive and frankly, rude. Basic courtesy should include a greeting and a signature in every communication you send. • Matt W8DEC sent signature guidelines for ARES email. 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Submission Guidelines con’t

16. When sending someone else’s certificates: • I still need THEIR name, THEIR callsign, and THEIR county • That information is used to file the certificates away for that person. Can’t do that without their info. • Don’t send me YOUR info if you’re sending someone else’s docs. I’m not going to put their certs in your folder, so send me their info. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. • Better yet, just avoid this altogether. Volunteers should send me their stuff directly if possible. 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Submission Guidelines con’t

17. D01: 87.50% • D02: 33.33% • D03: 87.50% • D04: 75.00% • D05: 100% • D06: 60.00% • D07: 85.71% • D08: 62.50% • D09: 87.50% • D10: 100% 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Leadership Training Summary • “No fair! D10 is smaller than everybody else!! • No they’re not.  • D10 has a staff of 8 • D07: 7 • D02: 6 • It’s been 18 months now. What’s the problem?

18. Most training files by district: D03, 320 • Most training files by county: Montgomery, 123 • Volunteers with IS-00100: 223 • Volunteers with IS-00200: 182 • Volunteers with IS-00700: 201 • Volunteers with IS-00800: 172 These numbers include leadership staff 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Volunteer Training summary

19. 16 MAR 2013 – Ohio ARES Leadership Conference Questions / comments / concerns