1. Lew Short
Principal, Emergency Management & Resilience
2013 AFAC Volunteer Leaders Program
22nd – 26th May 2013
Demands and expectations of Volunteer
Leaders in 5-10 years.

2. Breakup of the group
Volunteer
Both
Salaried

3. Quick Background
• RFS Volunteer
• Managed interface with brigade and Council
• RFS
• Private sector

4. Don’t poke the bear

5. Constructive Subversion
• leaders, in order to challenge those around
you to do what is right when social or
organisational norms would say that slightly
‘less right’ or even ‘wrong’ is ok, we should
adopt the notion of “constructive
subversion,” or constructively challenging
those things which we do not believe are
right.

6. Outline
• Motivations & Expectations
• Engagement and the Dark Arts
• Speed of government
• Recruitment & Retention
• Gen y
• Motivation for volunteers and the community
• Provision of advice

7. Motivations
External
• Who are our customers?
• What is our core business?
• Who are our stakeholders?
• What are their expectations?
Internal
• Why are you a part of your organisation?
• What do you give up to be a part of it?
• What are your expectations?
• Is there a gap

13. Who are our stakeholders?
• Is there a difference between “who are our
customers?”
• The key theme… for all stakeholders are trust,
transparency and timeliness

14. What are their expectations?

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Community Interest
Interest
Thebigfires
firesonthenews
firesonthenews,smoke

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Community Interest
Interest

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Community Interest
Interest

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Community Interest
Interest
How do we engage
during crisis?

19. Brian Humphrey of LAFD:
“We can no longer afford to work at the speed of
government…we have responsibilities to the
public to move the information as quickly as
possible…so that they can make key decisions.“

21. On an average day:
• 47 billion (non spam) emails
• 95 million tweets on Twitter
• 30 billion pieces of content
shared on Facebook
Source. The Emergence of a New Asset Class. World Economic
Forum (2011)

24. Situational Awareness

25. Motivations
External
• Who are our customers?
• What is our core business?
• Who are our stakeholders?
• What are their expectations?
Internal
• Why are you a part of your organisation?
• What do you give up to be a part of it?
• What are your expectations?
• Is there a gap

26. Public policy is getting more complex
• People expect information as it
arrives
• Our previous good responses may
have created a culture of
immediacy in the community

28. “The world has entered the era of ‘mega crisis’ or
catastrophic emergencies’ whose force and
magnitude defy even the best laid plans and the
most robust response systems”
Professor Paul ‘t Hart

30. • Over the next 100 years
projected temperature rise is
likely to be greater than any seen
over the last 1000 years.
• There will be less water in South
Eastern Australia and
temperatures will rise by 1.4 –
5.8 decrees Celsius (BOM).

31. Provision of Advice
• Risk Management V Harm Minimisation

32. Inefficiency
• Duplication

34. Lessons Learnt from Victoria & Challenges
• Plain language, get away from jargon & make
information accessible
• Speed of change and expectations
• Challenge of getting information in and
making it into intelligence
• Is it enough that people discuss what they will
do, do they need to have a written plan
• Can community make decisions in times of
stress

36. Limittodirectattack
Parallelattack
Indirectattack
Defensive
Limittosafeoperationof
helicopters(~50km/h)
Potential:
• Loss of radio &
telco towers
• Loss of situational
awareness

37. Capacity of community to
receive and act on triggers

38. Focus on
suppression
Focus on life safety

39. Lew Short
Principal, Emergency Management & Resilience
Eco Logical Australia
0419 203 853
Lews@ecoaus.com.au
Lew Short
Lewshort14
http://www.slideshare.net/LewShort