See you out there.

Boots and Blisters

by Tom Russo

Paul Donovan, James Newberry and I met on 27 December 1999 to set the training schedule for the year. We mapped out the following training and evaluation schedule for the first seven months of the year:

Month	Training		Evaluation
January	Low Angle Litter Handling, Saturday15 January	Litter handling, Sunday 9 January
February	GPS Practice, Saturday 12 February	Land Nav, Saturday 5 February
March	Tracking awareness, Sunday 12 March	Search techniques, Sunday 5 March
April	Subject TBD, Saturday 15 April	Litter, Saturday 8 April
May	ESCAPE, Friday-Sunday, 5-7 May	Land Nav, Sunday 21 May
June	Land Nav, Sunday 11 June	Search Techniques, Saturday 3 June
July	Mock Search, Saturday 15 July	Litter, Sunday 9 July

Note also that the UNM EMS Academy Wilderness First Responder class begins on March 25th and occupies consecutive Saturdays through May. We will be counting the WFR class as Cibola training, and will credit any member completing the class with three trainings, one for March, one for April and one for May. As this went to press we learned that there are already enough people signed up for the class to guarantee that it will happen, and there is still room for more. You can still sign up even after the January 12th "deadline" --- that date was the cutoff for the decision on whether to hold the class or not --- so if you haven't signed up yet you can contact Karen at the EMS Academy at 272-5757 to register. The course cost is $300.

Once again I ask that if you plan to attend any evaluation that you make sure you have indicated in a voicemail message that you are interested in showing. Most evaluations require a minimum number of attendees to be run at all, and if there are more than a certain number they require multiple evaluators if they are to take a reasonable amount of time. Please help us to schedule things well by letting us know what we have to work with.

It has been the policy of the team for the last two years that trainings attendence only counts for purposes of determining field eligibility if you arrive less than 15 minutes after the training starts. This has seldom been a problem, but in the few instances where it has there have been problems documenting it to the satisfaction of all involved. To avoid unpleasant surprises in the future, please note that the sign-in sheets for trainings will be taken up at the designated start time of a training. If you arrive late, you must request the sign in sheet from the instructor when you get there; yes, this means you have to interrupt the training to sign in after the training has started. No sign-ins will be allowed after 15 minutes, and members not signing in will not receive credit towards minimum training requirements. Please help us minimize disruptions of trainings by arriving well before the advertised start time.

As it was last year, the Mock Search in July will begin with a team callout through the phone tree. Once again, I expect to issue the page in the evening (somewhere between 5 and 7) of the 15th, so please use the six months between now and then to mark your calendars and clear your plates so that you are available for the callout if you wish to participate in the mock search.

I encourage everyone to attend as many trainings as possible, not just the bare minimum of two every six months. The purpose of our holding team trainings is not merely to familiarize people with the basics of search and rescue --- most of us seem to get that under our belts in the first year or so of being a member --- but to get everyone used to working together as a team, to make sure all of us can have confidence in each others' abilities, and to share our individual perspectives with our teammates.

PRESIDENT

Cy Stockhoff is introduced as the instructor for the WFR course this spring. He gives a talk on the course and answers questions. The course gives dual certification of Wilderness and First Responder, is 76 hours long, 9 Saturdays from March 25-May 13 not including May 2 (which is Escape), cost is $300, sign up by Jan. 11. We need enough signed up for the course to be offered.

Ballots for 2000 officers are collected and tabulated. Officers elected same as 1999: President Larry Mervine, Vice-President/Training Officer Tom Russo, Membership Officer Susan Corban, Secretary David Dixon, Treasurer Mike Dugger.

MEMBERSHIP

TREASURER

V-P/TRAINING OFFICER

SAR Support Training on Dec. 10-11 also counts as CSAR Training.

PACE exam is Sat. Dec. 11 in Santa Fe.

Wilderness First Responder course at the Santa Fe Institute is from Jan. 4-12.

Discussion/comments on November Sound Support Training. All agree that it was useful and very good.

STATE

OLD BUSINESS

In review of our budget for last year, I find that we spent within our targets in each of the budget categories. Administrative expenses were about 92% of projections, while equipment expenses were just 52% of expenses. I'll be refining these numbers a bit as I complete the books for calendar year 1999, but it looks like our projections can be modified a little for 2000. The detailed spending history I've been able to maintain with our accounting software has made this possible.

While on the subject, I am looking for a few people to help me out with the Treasurer's job this year, and by doing so get familiar with the task. It is really not that difficult or time consuming (about 4 hours), and this is one of the officer's jobs that can be done on your own schedule. The only requirements are to be a member and have access to a computer. Please see me if you are interested.

Finally, we will have a budget committee meeting late in January to decide on spending limits in major budget categories. This is your chance to have input on how the team spends money. The budget meeting will take place on Monday evening, January 31. Time and place will be announced at the meeting, or feel free to call me for details.

Who's Who and New

by Susan Corban

Please give a hand to Art Bisbee and Brian Murray. They are now active Cibola members.

Gearing Up

by Mike Dugger

Many thanks to James Newberry for accepting the job of new Equipment Committee chairperson. He will be taking care of our rescue gear in the cache (litter, ropes, technical hardware, etc.) plus providing expendable items to replace things we use routinely on missions (trail tape, batteries, etc.). It is my pleasure to hand this job over to James. I'm sure he will do an outstanding job.

Public Relations

by David Dixon

Recruitment will continue to be the primary focus of the P.R. Committee in 2000 although we won't turn down an occasional outdoor presentation if they beg the Fireside crew. Committee meetings will again be the last Thursday of most months and everyone is always welcome. Look for a posting in the newsletter. It's a good excuse to try the new lower-fat (?) cinnamon roll at the Frontier.

Hope all of you have a great search year.

Member Spotlights

Frances Robertson holds a Bachelor of Music from North Texas State University and a Masters in Liberal Studies (Humanities) degree from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She began her career, when young and foolish, teaching music, but while she still had her wits about her, switched to English. She has taught Kindergarten through high school and English at Albuquerque Academy for the past 19 years. No one was more surprised than she was when she received the Slevin Award for her work at Albuquerque Academy.

From 1965-l990 she performed extensively (alto soloist) with the New Mexico Symphony, the Orchestra of Santa Fe, The Southwest Opera Company, and the Fourcorners Opera Company. If you are old enough, you could have heard her "canyon wall-breaking voice" (better than the sharpest whistle) in Santa Fe at the Bach Marathon, in performances of Beethoven's 9th, Mahler's #2 and #9 in Albuquerque and on tour, in Messiahs all over the state, in numerous comic roles from Gilbert and Sullivan productions (Buttercup, Iolanthe, Ruth, Katisha, to name a few), Carmen in Bizet's Carmen (twice), Suzuki in Puccini's Madame Butterfly (twice), Regina in Blitzstein's Regina, Anna in the King and I, and so on.

In 1990 she was a victim of an outdoor virus that keeps her out of the practice room and in the great outdoors. She has served as president of the New Mexico Mountain Club, and regularly leads hikes for that group. Her passion is learning and experiencing the outdoors which includes hiking the Grand Canyon, the Utah canyons, climbing Colorado l4rs (she has bagged 36 out of the 54, but they're getting harder), becoming competent with map and compass, improving her search techniques and climbing skills. She spent Y2K in the Grand Canyon on her eighth backpack there, fearing only that an electrical short would break the dam. In March she returns to Grand Canyon to explore the Clear Creek area. At present she is lining up a GC rim to rim, sleep, rim to rim hike for May 28-31. She has no idea if she can actually do this hike, but she is ever the optimist. In her second life she intends to become a NOLS instructor right out of college, climb Everest and Kilamanjaro and qualify for an Eco-Challenge before she is 30. Until then she continues to work-out at the gym in order to maintain the limited fitness she has.

Web News

by Know Gnus

The team website can be accessed at http://www.cibolasar.org/

Statewide SAR Notes

by Mike Dugger

I attended a PACE committee meeting on Saturday, January 8 in Santa Fe. This committee is appointed by the state search and rescue resource officer, and is responsible for scheduling SAR management training and basic field certification sessions around the state. The latter is required of Cibola SAR prospectives to become active members. The next scheduled evaluation session will be at the annual SAR conference in May. Our plan is to have a "drop in" evaluation session there, where volunteers can stop by on Saturday or Sunday and take the tests. Of course, if there are a sufficient number of members needing evaluation before May, a special session may be scheduled. We would need about a dozen people taking the evaluation to schedule a special session.

As for other training opportunities, the PACE committee is trying to search out details on Incident Command training that is offered by other organizations around the state, and publicize these on the SAR web forum. Another Section Chief class is planned for this October 21-22, at the Emergency Operations Center in Santa Fe. I will provide details on other events as I hear about them.

Disclaimer and Copyright notice

the Editors

The contents of this newsletter are copyright © 1999 by their respective authors or by Cibola Search and Rescue, Inc., and individual articles represent the opinions of the author. Cibola SAR makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in these articles, and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. Articles contained in this newsletter may be reproduced, with attribution given to Cibola SAR and the author, by any member of the Search and Rescue community for use in other team's publications.