Mounted search and rescue

[Una Smith <una@lanl.gov>]

Paul Fleming wrote:
>In my unit if you don't met the required training objectives with and 
>without your horse you don't get certified. If you are not certified 
>you don't get called out.

There is a wide gap between a new MSAR recruit, and one who
is ready for call-outs.  The challenge that many MSAR units
face is how to get more volunteers through the pipeline from
recruit to ready for call-outs.  Given enough new recruits,
you can just ignore this problem and allow or even encourage
>90% of the recruits to drop out, leaving only the dedicated
SAR types for you to train.  The population base for my unit
is too small for us to afford this luxury.  The downside for
us is that we have some members who never have and probably
never will participate in a SAR mission...but that is not a 
major downside, it just means that the effective size of our
unit is smaller than its nominal membership.

        Una Smith
        Santa Fe County Sheriff's Posse, in New Mexico