Mounted search and rescue

[Andrew Hennell <andrew@hennell.com.au>]

Hi all,
plans are well under way for a new Mounted SAR organisation in
south-east of New South Wales (NSW), Australia.  To give some size
reference, NSW is about the same size as Texas. Our search environments
will be forests (both plantation pine and natural eucalyptus) and
national parks, with some open farmland.  Generally the areas are hilly
- mountains.

Our role will be the search phase, and providing basic initial first
aid. Once located, other crews will attend to provide advanced medical
care and to recover the patient.

Initial minimum 'non-horse' training we're looking at includes:
- First Aid
- Map Reading & Navigation (including GPS)
- Land Search
- Communications
(all nationally-accredited courses in Australia which we have access to
training materials for)

We'll be utilising experienced endurance and trail riders as members,
and linking in with established clubs for these sports.

I'm hoping members of this list would be able to provide me is copies of
any operations manuals, standard operating procedures, policies,
training materials, etc. for their organisations.

Please let me know if you're happy for us to borrow sections of your
materials (which we will fully credit to you) or if they're provided
just 'for our information' to give us a starting point.

Anything can be sent to andrew@hennell.com.au

We're working from scratch over here, so any help is greatly appreciated!

Many thanks,

Andrew