jonmackeen

DART are always looking for new volunteers, if you go to this page on the website it will explain what they are looking for and what is expected of the volunteers. http://www.dartinternational.co.uk/become-a-dart-volunteer

The guys are back in the UK now and getting back into some sort of normality apart from the jet-lag. The deployment was an amazing success and couldn’t have happened without the support of our sponsors Glendale Managed Services Makita UK and Stein Products Limited and of course personal donations. We are now concentrating on fundraising for any potential future deployments, we have several volunteers ready to put their lives on hold and deploy and we have the kit, but money is the big issue. We have set up a JustGiving page https://www.justgiving.com/fec66e085c/ if anyone would like to help with fundraising. This weekend our Operations Manager Michael Metcalfe is #fundraising for DART by running the Plymouth 10k / Plymouth Half Marathon please donate to Michael's @JustGiving page https://www.justgiving.com/Michael-Metcalfe2/ every pound counts towards our next deployment, wherever it maybe in the world. We have several potential responders attending the next mandatory Safety and Security training weekend is being held over the weekend of the 24th – 26th April. If you’re interested in joining the team then please download and fill out a volunteer enrollment form on our website and return the email address on the website DART International UK

Final update - ‪#‎Vanuatu‬ Deployment Gary and Andy have now completed their deployment and are beginning the long haul home. They're scheduled to land at London Heathrow on Friday afternoon. Over the Easter period they returned to the more remote ‪#‎Nguna‬ and ‪#‎Emao‬ islands to complete work they began with those communities earlier in the deployment. Gary and Andy had another good reason for returning: Our ‪#‎chainsaw‬ sponsor Makita UK and our climbing equipment and ‪#‎PPE‬ sponsor Fletcher Stewart, Stein Products Limited, generously offered to donate the teams equipment to a worthy local project or community. As part of the deal, Gary and Andy would provide the recipients with the appropriate level of chainsaw safety and maintenance training. This is what Gary had to say about the recipients of the two Makita saws: 'Phillip (known as Fifi) is 21 and the father of a one year child. He lives on Nguna Island where he normally makes a living processing timber, using his father's aging chainsaw. Fifi lives in a village that was badly hit by the cyclone. His own house was badly damaged, yet he spent 2 weeks voluntarily clearing debris from his and the other four villages on the island. On our arrival he worked extremely hard in support of our operation and although he was already competent on a saw, he responded well to our training and quickly learned a range of different methods and techniques to become a safer operator. We donated one Makita Tools 50cc saw, along with full Stein PPE and fuel. As a result, Fifi is intending to take his skills and equipment to work on other islands. David is a carpenter with 3 children and partner to a teacher who helped us out enormously when we first arrived by putting us up in her classroom. Once again, despite his own home being badly damaged in the cyclone, David has been working tirelessly to help other villagers rebuild their homes and he took time out and worked hard to help us with what we were trying to achieve. His skill as a carpenter, combined with the help he was selflessly giving to others, convinced us that David would make good use of the donation. We give him full training and Stein PPE to go with his 50cc Makita chainsaw. The gratitude, generosity and selflessness of the Vanuatu people is truly humbling. These largely self-sufficient and resourceful remote island communities have had their lives turned upside down by Cyclone PAM. Yet they remain resolutely upbeat; genuinely interested in our very different lives and always ready to share what little they have with a smile and a handshake. Thanks to the generosity of Stein and Makita, Andy and I both feel we've left a real legacy by donating this equipment to Fifi and David.' Best Regards Mike Metcalfe Operations Manager

Some of the kids at the kindergarten that is now open thanks to the work our ‪#‎Vanuatu‬ deployment team have completed in removing dangerous trees and making the retained trees safe. A social media campaign using the hashtag ‪#‎VanuatuStillSmiles‬ is hoping to send a positive message about the country in the aftermath of Cyclone Pam

Vanuatu deployment update #8 Good morning all The team are now working at the College in Monmartre. The school is situated on high ground and took a heavy hit from the cyclone as you can see from the attached photographs. Gary and Andy’s work will once again focus on tree triage, making the area around the school safe from damaged and hanging tree limbs, opening up access and generally helping to get the school up and running again. If you’ve been following previous updates you’ll be aware that they’ve done some terrific work in helping several of the island’s schools to reopen. The priority has, of course, been to make the schools safe and they’ve done a great job in that respect, but there is also an important tree conservation aspect to their work. Many of the fruit trees the guys have been working on are hugely important to the schools and local community as a source of food. Without the team’s specialist climbing and arborist skills, many of those damaged trees would undoubtedly have been felled and lost forever, simply to make the area safe. Education in Vanuatu is very different to what we’re familiar with here in the UK. There are no free schools, both public and private schools are funded from fees. There are a number of primary schools in Port Vila and also some smaller villages have their own primary school. Most Vanuatu children are unable to continue their education beyond the primary school level. The main reason for this is due to low income wages. Most Vanuatu families have at least three children so it means they could pay 4 months salary just for school fees. Schools in Vanuatu usually have their own fruit gardens, vegetable gardens from which they grow vegetables, sweet corn, manioc, sweet potatoes, igname and taro and at least twice a week, students work in the gardens. In this way, boarding schools are able to save money by growing, cooking and eating food from their own gardens. It is also good because the students learn more than just academic subjects, they learn life skills as well, and not just how to grow plants, but every Saturday and Sunday they have to cook their own food as well because there is no cook on the weekends. Monmartre College where the team are currently working was the first French school in Vanuatu, and it’s still the best. It is a Catholic boarding school with 350 boys and girls from Year 7 to 10, another 150 boys and girls Year 11 and to 13, all of whom only get to go back to town once a month. The students and most of the teachers are Ni Vanuatu (this is what the indigenous people are called), but they do receive help from around the world. Before the cyclone, everyone lived on site; in a private house for the teachers and a large dormitory for the students. There are a few international schools like Port Vila International School which offeres education up to Grade 10 based on the Australian and New Zealand curriculum to children of expatriates, but most expatriates send their children to Australia and New Zealand for secondary school and for university. Best regards Mike Metcalfe Operations Manager DART International UK

29/03/15 16:30 Vanuatu deployment update #7 Good Afternoon all, The team have returned to the capital, having achieved some really useful work for the island community of Ngunu. Assisted by a team of 11 local people, they’ve cleared 2.5 km of main track and restored access to the village school. They also achieved some valuable training, showing people how to maintain and sharpen a saw. The following day they cleared a massive mango tree that was blocking access to Elle school and kindergarten, before crossing the island to another village school to remove dangerous branches and limbs that were hanging above the school grounds. Tomorrow, the police inspector in Port Villa is driving Gary and Andy out beyond the capital to some rural communities who have requested assistance from the DART team. The guys are working hard, but in good spirits and clearly enjoying lots of support and assistance from the local communities with whom they’ve been working. The headmaster of Central Villa school, where they were operating last week, has kindly once again offered the lads accommodation at his home while they’re in the capital. Mike Metcalfe Ops Manager More photos and updates on the website DART International UK

Hi Morten, thanks yes we have considered crowd funding and still looking into which one is best for us, as most of them apply a percentage charge to the money raised. We will be running some training courses in the near future including safety and security, emergency tree operations, survival, etc and will be selling some donated kit on our charity eBay account soon. http://www.ebay.co.uk/egw/ebay-for-charity/charity-profile/DART-International-UK/84891 Cheers

Thanks to Mark and Ian of Makita UK who came down yesterday and delivered the chain saws they have donated to DART. Our deployment teams are kitted out with Makita UK chainsaws, Samurai pruning saws from Buxtons Limited, Petzl harnesses and safety helmets from Lyon Work And Rescue and thanks to Glendale UK for their continued support. We have other kit sponsors in the pipeline which we'll announce shortly. We now have the kit and the volunteers, we just need money now so that we can be truly ready to deploy. Please donate to DART via the PayPal button on our home page DART International UK any donations no matter how small would be greatly appreciated.

Firstly thank you to Simmo for the advice it is all very important stuff and we have taken it all into account. We have very experienced guys on board that are medics as well as safety and security experts. All of the guys who will deploy initially have up to date immunisations. We have also linked up with SARAID who are also very experienced in the search and rescue sector. To the guys intersted in joining the team please go to our website and download a volunteer form, fill it out and send back using the email address on the website. DART International UK Thanks Jon Mackeen Vice Chairman DART International UK

An update from DART International UK. It's been a busy summer since we formally launched DART International UK as a registered charity at the Arb Show back in June. The first of several show appearances, with trustees and supporters crisscrossing the country to attend the APF, Emergency Services show and SALTEX, meeting potential sponsors, talking to arborists and raising awareness of what we're trying to achieve. The response from the Arb world and industry has been overwhelming. As word gets around, more deployment volunteers are coming forward, together with equipment donations, advice and generous offers of support from some of the biggest names in the business, including Glendale, Lifesaver, Buxtons, Lyon, Stein and Makita. Our first batch of response team volunteers completed Safety & Security training in July. Whether it's intentional violence towards aid workers in Syria or health risks surrounding the Ebola crisis in West Africa, the hazards of aid work have been headline news recently. DART International doesn't operate in conflict zones, but working in post disaster environments will always carry a degree of risk associated to civil unrest and criminality. Fortunately, many of those dangers are avoidable or, at the very least, can be significantly reduced through safety and security training and operational security management. Safeguarding our response team volunteers is a fundamental concern of the charity and with that in mind, 16 responders from all over the UK completed their mandatory pre-deployment Safety and Security training back in July. The course included travel safety, security management, personal security issues, helicopter handling drills, advanced first aid and much more. Just as importantly, it gave the volunteers an opportunity to work together as a team, exchange ideas and get to know the people they'll be working with in the future. Our next S&S course is likely to be a winter training event early in 2015 and we very much hope some of our trained responders will return to help us run the course and broaden their own experience. If your interest in becoming a response team volunteer please go to the website DART International UK and download and volunteer aplication form and email it back to the email address on the site and we'll be in touch in due course. We have the people. We have the equipment. All we need now is some money! Have you got a killer fundraising idea? How about getting together with your mates to have some fun and raise a bit of cash on behalf of DART. We're now set up for on line donations through Paypal giving and you can even raise money while buying and selling on Ebay. Check out the details on our website and Facebook page. It really couldn't be simpler; so what are you waiting for? Thanks Jon Mackeen Vice Chairman DART International UK

Just an update form the DART International UK team. We will be at the SALTEX show and the APF show, pop in and find out more or if you are interested in helping out in any way come and have a chat.

DART International UK are still very active and trying to get funds together to progress further. We held our training weekend a few weeks ago and had 16 guys turn up from all over the country. It was focused on safety and a security and was a resounding success. we now have a team of 25 who deployment ready, just getting the gear together now. There are plenty of updates on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Disaster-Arborist-Response-Team/686186644735901 or on our twitter feed https://twitter.com/DART_Arborists and our website DART International UK Cheers Jon Mackeen Vice Chairman DART International UK

We had a great time at the Arboricultural Associations (AA) ARB Show and had lots of positive interest from the industry and several volunteer forms filled out by potential responders. Now we will be selecting some of these to be invited to our training weekend in Cornwall. This training is crucial and only people who have attended and passed the training will be able to become responders. The training will include essential safety and security training which will be provided by our (ex-special forces) in house training team, along with general survival, first aid, etc training. Once again we would like to thank everyone who stopped by the stand at the Arb show, has helped out or replied to our posts and if you would like to become involved either by becoming a responder, operations support or by becoming a sponsor please email [email protected] or check out the website D.A.R.T. International Regards DART Internatioanl UK team Follow us on Twitter @DART_Arborists or like us on Facebook

Right it's time for an update from DART International UK. We have been very busy behind the scenes. Recruiting and setting up the management team, filling out numerous forms, getting the website up and running, along with the Facebook and Twitter pages. Whilst we have been working full time and some extra throughout the many storms we encountered in the SW during February as well as family time. We are now officially a Charity and registered with the Charity Commissions as DART INTERNATIONAL UK Registered Charity Number 1157168. We now have a board of 5 trustees, all of whom are very experienced, qualified and knowledgeable in the arb industry or humanitarian aid response. Gary Bailey is the Chairman Mile Metcalfe is the Secretary Jon Mackeen (Me) Vice Chair, Treasurer Steve Atkins Trustee Ian Tagima Trustee We have our first corporate sponsor, Glendale Services, who have redesigned our corporate logo and website. Thank you to all at Glendale for all the amazing work you have done for us. We are going to be at Arboricultural Associations (AA) ARB Show on Friday 6th and Saturday 7th June at stand T6 kindly donated to us by the AA. Come and meet some of the team at the show. We are officially launching the DART concept at the show and will be presenting at the contractors workshop. If you are interested in getting involved come along to the show and pick up a volunteer enrolment form, let us know your skills and we will add you to the list of potential volunteers. The forms are also available to download on the new website, please return completed forms to [email protected] After the ARB Show we are going to go through the received volunteer forms and invite the most suitable candidates to our first training weekend in July. Please check out the website D.A.R.T. International like us on Facebook search for Disaster Arborist Response Team of follow us on Twitter @DART_Arborists for further updates Thanks to all who have been in contact in the past and we will be in touch very soon. If we missed anybody during the last email roll out then please contact us again or download the form from the website. Some exciting time are ahead, see you at the ARB Show We will endeavour to post further updates here as and when we have them. Regards Jon