GAREC 2009 a success 

The fifth Glob­al Ama­teur Radio Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Con­fer­ence, GAREC-2009, host­ed by the Japan Ama­teur Radio League in con­junc­tion with their Ham Fair took place on 24–25 August attend­ed by 29 rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 14 coun­tries. The event pro­vid­ed an ide­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to exchange ideas and prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ences with oth­er emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions groups.
Inter­est­ing pre­sen­ta­tions were made by Aus­tralia on their respons­es to Wild­fires, and detailed reports from Chi­na and Italy on their respons­es to the Earth­quake dis­as­ters in their areas. Also of note, the DARES group rep­re­sent­ing the Nether­lands report­ed on their achieve­ments through the year includ­ing involve­ment in an EU spon­sored flood exer­cise next month which will include inter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion. Fran­cois Botha ZS6BUU pro­vid­ed an inter­est­ing pre­sen­ta­tion cov­er­ing not just the activ­i­ties of HAMNET in South Africa but also IRESC the Inter­na­tion­al Radio Emer­gency Sup­port Coalition.
The IARU also announced the com­ple­tion of an emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions ‘hand­out’ which will be used to pro­mote our work to reg­u­la­tors and inter­na­tion­al bodies.
All Radio Ama­teurs were con­grat­u­lat­ed for per­form­ing so well in meet­ing emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions needs. As far as GAREC goes, thanks go to Alber­to IK1YLO, Joop PA1JAV and Fran­cois ZS6BUU for their excel­lent pre­sen­ta­tions and rep­re­sent­ing the Region so well at this conference.
Sep­po OH1VR and Ris­to OH3KX worked hard in bring­ing this con­fer­ence togeth­er and the JARL were excel­lent hosts!
More infor­ma­tion can be found at http://www.rientola.fi/oh3ag/garec/ and the pre­sen­ta­tions made can be down­loaded from http://www.rientola.fi/oh3ag/garec/material2009.html .
Alan VR2KY took many pic­tures and put them on his web-site for shar­ing with GAREC par­tic­i­pants and these can be found at http://www.clevermotion.com/20090824GAREC/
The venue for the next GAREC in 2010 has still to be decid­ed but Fran­cois ZS6BUU did announce that the event in 2011 will take place in Sun City South Africa, fol­low­ing the IARU Region 1 con­fer­ence in that year.
— Greg Mossop G0DUB IARU Region 1 Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Co-Ordinator.