NEXT month Mundaring SES is holding a recruitment drive and local manager Rod Potter is calling on the community to get involved.

In January the unit assisted people after a major storm, which left a trail of destruction throughout the hills and beyond and they also assisted with bushfires in Lower Chittering, Bindoon and Gingin this season.

Last week on Wear Orange Wednesday (WOW) Mr Potter said his family had been living in the hills now for 36 years and it was important to give back to the community.

He said Mundaring SES needed more volunteers to increase their capacity to help the community.

“With the big storm we had go through the Mundaring area a couple of months back we had 72 callouts in 24 hours and the public were very supportive of us,’’ he said.

“We had people coming out and offering us drinks and a bit of food and so on and we got some good back up for that but we’re there basically 24hr a day 365 days a year on call one way or another.

“We’re doing a recruiting drive in June and we’re going to have a fairly hard push at getting new people in there.

It’s (also) getting the right people, the people who are community-involved and like to be able to be part of the community.

“We also have a good social life with the unit as well so it’s all part of the – I keep saying – part of the community we need to give back to.’’

On WOW day some Brethren church members had volunteered to cook a barbecue for the Mundaring SES volunteers, who afterwards would continue their training.

Mr Potter said his main skills were search, navigation, four-wheel-driving, chainsaws, water deviation, sandbagging, all the basics – all the sort of stuff they taught on a regular basis.

“Basic general rescue (BGR) covers all the things like going up ladders, tying knots and ropes, use of hand tools, flood mitigation like sandbagging, generators all the basics that we need to be able to do.’’

“Once volunteers have got that sort of qualification if we get a call out we can call these people up and say right we’re going out to do such and such you’re qualified to do that and you’re covered under insurance because you’ve got that qualification.’’

A Mundaring SES member for 12 years, the semi-retired sales manager said he was in the SES office regularly doing paperwork and following up emails.