SAR Forum for everyone
Seeing an announcement at the end of last week made me think. As an IT-y sort of person I spend a lot of time online and I spend a lot of time online looking for SAR stuff.
There are a number of different SAR resources out there, differing in quality, reputation and usage. What there isn’t is one, all-encompassing SAR forum in the UK [as was pointed out to me by a good SAR colleague and friend].
Don’t misunderstand me, most of the forums suggest that they cover everything, and it was probably the aim of the people setting them up that they should include everyone. But therein lies the problem. Generally these forums and websites are set up by individuals or groups such as ALSAR.
In this way they limit themselves to one group, and others joining the group will often find themselves in a minority and over-shadowed by another SAR discipline.
What it needs is for all SAR disciplines in the UK to get together and create one all-encompassing SAR Forum. The obvious place for this would have been the UK SAR website. But I can’t see that happening. [I don't know if I can see everyone getting rid of their individual forums either but that's a different matter!]
Perhaps a group of individuals from all the different SAR groups could get together and create it; promote and develop it etc. It would have to include everyone from the development stage though – MR, ALSAR, RNLI, Coastguard, Cave Rescue, and so on and better still support from each group too.
Just my thoughts anyway… I’m sure some of you have some too.
November 25, 2009
· 
Robert Bradley · 
11 Comments
Tags: ALSAR, Cave Rescue, Coastguard, Department of Transport, Mountain Rescue, MR, RNLI, SAR Forum, UK SAR · Posted in: Search Thoughts
11 Responses
There used to be a forum call SAR-World but it never really took off because we couldnt get people to migrate away from their personal/local/team based forums.
Perhaps now is the time to try again.
If only I know a few IT people to make it happen…
Tell you what – I’ll donate the domain name and hosting, if a few of you want to get it off the ground!
Sure, we could have an IPB forum up and running in a couple of hours.
Then we recruit moderators to run the various forum areas. Start small with a general discussion and news areas and build on that. The trick is to build up as it gets bigger rather than trying to provide everything on day 1.
If you drop me a line via email I’ll work with you on getting this up and running, it’s success depends on how we promote it though.
Sounds like a plan, count me in.
Question is though; how do we promote it to get everyone involved, as per the original post?
I just do the technical stuff, I’ll have to leave the real thinking to you
Seriously though, promoting is one thing, getting people to use it is another.
How about;
free sarworld e-mail addresses?
sarworld merchandise – t-shirts/scarfs etc.?
largest directory of world sar websites? (DMOZ style – all person selected/edited?)
I’ll keep thinking…
He’s on a roll
How about vehicle stickers and then start sending them out to all the individual SAR teams to attach them to their vehicle fleet.
Good thinking. Also a variety of banners for teams websites.
Desperately need a graphic designer or similar, looking to do some free work for their portfolio….
Facebook, of course, is a good way to promote things, once its in place.
I keep coming back to the idea of the world’s directory of SAR websites. There’s a project for a couple of people – I’m sure we could find some volunteers….
What else?
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