Update #2 on FSM/TC Maysak and call for volunteers

When you have been away from the deployment for a while (because you have been asleep for example) you read back through the Skype chat window to see what was happening while you were out. This is a great thing to do because there is a regular list of new people joining the deployment, people returning and new things being found.

When you are actually working on collecting the data you can miss all this. It can be frustrating as you hunt around to find any more information on a possible construction company (like I did last night) and turn up nothing. It can feel like you are making very slow progress indeed.

But the great thing about the Standby Task Force is that you are not alone. You are part of a team. As a team we are making great progress. The picture we are building up of the affected states of FSM is really rich and useful and more information is pulled out every hour.

One of the great things about the team is the wide range of skills and perspectives. We have people who know the pacific islands well and people who have never travelled there. We have people who can transform polygons to shapefiles and back again and people (like me) who would not know one end of a polygon from another. We have people who have worked on many deployments over years and people joining their first deployments. And this diversity is our real strength. There is always someone who knows how to do the task you need doing. There is always someone who can take a fresh look at a something you are searching for. There is always someone who can help.

We asked Nick Brown from YPDR (he’s also a SBTF volunteer) to give us a sense of how your work will be used.

He said:

“The research work that the volunteers of the Standby Task Force have done is extremely impressive and humbling. With their skills and networks, they’ve been able to find information we would never have found without them.”

“The research and mapping work done by the Standby Task Force is invaluable to our team in the field who is focused on distributing aid where it is needed most. The work of Standby Task Force’s volunteers allows us to focus on getting the job done.”

“The volunteers of the Standby Task Force have found countless sources of hard to find information that we didn’t know existed. Their support is helping the team in the field be as efficient and effective as possible.”

Our deployment ends 22:00 UTC on June 26 2015. There is still plenty of work to do.

It’s a great deployment to join if you’re quite new to SBTF. We have a training room for new volunteers and a bunch of very helpful experienced volunteers here to help and support you.

Sign up for the deployment here

Any questions, contact Joyce or Ben from the core team.

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Or just ask in the general Skype chat room.

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