On Thursday 15 October, Boscastle Community & Recreation Centre welcomed residents, emergency services, community organisations and resilience partners for Forrabury & Minster Parish Council’s Community Resilience & Emergency Preparedness Open Day.
The event marked an important stage in the development of our Community Emergency Plan — taking work that has been happening behind the scenes and bringing it directly into the community.
Throughout the afternoon, residents were able to talk to the organisations involved, ask questions and take part in practical activities covering flooding and household preparedness, power cuts, communications, CPR and defibrillators, coastal emergencies, community support and volunteering.
It was also an opportunity to explain some of the practical arrangements within our Community Emergency Plan, including our Community Emergency Hub at Boscastle Community & Recreation Centre and the red and green resident leaflet system recently distributed to local households.
The Open Day hasn’t happened in isolation.
Over the past two years, the Parish Council has been considering how the risks facing our community are changing and what we can do locally to become better prepared.
Our new Developing Community Resilience video tells some of that story — from the lessons of the 2004 Boscastle flood, through concerns about changing communications and the withdrawal of the traditional telephone network, to the development of our Community Emergency Plan and the work now taking place across the parish.
It also explains an important lesson we’ve learned along the way: resilience isn’t simply about producing an emergency plan. It’s about people, relationships, local knowledge and preparing before something happens.
The Parish Council would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who attended the Open Day, and to all the emergency services, organisations and resilience partners who gave their time and expertise to support it.
Our thanks also go to the many local people and volunteers who helped make the afternoon possible — from setting up and providing refreshments to helping with transport and supporting the event throughout the day.
The Open Day may be over, but our work on community resilience isn’t.
We’ll continue to develop the Community Emergency Team, build our network of volunteers, raise awareness of the Community Emergency Plan and help households understand some of the simple things we can all do before an emergency happens.
If you received the Community Emergency Plan information through your door, please keep it somewhere safe and easy to find. In the coming weeks we’ll also continue explaining different parts of the Plan and how residents can get involved.
Because community resilience isn’t something that suddenly begins when an emergency happens.
It’s built beforehand — and it starts with community.
Find out more at forraburyminsterparishcouncil.org.uk/emergency.
