Western Shore

Troop 1780 from Waldorf, MD recently had a group of Scouts and leaders go overseas to Europe on a home grown high adventure. The crew flew into Munich International Airport and spent the day in Munich at a local hotel to get over jet lag and to visit the city. Early the next morning we then made our way down to Krimml, Austria through a series of train rides lasting about 5 hours. Once in Krimml and after checking into the lodging we walked up to the top of the Krimml Falls which are the tallest waterfalls in Austria. The next day we started on the bicycle portion of the trip as we biked 38 miles to Zell am See, Austria. We arrived early enough that we had time and explored a bit of the town and ate the ‘best waffles in Europe.’ So far, we haven’t found any that have come close.

On the following day we traveled from Zell am See up to Lofer, Austria and spent the night in St. Martin just outside of Lofer. The next day was the leg up to Salzburg, Austria. Another early arrival gave us some time to take in the sights. We had now left the Alps and over the next three days we peddled along more farm land as we headed up to Berghausen, home to the longest castle in Europe. The following day brought us to Obernsburg am Inn, Austria where we enjoyed an older town square with cobble stone streets and observed a small celebration for the end of the school year. The last day was spent going to Passau, Germany where the Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers all meet. Our lodging was on a pedestrian street with easy access to cafes, ice cream parlors and restaurants. We had clocked up 205 miles of peddling over the past 6 days.

After a good night of sleep, we then took a train and bus to our camp site located in Berchtesgaden, Germany. The group split up at this point and did different activities including a tour of a salt mine, a day trip back into Salzburg for a visit to Mozarts home, a boat ride on Lake Konigssee and a trip to see the famous Eagles Nest.

We returned via Munich for the last night in the same local hotel and one last chance to visit the city before heading home.

by Kelly Phipps

Think of a group project you’ve been part of. (For some of you this will be a very fresh memory.) Let’s say your group of four members was assigned a problem or a topic, and each member was responsible for some aspect of the project. On some date, your group’s final product was presented to the rest of the class. The chances are good that one or more of your group members didn’t help in data collection, waited until the last minute to write the report, or was sick on presentation day. Final group project grade: C+.

Now imagine your group had twelve members, they lived in five different counties, and they only communicated by email or radio. They were also part of another team that was doing a similar but separate project, and all your separate projects tied into one bigger project. With those kinds of conditions, how much planning and coordination do you think needs to be done? (Hint: a lot.) And what do you think the odds of success are? With enough preparation and communication, those odds are very high.

Members of EMS Explorer Post 60, in cooperation with the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), took part in Operation Epic Collaboration, a kind of massive group project. This exercise tested the ability of 12 regional hospitals to respond to multiple simultaneous mass-casualty incidents. At each hospital, actors played “victims” of those incidents and Emergency Departments set up overflow triage rooms, prioritizing and treating patients by severity of injury. Each hospital’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) tracked patients, their locations, and hospital resources. Radio operators provided communications when other channels failed. Periodically, pre-recorded news “updates” were played on TV.

For months before the exercise, at meetings and via email, exercise planners set up scenarios and “injects,” events that required some kind of reaction by exercise participants. Hospital team members were assigned roles, trained, and collected the resources they would need to perform their part of the group project. Calendars were coordinated, supply carts were assembled, and cables were installed. Finally, the exercise commenced, and the group demonstrated their project.

After all the “patients” had been taken care of and the exercise was officially ended, an evaluator sat down with the whole hospital team to grade the group project. Team members identified flaws in the plan and variables that might improve future projects. In the end, Charles Regional Medical Center was commended for their overall performance, teamwork, and organization, and specifically for including amateur radio in their emergency action plan. Final group project grade: A+.

For more information on Explorer Post 60, send an email to Kelly Phipps, Post Committee Chair, at micu60explorers@gmail.com.

For more information on Amateur Radio, send email to Bob Davidson at kb3kow@arrl.net.