Got a call this morning (Monday 19 July) from Gordo. "Cam can you come on a job this morning? It's a vehicle recovery." Replied "Yep' and was down at the unit about 10am. Gary and Russel also answered the request.

The job was out on Brindabella Road about half an hour out of Weston Creek. It was a black Nissan Navara ute which was headed along an access track blocked by tree fall halfway down a steep hill above the main road. It was stuck facing uphill and unable to gain traction after several attempts at rescue the previous night.

After a quick look around Gary recommended we let the air out of the tyres before jumping into the cab for an attempt at driving it straight out. Despite a bit of movement and a lot of effort from Russel with sticks and shovel no improvement was made on the previous nights effort and the Navara remained stuck. By this time Tugg 60 had also arrived and as a team we set up a turfer winch to haul it out. I ended up on the winch and quickly regretted going to the gym the night before. Pulling a bogged vehicle uphill is a lot harder than moving an unbraked 60 on the grass at Phillip.

After some assistance from some Tuggers members and a fair bit of whinging on my part the Nissan was extracted from the worst of the muddy track by turfer. It was the up to Gary to drive the Nissan up the rest of the track, tyres spinning and getting some sideways action to the top of the hill.

Job well done, the happy owner rewarded us all with egg and bacon rolls. Back at the unit by 1400.

On Saturday 15 May three teams from Woden SES participated in the 5th annual Navigation Canberra (NavCan) event.

The event was held at Murrays Corner, just past the Cotter. Teams between 3 and 6 compete to find Orienteering flags scattered across all sorts of vegetation, terrain. There was a lot of pine forest and tracks in the area, combined with tracks not listed on the maps as well as tracks that had been abandoned, made the navigating challenging at times.

Each flag / check point had points associated with it, ranging from 10 points right up to 100 - depending on the location, vegetation and terrain of the flag.

Thirteen teams entered, representing SES, RFS, Parks, ACTAS, however it was the team from Woden comprising of Cam, Nat and Chris who took the honour of coming in first. They blitzed all other teams, almost scoring twice as many points and coming just short of 1000 points.

Well done to all teams and to the organisers / helpers on the day.

Adrian Manning

Woden Unit was called into action on 5 February to assist in Storm and flood damage call outs.

Gordon was called into the IMT and Woden 60 stood up a team of five. Later a team of two in Woden 61 was also called up for logistical support.

Woden 60 attending five jobs, with one job involving both Woden and Rivers to lay just over 150 stand bags at the back of Fisken Cct in Kambah to prevent further water damage resulting from a natural earth water course being inundated with storm water.

The crews were called up from 3pm and stood down around 9pm. A total of 17 jobs were received across ACT.

Thanks to all those that helped out, looks like a bit more rain is forcasted over the next few days.

Adrian Manning

I was just walking out the door to work when Gordo gave me the call: 'Tree down on a house in Chifley'. Great, perfect timing I thought.

I managed to get Gary and Cam on the job and we all turned up to the depot on a sunny Thursday morning.

The job was right around the corner from the Depot (2km round trip) and on site we met up with Warren (SES DO).

At the back of the property we found a medium sized tree split at the base, which had then fallen onto the house. One part of which was resting up against the power line / service line.

The decision was made to call ACTEW and get advice on the power. While we waited we dropped / cut up the other side of the tree which was not near the power line.

It must of been good timing again as we'd just finished cutting the first part of the tree when ACTEW turned up. The opinion was, was that there was no danger if we went ahead with dropping the tree. While we did this the ACTEW rep watched over. 15 minutes later Gary skillfully brought down all the tree onto the ground.

After a quick clean up we headed back to the depot to clean up the gear / chainsaws. No more tasks.

Well done to Gary and Cam.

Adrian Manning

Woden Unit was called out everyday for SWD jobs between Friday 12 February and Monday 15 February.

In total 453 jobs were received, with Sunday 14th receiving the most jobs (about 300). Woden had two teams out throughout Sunday.

Woden was also involved in logistical support and IMT functions.

Some of the jobs may of been prevented if maintenance or clearing was undertaken by the homeowner.

There was a lot of new faces on call outs over the last four days, and some valuable lessons and further experience was received by many. The teams worked well together and a big thank you was passed down by the big boss.

Well done to all.

Adrian Manning