Emergency Preparedness (OS3)

Note: This document was passed as National Council Proposal SVP-02 at the National Council Meeting on November 8, 2008.

Purpose

This exercise is intended to help assess the ability of our Collegiate Chapters to communicate in an emergency situation.

Goals

This project has 3 main goals:

1. To identify effective methods of communication during emergency situations;
2. To raise awareness of the need for emergency preparedness; and,
3. To assess the degree to which Chapters are currently prepared to meet the challenges presented by an emergency situation.

Overview

The National Office will initiate the exercise by e-mailing a message to Chapter Officers. The exercise will require a message to be passed to every Active Member and Initiate of the Chapter. Once every Member and Initiate has been contacted, the Chapter will report back to the National Office.

The following data will be collected from Chapters:

• When was the initial message from the National Office received?
• How long did it take to make the first contact after receiving the initial message?
• How long did it take to contact the entire Chapter (from first attempt to contact a Member/Initiate to last response received)?
• How many Active Members are there in the Chapter?
• How many Initiates are there?
• What methods were used to contact/respond? Please list in order of most used to least used (telephone, SMS/text, instant message, social networking site, e-mail, etc.).
• Were you unable to reach any Members or Initiates?
• Did you feel that your Chapter was successful in this exercise?
• Do you have any suggestions for improving emergency communication within the Chapter?