Werribee Wins Australasians, Feilding Leads NZ
For the second year straight, Werribee has won the Australasian Road Rescue Challenge - this year held in Upper Hutt from 14 to 17 July. The New Zealand teams - led by Feilding - put in an excellent effort.
Up until the prizegiving dinner at the conclusion of the Challenges, none of the teams had a clue as to where they were on the table. Teams get feedback from the assessors immediately after each scenario, but the actual standings are secret squirrel while the events are taking place.
That’s why when the underdog Feilding team was awarded second place in the Immediate Rescue, members were pleasantly surprised, but weren’t expecting to make any more trips to the stage. “When we heard our name called, we were rapt to have placed that high in an event,” said Team Leader Glenn Davies. “But when we got back to our seats, we all took our jackets off because we didn’t think we’d be receiving any more awards.”
On the contrary, by the end of the night, they had made their way back to the stage four more times – one of them to receive the second place overall award for the Australasian Road Rescue Challenge.
Morrinsville, Whitianga, and Greytown have consistently been the top-performing teams in New Zealand in recent years, so Feilding placing ahead of them may have come as a surprise to some.
The Morrinsville team placed 3rd behind Feilding, and has placed second in the Australasians for the past two years. Team Leader Andrew “Skinny” Lingard, didn’t seem hung up on the result. He said the scenarios are luck of the draw and on any given day, it is any team’s to win.
“The learning experience was just awesome,” he said. “There’s no way you’d get that quality of experience unless you participated in these events. And that’s what it’s about. We want to help other teams along the way, give them tips, and get them participating in Road Rescue Challenges.”
Denis Fenwick, Greytown’s Team Manager, added: “As they say, you never stop learning, and both our new and seasoned team members took much from the Challenge and hope to share those new skills among our local rescue agencies in our area. Mixing with teams from around the world brings home to us the importance of the work we all do.”
Earning second place makes Feilding eligible to go to the Worlds in London next year. “We missed out on going to the last three or four Australasian Challenges, “ said Davies. “But now that we’ve placed in the top two, we’ll be looking forward to experiencing another World event.
“There are three of us who have been competing since the team started up in 2003. We trained up a few of the younger members of our brigade to keep the team going as some of our more experienced members look to become assessors. There will be a slight change of plans now – we’ll have to keep training and adjust our game plan to be competitive in the World event in London.”