Division 5 USCG AUX 1SR

SO FN Fayer

Division 5
Financial Report
30-Jun-10
Begininning Balance $3,003.09
Deposits $0.00
Total $3,003.09
Expenses 0.00
Ending Balance $3,003.09
Receivables:
Flotilla 5-4 1st 1/4 dues
$54.00
Flotilla 5-10 1st 1/4 dues
$36.00
$90.00
Payables:
District 1st 1/4 dues $78.75
Expected Balance $3,014.34

District 1st 1/4 dues have since been paid.

MATERIALS REPORT

ANSC has the new AUXCOM course materials in stock. To order, flotillas must send in a list of auxliarists' names and EMPLIDs. ANSC will not simply ship a bunch of CDs.

Division supply of paper materials is dwindling somewhat; I will restock very soon. America's Waterway Watch materials are in short supply.

Nothing else major to report.

Submitted by ARUN DAS / SO-MA

From Shanghai.....

Good news guys, I got a job. More details to follow after the contract is signed.

Am helping 5-11 with their web site. Otherwise things are quiet on the CS side.

Rich

POSTED FOR LOU NOCK

Colleagues of Division Five:

Forgive this email format, but our monthly e-forum was, for some reason, inaccessible today for input. So -- here we go the old fashioned way of our 21st Century -- email.

My first attachment is my monthly Flotilla Commander Report.

My second attachment is my ICS Search and Rescue outline in connection with our upcoming Crisis Management Drill next month -- Operation "Icarus." I respectfully ask all our qualified coxswains and crewmembers to attend this coming Division Five meeting at the Harlem Yacht Club on City Island (at 1930 hrs.), Monday, July 12th, so we can all discuss operational assignments for the Drill. Indeed, all addressees who want to take part, in any capacity outlined in my second attachment, are encouraged to attend that meeting, please. I have reached out, as well, to flotillas in neighboring divisions, with which I interacted at last month's District meeting at Sector NY, and also to the good folks at Station King's Point.

Obviously the second attachment is all about Operations. So please consider that my SO-OP Report. I augment that now by adding that our division has been and continues to be very active this boating season, as I have been privileged to arrange for the issuance of many patrol orders and reimbursements. I congratulate and thank all our operational forces in our division.

Respectfully yours,
s/Lou
Louis L. Nock


ATTACHMENTS FOLLOW

POSTED FOR LOU NOCK

ATTACHMENT NO. !

FLOTILLA COMMANDER REPORT (5-10) (FC Lou Nock)

I was pleased to attend the quarterly District meeting at Sector New York this past month, at which our Division was extended congratulations on a job well done during our Wounded Warrior ICS Drill and Tribute. I understand from our colleague, SO-PA Winslow, that our Wounded Warrior exercise and tribute will be covered in the next issue of “The Navigator,” the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary’s national publication.

Everyone can be proud of this past month’s coverage of our Adopt-A-Cutter initiative, in “The Navigator.”

Several Flotilla 5-10 members performed admirably during Fleet Week.

Several of my flotilla members have either begun, neared completion, or completed their qualifications for Vessel Examiner, Program Visitor, and Boat Crew. I am glad to have completed my on-the-water-training for Boat Crew, and to have qualified as a USCG Radio Watchstander. I look forward to many long hours standing the watch at the country’s busiest USCG Station – Station New York. I am proud to say that my flotilla has now contributed three Radio Watchstanders to Station New York (FSO-CM Glikin-Gusinsky, FSO-OP Rothe, and me) and two more members, Barbara and Roger Sherman, have begun their Radio Watchstander training. Thank you FC Morningstar (5-3), IPFC George Engel (5-3), Ed Donovan (FC 5-2), Pete Rodriguez (FVC 5-2), and John Gallagher (DCDR DIV 5) for your mentorship of me during my Boat Crew on the water training. It was great learning from you all.

I have begun a flotilla initiative to explore how we can interact with the United State Power Squadrons in our area, as a force multiplier for boating safety and preventive SAR. I was pleased to attend last month’s Power Squadron meeting in Manhattan, and to have received a very warm welcome from its members and leadership.

I am proud to report that my flotilla’s recorded hours have grown substantially since my beginning of the year push to sensitize my members to the importance of recording their time expended in Auxiliary service.

My flotilla has contributed several Auxiliarists to Station New York’s Watch Quarter Station Bill (WQSB), in the billets of Radio Watchstander, Security Watch, Food Service, Public Affairs, Transportation, and Shipping and Receiving. The WQSB is Station’s way of having immediate telephone and email access to Auxiliarists who have volunteered, in advance, to alleviate Station’s important functions during times of emergency when active duty personnel are deployed to all points.

Yesterday, my Vice Flotilla Commander, Zachary Strauss, was interviewed by New York One News as New Yorker of the Week, on account of his regular service at Station New York. We extend our congratulations to him. Thank you DCDR Gallagher for also taking part in that interview process.

I am pleased to report that my flotilla colleague, VCDR Rich Turrin (FSO-CS), is doing fantastic in China. Rich – we wish you the very best.

POSTED FOR LOU NOCK

Lou's Second attachment ICS SAR report can be found here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/jnge4ztjhaz/ICS-SAR.doc

insert the above address in your browser and you will be prompted to download.

William C. Winslow
SOPA July report

I hope I can figure out how to split up the text of the Woun ded Warrior story for Navigator. This blog says it is too long; so i'ts going to be in pieces. Anyway, congratulation to all who participated. You can all stand tall.

“We Nailed It”

New York City Auxiliarists Pull Off Successful Anti-terrorist Operation
By William C. Winslow, ADSOPA, 1SR

“The question is not if there will be another terrorist attack on New York City,” warns John J. Gallagher, commander of Division 014-05, 1SR, New York, “but when.” Gallagher, who was at the World Trade Center 9/11, hopes his prophecy will not come true, but as the commander of the Manhattan-based division dubbed “from the Bronx to the Battery,” he wants his five flotillas to be the best prepared in the nation.

The big challenge confronting a voluntary organization like the Coast Guard Auxiliary is how do you do it? How does one Auxiliary division with a couple of hundred members forge a working coalition of professionals and volunteers in the country’s largest metropolis where everyone has their own agenda?

The answer, of course, is strong leadership and tight organization. But there was something more --- the ability to seize the initiative when unexpected opportunity arose.

Gallagher distinctly remembers the “aha” moment at an exploratory divisional meeting. The Coast Guard had just announced its Station New York base on Staten Island would be sponsoring Operation Wounded Warrior May 15 for nine severely injured Afghan and Iraq wars military personnel from Walter Reed VA Hospital in Washington. Coast Guard boats would ferry the vets to and from Manhattan where they would be honored by the city at Ground Zero and then at a BBQ back at the base.

“What a golden opportunity for us to use this event for our own training purposes,” Gallagher recalled. “Yes, we would honor the Wounded Warriors, but now all the people we want to work with will be in place too. Why not piggy back off the operation. Best of all,” he concluded, “the drill would be our show.”

Division 05 pitched the plan to Station New York which readily agreed. Then the hard work began to put dream into reality.

There had to be a master plan, and it came from the Department of Homeland Security’s Incident Command System (ICS). Anthony Reardon, 53, New York, a banker by profession, took over as incident commander. He created an hour by hour agenda along with maps of operations, a list of all personnel, including their duties and where stationed. Everyone received a copy.

Excitement mounted among the Auxiliary personnel from three divisions as the day drew near. Alex Krupnik, 011-11, Brooklyn, fine tuned his new sailboat preparatory to standing a SAR watch. Zach Strauss, 05-10, New York, sharpened his kitchen knives; while Barbara Sherman, 05-10, New York, rushed off to the hairdressers for a cut that would ensure her locks would fit under a regulation uniform cap.

On a beautiful blue sky spring Saturday at 0730 coxswain Robert Morningstar, 53, New York, and his crew nosed their Auxiliary patrol boat out of the marina at Liberty Landing, NJ into the choppy waters of the Hudson River. Destination? The North Cove Marina on the southern tip of Manhattan to rendezvous with Coast Guard vessels transporting the Wounded Warriors. In a real emergency this site, adjacent to Wall Street, would be a major command center. In fact, it was where Auxiliary boats headed to during 9/11 to ferry survivors to safety from the destruction of the World Trade Center towers.

Morningstar’s boat wasn’t the only one out there in New York harbor. In a major disaster their collective job would be to block off sea entry to the city through such choke points as the Ambrose Channel from the Atlantic Ocean, the East River from western Long Island Sound and the Hudson River north of the George Washington Bridge. This would free up Coast Guard personnel for other more pressing assignments.

Waiting at dockside was Louis Nock, 05-10, New York, deputy ICS commander. His job was to coordinate a large group of professionals and volunteers. He checked in with the harbor master to reconfirm the comings and goings of Coast Guard and Auxiliary craft. He reconfirmed with North Cove’s dock master slip assignments for CG boats and finalized radio frequencies with the NYC marine police. Finally, he assembled two large groups of volunteers to assign duties. Auxiliary members would be responsible for helping Coast Guard vessels in docking and lending assistance to Wounded Warriors disembarking. The NY Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), led by General Sidney Baumgarten, U.S. Army Reserve, Ret., would provide escort for the honorees both at dockside and Ground Zero. At every step of the way Nock kept the Staten Island ICS command center informed by radio.

“Would you like steak or turkey, sir,” the smiling man in chef whites behind the BBQ grill asked each of the more than 100 guests lined up for chow at the BBQ. His team had been laboring in the Coast Guard galley since sunup prepping for the event. Flipping steaks, and cleaning up afterwards, might not fit everyone’s definition of a successful ICS operation. But it was. In a genuine emergency Auxiliarists taking over the pots and pans department provide an essential service that frees up active duty Coast Guard personnel and other emergency workers.

In any operation of this complexity, good communications is a key to success. On a grassy hill overlooking Lower New York Bay at the Coast Guard Station John Kiernan, 05-11, New York, set up in a van his mobile communications center, powered both by batteries and electrical mains from the base. With a portable antenna whipping in the wind, he could talk to anyone anywhere through ham radio, AUXNET(backup radio network for CG and Aux), marine radio and VHF. In addition, Auxiliary watch standers freed up Gold Side personnel for other jobs.

“This was the vital link in the chain of command that made the whole exercise run so smoothly,” acknowledges Commander Gallagher. “I can’t stress this enough to any other Division around the country undertaking such an exercise.”

In a few snatched comments before everyone went home Gallagher thought for a minute about the day’s events before enthusing, “We nailed it. We all came together to function like a well run volunteer fire department, each one contributing to the overall success of the mission.”

Division 05 plans two additional exercises. In August Operation Icarus will simulate an air plane crash. In the fall, Operation Golden Cup will spotlight Auxiliary readiness before a gaggle of military brass attending the traditional football clash between the Coast Guard Academy and the Maritime Academy of Kings Point, NY.

“If we pull these two off as smoothly as Wounded Warrior, we will be prepared for any emergency,” Gallagher says proudly.

What made this operation so successful and with the same expectation for the next two that will make this Team Coast Guard Auxiliary even sharper? At the top is dedicated leadership with the consummate skills to pull it off. Learning the intricacies of the Incident Command System is no mean feat. Messers Gallagher, Nock and Reardon racked up many hours studying the on-line curriculum and passing tests. But classroom expertise is only part of the story. Application of theory to reality is the key to success.

Reardon put in many hours employing the organizational structure of ICS to meet the needs of personnel from a variety of agencies to meld rapidly into a common management system. But it fell to his deputy, Lou Nock, to organize and inspire the real people who would actually hit the ground in an emergency. He did his homework having conferred ahead of time, as well as the day of the event, to assure everyone knew what was expected. There were no hitches, despite the fact that North Cove, a private marina, was swarming with recreational boats, a sailing class, kayaks, a police launch and Coast Guard vessels; as well as thousands of tourists and locals out enjoying a beautiful spring day. He even found time to answer all the “what’s up” questions buzzing his way. Nock is now the incident commander for the next two drills. This, of course, is one of the goals of an exercise like this, to train new leaders.

At the end of the day the public address system suddenly crackled into life across the Coast Guard Station. “Will all Auxiliarists please report outside building ten,” boomed a male voice. As they assembled LTCDR Jason Aleksak, commanding officer of Station New York, strode out of the building.
“It was a seamless operation thanks to the Auxiliary”, he said, while passing out the coveted challenge coin. “I’m proud of each and every one of you,” he closed the day on a high.

## ## ##

Div 5 Monthly SO-VE Report
Submitted by W. Lipscomb
12 JULY 2010


VSC Year to date
as of 12 JUL 2010

Flotilla VSC Hours VSC Count
014-05-02 77.5 149
014-05-03 3 0
014-05-04 39 30
014-05-10 13.5 30
014-05-11 20 39



Div 014-05 Totals
VSC Hours 153
VSC Performed 249

In June 2009, Div 5 Performed 54 VSC. We set a goal for June 2010 for a 10% increase. Unfortunately we closed the month with only 52 VSC’s performed so we had a net decrease.

Total VE members is now up to 18 members as compared to 14 at the beginning of the year.

LCDR Alexsak recently performed marina Visit’s in his AOR and the general feedback we learned from the marina masters was that the Auxiliary is under represented at the marinas, especially in terms of VE’s. We need to correct this thus I have set flotilla specific goals for July for each flotilla based off of last years numbers. Please reach out to your flotilla members and see what we can do to at least meat the July goal if not exceed it.

Goals for July 2010 are as follows.

Flotilla VSC Goal
014-05-02 15
014-05-03 5
014-05-04 20
014-05-10 5
014-05-11 5


I have noticed that 05-10 still has a member who is VE qualified but not showing up in the Auxinfo Database.


* * * * * * * * * * * End of Report * * * * * * * * * **

Division 5 1SR RESPONSE/NAVIGATION SERVICES REPORT JULY, 2010

To: John Gallagher DCP 5
Cc: Rich Turrin VCP 5
Cc: Jim Reznick ADSO-NS SECNY-S


Navigation Services:
- Pete Rodriguez has volunteered to conduct a patrols to Verify PATON’s. Based on the request from SECNY we are going to focusing on the following PATONs during the first patrol:
- Steinway Creek Wharf Light
- Throgs Neck Special Purpose Lighted Buoy
- Harlem River No Wake Buoy D
- Harlem River No Wake Buoy E
- LaGuardia Airport Security Zone Day beacon A
- LaGuardia Airport Security Zone Day beacon B

I am going to coordinate with SO-OP Lou Nock for orders for the above. All of these PATONs can be verified in one patrol. The second patrol we can focus on the PATONs in New Rochelle Harbor

Response Department:

As SO-R I will be coordinating the reports and activities of OP, CM, and NS. Projects I have planned are as follows:

- Operations: I would like to get an updated list of Division 5 Operational Facilities, Coxswains and Crew. As the year is getting close try to set up Crews with Coxswains and with Facilities. The second phase of the project which is more complicated is setting up a response calling tree. Basically knowing on a day to day basis what Coxswains and Crew and what facilities we have that can sortie and at what notice.
- Communications: Get a list of the Land Stations and mobile stations for the division including Call signs, locations, and approximate times of operations. In addition set up a weekly check in a Division 5 net hopefully expand that to Division 12, Division 7, Division 11, Division 10 and Division 14, Where we have a VHF check in and SO-CM can coordinate a HAM check in.
- Navigation Services: Work with the flotillas to get a mobile AV team that can check and update photos of bridges, and near shore ATONS and PATONS.

I will report on the progress of these three initiatives as the year progresses.

Respectfully Submitted.


Anthony M. Reardon SO-R/NS Division 5 1 SR
“From the Bronx to the Battery”

Flotilla o5-04 July Report

Flotilla 05-04 has been busy this summer, our operations program is in full swing, we have been performing on the water training exercises on Monday nights.

We have just finished another PE Class on 7-July and 5 more boaters are educated and recieved their Boater Safety cards.

Jane Diodoto and June Haymon were very successful in the Gulf initiative they got pledges for $800.00 either in the form of cash and donated supplies. We are very proud of both members and thank you to all who made donations!

On June 12th and 13th we partipated in the North Minneford Yacht Club Community Fair. Our flotilla had a booth and we gave out boating safety material, performed vessel safety checks, and spoke to the boating public about the CGAUX.

Mike Raffel has been doing Marine Dealer visits and helping out with our PE classes.

At our last flotilla meeting 2 new members were sworn in: Albert Ebanks, John Szeligowski, congratulations!

End of report....

On Thursday 08 July 2010, I accompanied LCDR Jason Aleksak, Commander USCG Station New York on a multi-mission marina visitation. We used a station 25' SAFE patrol boat, operated by an active duty coxswain and navigator, and visited North Cove, Surfside 3 (Chelsea Piers), 79th St. Boat Basin Marina, and Liberty Landing Marina, in the Liberty State Park. The primary focus was to put a face to the name of the new Station Commander, and to evaluate and improve the USCG Auxiliary education, outreach and safety programs. Each of these marinas have very different business models, but were defintely unified in their appraisal of the "Wild West" nature of the New York Upper Bay and North River, the wakes caused by the New York Waterways ferrries and other traffic in this post-9/11 world. North Cove has a very large population of boaters (stemming from the 600-800 member Manhattan Sailing Club), together with the ongoing instruction of 70-100 persons each week in keelboat sailing programs, together with youth sailing instruction and summer camps. As such their fixed fleet of J-24 sailing vessels are of a shared use model, rather than individually owned. Chelsea Piers has about 75 slips for the summer recreational boating community, the Sailtime franchise of shared use (sail and power driven) vessels, together with larger dinner and year-round harbor cocktail cruisers. The 79th St. Boat Basin, a New York City Parks Department operated facility, has a large fleet of summer transients both on moorings and in slips, together with an evolving component of liveaboards. The shallow water in the marina itself keeps the deeper draft vessels largely on moorings or anchored offshore. Liberty Landing Marina has 600 berths for vessels of all denominations, and is probably the population of boaters in the AOR - and where the USCG Auxiliary can have the greatest public education and outreach benefit. 79th St. Boat Basin was holding a courtesy VSC session following our visit, hosted by FC Morningstar*, who met with us together with marina management. We met with the dockmaster in each location and exchanged introductions and business cards etc.
Specific areas for targeting:
79th St. Boat Basin: the large population of rigid hull inflatable dinghies used to ferry boat owners from the mooring field to their moored vessels were largely NOT in compliance with carriage requirements. We should provide the dinghy dock with amply Federal Carriage requirement booklets, and offer courtesy vessel examinations on a regular basis - including the dinghies.
North Cove: America's Waterway Watch awareness for foreign flagged vessels; vessel examinations of the J-24 fleet - which remain in non-compliance for fuel compartment ventilation and lighting;
Surfside 3 (Chelsea Piers) - Vessel Examinations. Management suggested especially targeting Wednesday and Thursday evenings in addition to our normal weekend programs, if possible.
Liberty Landing Marina - Vessel Examinations.