How many of you have ever heard someone ask, “What does the MRA do for me?” If you’re like me, it’s happened more than once, and at least in my experience, it usually comes from people who are new to mountain rescue. Having been asked this question many times over the years, I realized I was never giving the same answer twice. There are just so many benefits, so whenever someone would ask, I would rattle off the dozen or so that came to mind first. After thinking about it for a while, I came to realize that MRA membership doesn’t just afford benefits to the individual team members; there are at least three other groups of stakeholders. These include the team as a whole, the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) over that team, and the wilderness users who need our help. One of the biggest advantages of MRA membership that benefits all four groups of stakeholders is the exchange of ideas and information among the various teams and team members. Information can include the development of new techniques, accounts of accidents and near misses, equipment reviews—information that will enable all of us to do our jobs better and safer. Information that benefits all four groups of stakeholders. Nothing is static in mountain rescue, and techniques are constantly evolving. Because there are plenty of individuals within the MRA who are taking a closer look at how their teams do things, and who are actively researching better ways to do things, being part of the MRA gives you and your teammates easy access, not only to the techniques, but also to the people who are developing them. Dissemination of that information to the teams—your team—can come from several different directions. Perhaps the most obvious is the June MRA meeting, where the host team creates training opportunities in many different mountain rescue-related disciplines. In addition to the Friday and Saturday training opportunities, there are invariably two or three days of pre-conference activities offering even more opportunities. The MRA even offers scholarships to help encourage new people to attend the meeting. The International Technical Rescue Symposium (ITRS) is another venue where MRA members exchange information and ideas. At ITRS, though, it’s not just the mountain rescue community; people from many different rescue organizations (fire rescue, cave rescue) are also present and share ideas and techniques. The MRA is a longtime supporter of ITRS, and individuals from MRA teams are frequent presenters at ITRS. The MRA is also an active member of the International Commission for Alpine Rescue (ICAR), and every year MRA representatives attend the annual meeting to exchange information on techniques and equipment with representatives from other nations. The MRA’s ICAR delegates then summarize the information and make it available to MRA members via the ICAR Reports, which are available on the MRA website and in The Meridian.
The Meridian is another means by which the MRA shares information on techniques with its members. In addition to ICAR reports, the Meridian also contains articles from the MRA medical committee, as well as articles from member teams on techniques of general interest, such as how to work safely in the heat, or risk management in avalanche terrain. Like the ICAR reports, past issues of the Meridian are archived on the MRA web page. The MRA MedCom, which is a group of medical experts who are active field responders and medical advisors for various MRA teams, are a resource to all MRA teams. If you have a question about the most appropriate field intervention for a given situation, they would be more than happy to discuss the pros and cons of various possible medical interventions. If the incident is of general interest, they just might ask you to help them write an article for the Meridian and share the information with the larger MRA audience. MRA webinars are yet another means by which MRA members share information with each other. And if you’re not able to watch the webinar live, no problem. The webinars are archived and available through the MRA Webinar Training page of the MRA website so you can watch them at your leisure. Last, but certainly not least, there’s the Training and Education link on the MRA website where you can find training material on myriad topics. Some are in the form of PDF files, and others are in the form of interactive programs, which can be found in the Online Education Basecamp. All of these benefits are available to you as members of the MRA. Most are available only to MRA members, and virtually all of them benefit you directly. And because these various avenues for the sharing of information can make you a better, more skilled rescuer, they also benefit your team as a whole, your AHJ, and most of all, the people we serve. When I sat down to prepare this article, I came up with 11 different benefit areas. Fostering the exchange of ideas and information with other MRA members was just one of them. They say you can lead a horse to water… There’s an awful lot of water available to you because you’re a member of the MRA. Drink up!
Yours in service,
Art Fortini Art Fortini President, Mountain Rescue Association
president@mra.org
