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The Women's Royal Voluntary Service
Throughout Britain, the Women's Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS) provides services to elderly and housebound people, families in crisis, and people affected by disaster.
Working with and on behalf of local authorities, NHS trusts, and other care-providing organisations, WRVS seeks to tackle social isolation, uphold independence and respect choice. Nationally, 100,000 male and female WRVS volunteers ensure the smooth running of the charity's community based projects.
WRVS emergency services teams
Teams of WRVS emergency services volunteers are on call across Britain 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, ready to assist local authorities and blue light services in times of disaster or emergency.
Cornwall has 300 emergency service volunteers throughout the county, many of whom also work with other WRVS projects such as Meals on Wheels, hospital tea bars and social transport schemes. The charity also runs lunch clubs for the elderly, and Child Contact Centres that provide a neutral environment for children to meet with estranged parents.
WRVS supporting Cornwall County Fire Brigade
WRVS emergency teams support Cornwall County Fire Brigade in the event of prolonged fires. In recent years several notable incidents have occurred in which WRVS volunteers have been involved.
During a two day long fire on board the Kukawa in Falmouth docks, emergency services volunteers cooked and served meals to fire fighters from the kitchen at Falmouth Fire Station. Volunteers also took refreshments to a portacabin at Falmouth Docks providing front line refuelling for the fire fighters!
Gorse fires at Zenoh and Goonhilly Downs also saw WRVS teams providing overnight feeding, as did a fire at Budehaven School, Bude.
More recently WRVS volunteers set up a rest centre to accommodate those evacuated due to a factory fire in Tolvaddon. A team was also tasked with transporting and serving drinks to fire fighters at the scene of the fire.
WRVS supporting the Emergency Planners
The main role of WRVS emergency teams in Cornwall is with the management of Rest Centres in the event of an evacuation. Under a recent agreement with Cornwall County Council WRVS now manage and run these centres with the support of other local agencies.
This has resulted in a new lease of life for Cornwall's WRVS emergency teams, which are now heavily involved in joint training schemes with the Local Authority. Recently, Exercise Kernow saw WRVS teams setting up a rest centre for the "casualties" from the mocked up collision between a passenger ferry and a fuel tanker. The exercise involved about 100 "casualties" who were supported by 30 WRVS volunteers, providing invaluable experience and training which was put to in to practice two weeks later at the Tolvaddon factory fire.
Volunteers required! 
In view of the large number of volunteers required to set up and manage a rest centre, especially in the event of a prolonged incident, we are always looking for new volunteers. Training is given, and no regular commitment is required. At any one time we only expect to be able to get hold of about a fifth of our volunteers, so if called upon at a time when you are unavailable to help, that's fine - there will always be another occasion when you can help
If you are interested in joining WRVS as a member of the emergency team, please contact Angela Currie, WRVS emergency services manager for Devon & Cornwall. e-mail angela.currie@wrvs.org.uk, telephone and fax: 01872 865306, mobile: 0771 4898 526. For further information about WRVS nationally, see www.wrvs.org.uk
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