Each county in the West Central Florida Section has an Emergency Coordinator (EC.) The EC is appointed by the Section Manager and in consultation with the SEC.

It is at the local level where most of the real emergency organizing gets accomplished, because this is the level at which most emergencies occur and the level at which ARES leaders make direct contact with the ARES member-volunteers and with the officials of the agencies to be served. The local EC is therefore the key contact in the ARES. The EC is in charge of all ARES activities in his/her area, not just one interest group, one agency, one club or one band.

The local Emergency Coordinator (EC) may appoint one or more Assistant Emergency Coordinators (AEC) to assist him in the administration of his ARES program.

The ARES Member is the key to the success of the ARES program and provide the manpower necessary for ARES to function.  As mentioned before in this document, every licensed amateur, regardless of membership in ARRL or any other local or national organization, is eligible for membership in the ARES. The only qualification, other than possession of an Amateur Radio license, is a sincere desire to serve.  ARES members are encouraged to be a part of a local club, just like we encourage all hams to have a local club, which is a base of support for them.  However, it is not a requirement to join ARES.

Emergency Coordinator (EC)

The EC has overall management responsibility for the SRQARES program to include;

• Develop and maintain relationships with served agencies
• Pursue memorandums of understanding and other agreements when in the best interest of SRQARES
• Handles and/or delegate media requests
• Work with a team of leaders to accomplish the goals of the organization
• Seek training opportunities for the organization
• Promote amateur radio and especially emergency communications
• Provide regular updates, and communicates with the WCF section Emergency Coordinator, and local emergency management officials.

Assistant Emergency Coordinator (AEC)

This position is appointed by the EC and must be Level 2 qualified and an ARRL member.The Assistant Emergency Coordinator assists the EC, and assumes the role of EC in the absence of the EC.

AEC Operations

This position is appointed by the EC and must be level 2 qualified and an ARRL member. AEC Operations is responsible for:

• Management and direction of the tactical emergency communications operations for all activations, drills, exercises and public service events.
• Management and direction of the personnel assignments and conduct for all net management and mobilized functions.
• Readiness of all technical capabilities and maintenance of all equipment that is utilized during an incident, event or activation.
• Live instruction, drills and exercises for the purposes of training and continuous improvement.

AEC Planning / Training- These positions can be held by one person or two

This position is appointed by the EC and must be level 2 qualified and an ARRL member. The AEC-Planning responsibilities include:

• Preparation of Plans and Procedures for event-based activations.
• Ensure adequate resources are available for any incident or event at the MC ARES level of responsibility.
• Compiling the Incident Action Plan (IAP) with revisions for each operational period.
• Data gathering and analysis for Situational Awareness and After-Action Reviews
• Defining and implementing a training curriculum.

AEC Logistics

This position is appointed by the EC and must be level 2 qualified and an ARRL member. The AEC-Logistics responsibilities include:

• Equipment inventory, disposition and replenishment
• Staging for additional resources and supplies for an extended activation.
• Collaborate with repeater owners to ensure repeater resource availability
• Status reporting of the infrastructure and equipment availability.

AEC Administration

This position is appointed by the EC and must be level 2 qualified and an ARRL member. The AEC-Admin responsibilities include:

• Recruitment and Personnel records
• Expense authorization and reporting
• Liaison to all partners, county civic groups and local amateur radio clubs
• Works with the PIO on messaging in order to appraise the membership of upcoming events, meetings or training.

AEC Communications

This position is appointed by the EC with consultation by the SERC President. This position, like the other AEC positions, should be level 2 qualified. This position is a bridge between the SERC organization and SRQARES. SRQARES utilizes the SERC Infrastructure for emergency communications; repeaters, gateways, digipeaters, etc.  The AEC Communications responsibilities include:

• Weekly test of the SERC communication infrastructure
• Notifying the SERC Tech Team of any discrepancies
• Advising via groups.io when the discrepancies are cleared/ repaired

SRQARES serves many agencies with emergency communications support, it interacts with many other groups and agencies in the area, and it draws membership from many of the amateur radio clubs in the area. It is important to have individual team members designated with the responsibility of communicating and coordinating our activities with their activities. To this end, the EC may choose to appoint any number of liaisons.

ARC LIASION

This position is for a Red Cross member who is also a SRQARES member.

• Maintain an open line of communication between the served agency and SRQARES
• Foster and support SRQARES members joining the Red Cross

CERT LIASION

This position is for an SRQARES member who is also CERT Trained and a

member of a CERT Team with responsibility to:

• Provide a conduit for sharing of information between the various CERT Teams in Sarasota County and SRQARES
• Share with each group what the capabilities of each are
• Encourage CERT Team members to become licensed Amateur Radio Operators
• Assist in providing amateur radio license training to CERT members.