Incidents can range from attending motor vehicle accidents, providing civil defence emergency help, assisting to police, hazardous substance containment and fire safety awareness education. Training is therefore essential and volunteers attend weekly training as well as additional courses in their own time. Because of the nature of emergency work, volunteers have to be available at the drop of a hat. This means they will be called away from their normal paid work, families, and friends. Families and employers therefore face the inevitable disruption of emergency call-outs.
Volunteers are exceptional people and they come from many walks of life.
They include the self-employed, mothers at home, shift workers, farmers, tradespeople and professionals. While they are a seemingly diverse group of people, when you talk to volunteers, you immediately identify that these people are people who genuinely care about their communities and want to be actively involved. The personal satisfaction and camaraderie in the brigade is what keeps membership high and ongoing. Puke Volunteer Brigade. Memorabilia often proudly displayed in brigades is testament to this and also indicates that membership spanning several generations of families is not uncommon.