Operations

I came to my St John division in 2006, having never been a member of St John before. At that time, the division was being run by people who did a good job of it, but it was obvious to all that they were overworked, tired, pushed too hard by the organisation and were on their way out. Who can blame them – we’re volunteers… But that's a story for another day. About six months after I joined, I had well and truly fulfilled the required annual hours service as was well into making a name for myself as a ‘regular attendee’ at several duty types and loved working as a First Aider. Suddenly, there was a massive change in the administration of the division, with the Operations Officer pretty much leaving due to his work/study load and the acting Divisional Superintendant transferring to another region. Things were not looking good for the division.

I put my hand up to help out with the administration side of things until everything got itself sorted out – unfortunately I was thrown into the deep end and had to quickly learn the ropes. 10 months down the line, I somehow became Head of Operations and Training for the division.

Operations is a time consuming, frustrating, often painful and always annoying role to fill. Ask any Operations officer in any division (in pretty much any organisation), they will all say that this role easily consumes more time and effort than that of a Superintendant – you are more likely to be mistreated, abused, woken at odd hours and working the most duties compared to any other role in the division – the only time you don’t get yelled at is when everything runs smoothly. Thanks are few and far between.

But it's important that you don’t let this scare you off. It isn’t a glamorous role filled with perks – but it is definitely the most rewarding on a personal and organisational level. Although your division may not always notice or show it – your stature within the organisation does not go unnoticed amongst regional or state staff, and it is a brilliant way to make contacts within and outside the organisation which can be used in many other aspects of life. The feeling of having everything run smoothly is comparable to nothing else, the constant challenge of achieving that makes for a perfectionists dream. You learn that when nobody says anything, you’ve done everything perfectly – and that’s all the thanks you need.

Operations is still a very rewarding and fun role to fill, despite anything else I may have said so far. You have a ball with the members, because unlike other roles Operations is a role that requires you to know quite well each member so you can appropriately allocate them. But it’s hard not to know someone well and not become friends, so after even a brief stint in Ops you’ll have made friends that may very well last the rest of your life – this alone is a reason why it’s such a rewarding position and one I feel I'm lucky to have held this long.