A Jimboomba member of State Emergency Service has been awarded one of the top honours for the service in the region, recognising her outstanding contribution over the last year.
Earlier this month, Tremaine Kingi won the regional member of the year award for her efforts in doubling the numbers of the Jimboomba SES group.
“I’m just really proud to be part of such a professional and dedicated unit, so it wasn’t just me winning the regional member of the year, the Logan city SES unit won the regional unit of the year, too,” she said.
Historically, Jimboomba was one of the smaller groups within the Logan SES unit, which is no longer the case thanks to a recruitment drive that Ms Kingi ran.
“I coordinated a recruitment drive which basically saw us double our numbers at the Jimboomba group,” she said.
“We were the smallest group within the Logan SES unit and we went from about 13 members and now we have 26.
“We went to the local markets, put up a post online, and conducted an open day with community groups and family.”
Logan’s Local Controller for the SES, James Ferguson, said it was a special achievement they do not get often.
“Each of our units – all five of us in the southeast – would have put up a member who’s done particularly well in SES activities over the past 12 months, and in our case it was Tremaine,” he said.
“In Tremaine’s case, she was instrumental in organising activities to promote recruitment in the Jimboomba area and was successful to the extent she managed to get another eight to 10 members to join the SES.”
The regional member of the year award earned her a nomination for the state member of the year. Someone else took out that honour, but to even get nominated is big for the region, Mr Ferguson said.
“When you consider there’re 5,000-plus SES member across the state, to even get nominated is a pretty good achievement,” he said.
Ms Kingi’s achievement comes just as the SES begins to sign off on their newest recruits in time for storm season.
Nine of the 17 recruits are from Jimboomba, underlining the importance of Ms Kingi’s work in growing the service.
“To actually have 17 finish up is actually really good, with nine of them being Jimboomba people,” Mr Ferguson said.
