| GOVAC HISTORY |
| Our charter members - June 1999 |
| Our charter members - June 1974 |
| We may have got our start on June 19th,1974 however the ground work was started back in 1973. The Goshen Jaycee's led by Ed Garling, felt the need for a trained emergency medical service in Goshen. Up to that time if you needed an ambulance, a local funeral director brought the hearse & transported with a nurse from the hospital. It wasn't uncommon to wait over a half hour for him to arrive. The Jaycee's' started the idea but the people of Goshen supported it. On June 19th,1974, with a second hand rig & 33 people, we were in service! Our first call was an MVA on June 28th, 1974. In over 30 years of service we have traveled over 150,000 miles and answered over 15,000 calls. Our crew members are made up of students, teachers, health care workers, truck drivers, business owners, officer workers and firefighters to name a few. They all come together to answer the call for help. In recent years, GOVAC formed the first volunteer EMS Bike team in Orange County. We have also been named Orange County BLS Agency of the Year. Other honors have been bestowed upon 3 members, Bob Lemin, Pat Hugerth and Lisa Scheuermann, by being honored as Orange County BLS Providers of the Year. Bob & Lisa were also honored as Hudson Valley Regional EMS Council's BLS Provider of the Year. On June 19,2009 we celebrated 35 years of service! GOVAC members celebrated new beginnings and said goodbye to an old and faithful friend. Thanks to all who stopped by at our Park Place Bay on June 19th to help us celebrate! |
| Currently, GOVAC members are expected to put in 30 hours a month. Members must be within 5 minutes of the bay when on call. GOVAC member fall into 4 classifications, ACTIVE, DRIVER ONLY, ASSOCIATE and SERVICE members. ACTIVE MEMBERS: must be at least 16 year old. They must hold either an National Safety Council First Aid or Red Cross card(at least 16 hours), New York State Certified First Responder or Emergency Medical Technician card and a CPR card. Our current membership consist of EMT's, CPR and First aiders. |
| DRIVER ONLY: Must be at least 21 years old and have a clean drivers license. Most Driver Onlys go on to get their First Aid or EMT cards. We do require that Driver Onlys take CPR once they are members so , if needed, they will be an extra set of hands. ASSOCIATE MEMBERS: Is someone who belongs to another emergency service agency, however wishes to volunteer with GOVAC. This member must be a member in good standing at their home agency. They may be Active or Driver Only members. These members need not put in a schedule or attend meetings and trainings (though they are encouraged to attend. ). However they must either ride 50 hours or do at least 10 calls a year and reapply annually. SERVICE MEMBERS: who have been active riding members but now are not able to fulfill the requirements, yet they want to stay active. Service members must keep all cards up to date. Although they may not ride much, they are still very active behind the scenes. JUNIOR MEMBERS: is our new group. We hope to give young people between 10 - 18 years old an introduction to EMS. We have had such a great response to this. We'll keep you informed on it's events on our GOVAC Junior's Page. |
| Do you live in the Goshen area? Do you think that you would like to be a member? HERE'S THE APPLICATION! You will need Adobe Reader to open this file. If you do not have it. Click the Adobe link and download it for free. Complete it & send it back to us. Either by EMAIL or snail-mail. A member of the membership committee will get back to you as soon as we get it. * PLEASE only apply if you live in the Goshen area or can be 5 minutes from the bay while on call. * GOVAC meeting are held on Wednesday nights. Board meeting is 1st Wednesday. Training is on the 2nd Wednesday with the General Membership meeting on the 3rd. All meetings are open to the public. |
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| CLICK HERE FOR GOVAC'S FIRST THIRTY YEARS |
| Check out our 30 year history. This presentation was shown at our annual dinner to show how far we have come in 30 years. For a few of us it was a wonderful trip down memory lane. Enjoy |
| This presentation was created with Microsoft Power Point. If you do not have this program you can download Microsoft's Power Point Viewer |
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