Judy, like many women of her time, has made a significant contribution to her brigade and operations by supporting her husband, neighbours, friends and relatives as they protected lives and property in the community.
Judy fell into the role of communications when she moved to the Rowsley area where husband Doug had been an active member of the Rowsley Fire Brigade since 1959.
Judy not only embraced this role as her contribution to supporting the community, but also went on to own it for more than 30 continuous years – a task she did with conviction, dedication and unwavering loyalty.
At the recent Rowsley Fire Brigade awards presentation dinner, a special recognition of service was given to Judy to celebrate her commitment and dedication to communications – both at brigade and group level. An award was created by the brigade in her honour – The Judy Jensz Member of the Year award.
When presented with the plaque bearing her name with shields to denote brigade members who will receive this prestigious award, an overwhelmed Judy gave the first Rowsley Fire Brigade Member of the Year award to Chris Millsom.
Her house was one of the few homes in the area that was attached to the Fire Reporting System. Judy would answer the phone and take down the details of the fire. The firefighters, who would hear the alert via their listening sets, would respond to the station and on arrival could pick up the station phone to join the conversation and get more information about the fire.
As communications officer, Judy arranged scheduled communications checks and adapted her procedures to the changing times as radio communications progressed. As more members were issued with pagers, Judy's role continued to be pivotal for both the brigade and the wider, group of fire brigades.
In the early 2000s, the pagers were upgraded again to be able to advise members of the position of the fire. This assisted greatly with communication of the incident to the members but still did not downgrade the importance of the communications officer. Judy was responsible for ensuring that pagers were in good working order and replaced as required, distributed to active members, removed from non-active members and, importantly, communicating operational readiness including severe weather events.
“People were sparse on the ground. Farmers were busy and nowhere near a radio. If I could get a fire truck to the fire quicker then hopefully it was a smaller fire to contend with,” Judy said.
These days, even though Judy has handed over the communications baton, she is never too far away to be a mentor, share her knowledge and support and contribute where she can.
| Submitted by |
Irene Keating |