Here in the Edmonton Alberta area, the dispatchers are few and far between. However whenever Lana and I find a new dispatcher sending out an alert for our area we will usually send them a message via the IPN messaging system welcoming them aboard and to let them know if they have any questions to feel free and ask.

I started to think that using the PM feature on IPN is a great way to keep in touch when time is not of the essence. However when you have a breaking incident and need to get some help quickly it may be of value to be able to send someone an instant message using one of the mediums such as AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, etc.

So what does everyone think? If we could get people that are willing to help out members by either giving them an answer to their question directly or by pointing them in the right direction to find the answer themselves it may go a long way toward keeping members active in the system. Being a dispatcher is fun but at times it seems as if we are the only one out there when we have limited ways to make contact with other members.

If anyone is interested in getting something like this going, I'll be the first to throw my screen names into the hat:

AIM - LanaJeff
Yahoo - lana_and_jeff
ICQ - 456834100