Activities conducted within the Blackwood Uniting Church will continue to operate on days declared to be Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating Days and the church will open as a Safe Retreat on such days. Leaders of each Church group are strongly encouraged to discuss with their group what their group will do on Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating Days to ensure that arrangements are clear whether they will meet or not. However, each person, whether leader or participant, needs to take responsibility for their own decisions about what they will do and make that decision clear to the other members of their group.

Actual Policy (dated 6/1/2013 and confirmed Council meeting 20/2/2013)

• That all groups within the church and those outside groups hiring the church for their own purposes be advised that as our church has been declared a “Safe Retreat” on Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating Days, their normal activities may be affected by additional members of the public seeking refuge within the church.
• That any employee or volunteer managing, leading or supporting a Church group is under no compulsion to attend any particular activity on a Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating Day and encouraged to make their own arrangements in accordance with their individual Fire Action Plans.
• That each church group is under no compulsion to change the way that they meet on Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating Days, but would be encouraged to discuss the implications for them and make clear and precise pre-determined decisions about what they will do as individuals and as a group. (This would enable individual groups to determine whether or not they would run their program on Catastrophic Fire Danger Rating Days based upon their circumstances).