34. During the year Fire Officer Class I A. S. CONWAY attended courses at H.M.S. Vernon, Portsmouth, and Fire Officer Class I C. FRETWELL attended a diving course at H.M. Naval Base, Singapore. Both these officers received extremely good reports on their attendance at the courses.
AUXILIARY FIRE SERVICE
35. Although operational demands on the A.F.S. were less this year, mainly as a result of the relatively typhoon-free season, elements of various divisions were called out to support professional echelons at several major fires and performed their duties admirably.
36. In training and organization spheres concentration has been centred on the complete integration of professional and auxiliary per- sonnel and resources. The degree of integration was put to the test at a combined Fire Service/Auxiliary Fire Service exercise held on 30th January, 1966 at which the Colonial Secretary and the Defence Secretary were present. 'Post mortem' evaluation of this exercise shows that whilst there are still some areas in which improvement is required, the integra- tion is now thriving and within a short while should result in parallel standards of proficiency and operational capability of both professionals and auxiliaries.
37. The Auxiliary Fire Service Band again proved a popular attrac- tion in public parks and playgrounds in which during the year it gave nine concerts.
RECRUITING AND TRAINING
38. Training programmes continue to be frustrated by the inade- quacy of training accommodation. However, construction on the long overdue Fire Service Training School at Sek Kong is now steadily progressing, and there is little that can be done which is not already being done by improvisation to counteract training inadequacies until the Sek Kong project is commissioned in, it is hoped, late 1967.
39. In February, 1966 the former Mong Kok Old Police Station was reprovisioned as Mainland Fire Headquarters, previously situated at the Naval Camber, Kowloon, thus releasing the latter building, for use as a temporary training school.
40. Two major training improvements were introduced during the year. The first of these was the appointment of a training officer to the
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