This column is about one Neighbourhood Hero who joined forces with a second Neighbourhood Hero.

Then, over the next few weeks, working with their partners, they found and began to organize 30 more Neighbourhood Heroes ... and they've only just begun.

These people are in the process of transforming their neighbourhood ... my neighbourhood ... just up the hill from the Old City Quarter.

A few weeks ago, I got a note in my mailbox inviting me to a neighbourhood meeting at Elizabeth Lorenz's home -- hero # 2 -- to talk about how we should organize ourselves to deal with a possible disaster.

Honestly, I don't worry a lot about such things. I always have enough food around to keep me going for at least a week or two and I figure I can always walk to the river if I need water - You know, that sort of thinking.

That said, I thought I would go anyway and perhaps meet a few new neighbours. I expected five or six people to turn up -- not thirty.

Soon after we gathered, Dan Lay, hero # 1, the guy who started this idea, made a short presentation outlining the basic organizational ideas he had learned while acting as Director of the Neighbourhood Response Network for the Cowichan Valley Regional District.

We discussed organizing five different teams: First Aid, Search And Rescue, Damage Assessment, Sheltering And Special Needs and Communications.

Of course this will require lots of volunteers, ongoing communication and motivation, effective organization, appropriate training and a long-term, commitment on the part of a lot of people but it didn't take long for the volunteers to begin to step forward.

Rick Evans, my across the street neighbour, whom I had never met, volunteered to become a co-captain of the overall organization along with Dan Lay.

Michael Lee volunteered to captain the First Aid team; Glen Macdonald agreed to lead the Search And Rescue team; Sue Hutchen became his first team member; and I volunteered for Communications.

A couple of days later, Dan Housego, called to say he had located twenty 10-gallon plastic containers that he said would be excellent for storing water. He's going to keep them in his shed, filled with fresh water, in case his neighbours might find themselves in need.

"I've done over a hundred of these presentations in Ladysmith and the Cowichan Valley," Lay told me, "and this has to have been the most enthusiastic group I have ever seen. These people really were committed."

Lay went on to talk about the importance of building a tighter sense of community.

"It's about building community so that when you see someone, you know them not just by a wave but you know them because you have worked together to help build a better neighbourhood."

This group is definitely ready to take off.

We've planned our next meeting for mid-January when Sue and Dan will probably unveil their first Neighbourhood Newsletter; a neighbourhood Garage Sale is planned for the early spring to raise money to buy some basic emergency response equipment; and a Street Dance is in the calendar for mid to late-summer ... just for the fun of it and to get to know one another a little better.

As for me, a relative newcomer to the neighbourhood, I got to meet twenty-seven new neighbours and six of them are coming for tea and a chat tomorrow evening.

Isn't that what a neighbourhood is supposed to be all about?

If you would like more information or you would like to come to our next meeting, you can reach Dan Lay at 714-0048.