Podcast: CESV/112 Closure Ends a Long Era of Service in TRNC

Podcast: CESV/112 Closure Ends a Long Era of Service in TRNC

Pip: CyprusScene.com, where the eastern Mediterranean meets your morning coffee, and occasionally delivers news that genuinely stops you mid-sip.

Mara: Today we’re covering the closure of a volunteer emergency service that shaped community safety in Northern Cyprus for years, kyreniacommentator brings us the story, including the final announcement from the people who ran it.

Our founding President Mr Terry Carter

Our last two Presidents Mr Atilla Mahmutoglu (left) and Mr Steven Collard (right)

Pip: Let’s start with the organisation itself, and what its end actually means.

CESV/112: The Close of a Volunteer Emergency Service

Mara: The question here is what happens to a volunteer organisation when the person holding it together is gone, and what a dignified wind-down actually looks like.

Pip: The announcement from Ümit Karana, Former Vice President of CESV/112, puts it plainly: “Our association CESV/112 has closed because of the loss of our late President, Steve, and the rest of the active members do not want to continue with the training they were giving without him.”

Mara: That’s the real stakes. This wasn’t an administrative decision or a funding shortfall, the membership simply couldn’t see a path forward without Steve Collard, and they were honest about it.

Pip: The organisation had already outlasted one leadership transition. Terry Carter founded it, handed it to Collard when he retired to the UK, and Collard kept the training programmes running with both Turkish Cypriot and expatriate volunteers. Losing him a second time, there was no third act.

A CESV training picture

A picture from a parade on 20th of July

Mara: The dissolution was formalised on 12th May 2026, when the management board voted to cease all activities. A month later, the TRNC Civil Defence District Office approved that decision.

Pip: And then they did something worth noting, they didn’t just lock the door.

Mara: Everything went somewhere useful. Training equipment, dummies, books, field gear, all donated to the TRNC Fire Brigade and Civil Defence. The association’s remaining funds were also donated to the Fire Brigade to purchase equipment, which Karana describes as being “in accordance with the last wishes of the late Steve Collard.”

Pip: A volunteer organisation, right to the end, making sure the assets served the mission rather than just evaporating. That’s not nothing.

Mara: The post also notes that CyprusScene has covered CESV and 112 extensively over the years, and readers can search the site by name, Terry Carter, Steve Collard, 112, CESV, to find that archive of reports and memories.

Pip: A long record of quiet, unglamorous work. The kind that only becomes visible when it stops.

Pip: Community safety infrastructure, volunteer networks, the people who hold them together, these things are easier to dissolve than to rebuild.

Pip: More from Northern Cyprus next time. Until then.

Source: Terry Carter and Steve Collard talking to Cyprusscene.com 

To read more reviews and Readers Mail click here