SA Firefighter
General Discussion => Country Fire Service => Topic started by: bittenyakka on January 28, 2007, 07:54:27 PM
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A few weeks back in The Advertiser there was an article on the front page about volunteers and employers getting to the point of being unable to spare any more time and as the fire season had already been very busy crewing in the later part would be difficult.
In short a few things where proposed such as
- making a shorter training course for people who only want to go out to bushfires that doesn't cover things like road crash and structure fires
I wish i had cut the article out
Any way I came up with an idea to toss around take about 40 the reasonably good condition trucks that are about 16 years old out of service and store them in a large warehouses of about 1 or 2 strike teams each, these warehouses would be positioned through out the suburbs and crewed by city dwellers who have done basic bushfire training. this would mean that 5 or 6 strike teams could be generated without removing fire cover from anywhere as they would be stored in the coverage of Mets or already established CFS brigades.
What do you guys think.
This is an interesting read
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21039666-5006706,00.html
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mmm i heard a rumor similar to that... btu not havign there own trucks, just using them as changeover crews.....
personally i dont like the idea though..... based purely on the theory that the only experience they would get would be "at the big one"
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In My Opinion that wouldn't work because...
The vollies wouldn't regularly attend fires, so wouldn't be as experienced as some people in large brigades that attend 200+ calls per year, no amount of theory work, or training could even come close to actually getting out there on the back of a truck!!
What would work better would be to train them in IMT, and then get the capable current fireys out there insead of stuck back at staging etc.
JUST MY OPINION!
Pixie
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Um Pixie isn't it good having people who have been on the fire ground running the incident so they know what it is like to be out there on the ground doing the hard work. And lots of brigades don't get 200 calls a year.
But I do admit training would be problem as they wouldn't benefit from the frequent training and call outs.
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And some brigades have lots of crews, just busting to go out and play...and would be severely miffed if they weren't allowed to go out, but people who didn't respond to normal day to day stuff, were allowed to!
Pip
(Who has had 7 new members in the last 2 months, with a few more to come :-D )
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Gee Pip tell us how you sell CFS membership
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With a lot of hard work over a number of years..!!!
Basically, you have to make the brigade an attractive place to be - create a perception - and a reality that the brigade is a nice friendly group of people, and that the brigade is a professional group of people (so people want to be part of it!)
Make personal contact with people within the area that you meet up with, and tell them about the brigade, and invite them to come along at any time.
When there is a BFF-1 Course coming up (or you anticipate one) let your community know that - eg via a blackboard / sign outside your station saying something like "Training Course for new members starts soon. Come and see us Monday nights from 7.30 pm " - or other messages that might prompt people to come along, or target new members in the community - if you know they have just moved in, go and visit them, welcome them to the district, we are a nice bunch of people etc etc, oh, and by the way, come and join us. Some times they do (but it might not be that year) sometimes they don't / can't, but if you do the right thing, they think you are a nice bunch of people, and you have their support
Let people know when you got to calls, and what you do - eg a blackboard outside the station, which lists basic details of the last call you went to - if you do it for all your calls, people start looking specifically at your notices
Create a social atmosphere in the brigade - we have supper after training each night, a mid year & a Christmas show, and we are just about to restart our "Sunday Socials" - basically, all the members AND their families, are invited to a brigade members house, they bring a plate of food to share, some drinks & a chair, and just have a social afternoon. We did these a few years ago, when we had a big influx of members, and are restarting it due to the next influx....
Recruiting new members can include targeting other members of the family - so including them in social events can provide even more of a benefit!
These are some of the strategies we have employed to recruit new members. It is not a quick process, but the results have been very pleasing...
Pip
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Thanks for that.
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In some country areas the population moves from small towns to a larger town and even leaving the station still placed in an ideal location. It is shame that the future volunteers will have to come from a significant distance to ensure a responce.
As a remote brigade even though we have had an increase by five member and four cadets only two of these members live close by and the same with one of the cadets. The rest will be on a forty minute responce time. Maybe as an organisation we need to look at were our future members will come from so that we can maintain an effective fire cover through out the state.
This is my thoughts an opinion and does not represent any organisation or brigade
Mallee Boy
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Mallee boy, you raise a good point...how can you recruit, if the people simply do not exist in the area?
This is an issue facing many small towns in rural SA - a declining population, and often a lack of younger people in the area.
And I figure, in many areas, it is not just CFS that face this problem, but all groups within the area who utilise volunteers in any capacity...
This is a whole Community & Government problem which, sadly, has not been addressed, particularly by Government... :-(
Pip
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Um if there isn't the people there to make a brigade then what can the government do?
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The Government and the community need to look at ways to a) keep people in rural towns b) encourage more people to move into country towns.
It is not an easy thing to do, and requires input from the community, all levels of Government, and some dollars!!
Pip
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"Personal opinion only"
People began moving from country townships 20+ years ago. Some regional centres are getting bigger, while some townships are shrinking in population.
I believe people need to accept this.
Because the risk will move when township size decreases, the remaining community needs to accept that response times will increase and that some resources will be moved to the larger population centres.
Not every township will have a CFS brigade, SES unit, MFS, Police or Ambulance station. People will need to accept the change because the population cannot support the resource.
The larger twonships will get more equipment and a larger response area. Strike team deployments will be more common and will give the members the incident experience needed.
If a business or industrial risk exists, then that business will need to pay for the response time by either buying own equipment or allowing employees time off (with resultant loss of productivity).
SES and CFS volunteers will merge in the next 5 to 10 years under a SAFECOM branded organisation. How fast this will happen will depend on the political guts of the government & if the public servants will accept the change. How many volunteers stay with the new organisation, I have no idea.
So I would suggest recruit where the people are or where they are going to.
My opinion only.
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Last Night on SBS Global Village The story was about using Convicts to do the Fire Fighting.
Most of the stuff the convicts did was like the mopping up and making large brakes. The cons got paid $1.75 per hour.
It would be good if the gov tried this, I would have no problem with them mopping up.
Putting something back to the community
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also consider the whole family in the recruiting ie not aiming to have them all as firies but maybe part being involved in base ops or family support or like...then they don't become CFS widows or whatever the men are called...
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I cant for the life of me remember which one, but there is a CFS brigade run by a correction al facility somewhere..... either in region 3 or 6... not sure.
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I think theres some brigades around the state that are run by indigenous people as well I'm not really sure though cause I've seen some brigade names on the promotions website that look like indigenous names :-)
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We used to have a small fire fighting unit in Region 6 but they found that the prisoners put sand or sugar in the pumps too often and the fire got away all the time...mind you, the prisoners did a huge job post Black tuesday as volunteers with putting up fences etc...
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I cant for the life of me remember which one, but there is a CFS brigade run by a correction al facility somewhere..... either in region 3 or 6... not sure.
Pretty sure its Cadell
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I cant for the life of me remember which one, but there is a CFS brigade run by a correction al facility somewhere..... either in region 3 or 6... not sure.
It was Northfield CFS and they used to be crewed by inmates from Yatala Labor Prison.Their appliance was a Toyota Landcruiser 14 :wink:
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http://www.corrections.sa.gov.au/prisons/photos/photo22.htm (http://www.corrections.sa.gov.au/prisons/photos/photo22.htm)
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The Northfield CFS has many appliances over many years....it was crewed by low security prisoner, and prison staff.... I can remember them coming to fires in the hills in the 1980's
Cadell is the other, current correctional services facility brigade, which is crewed by the low security prisoners and staff.
Cadell is one of the correctional facilities that prepares prisoners for release back into the community - so having a CFS brigade which they can be part of assists in the process.
Pip
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Not only important to recruit big people, its also important to get cadets who are keen to go on and become full members.
Only being new to CFS, what sort of programs are run for cadets and how are they recruited?
As far as I have seen, it tends to be kids of current CFS members who are mostly cadets?
probably wrong but ya get the idea...
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feel free to respond to that last question, but FYI i have just posted it in Cadets Corner
it is always good to actually involve the group being talked about and get their opinions!!