How can I get my department more involved with the public?

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Permalink Reply by P.J. Norwood on May 24, 2011 at 8:16pm

Ask them what they want? You may be surprised in the answers you get.

 

Here are some ideas to start the conversation;

CPR and First Aid classes, Fire extinguisher training, open house with demonstrations, touch a truck for the kids, car seat installations, home safety inspections, PD VS FD softball, hockey, volleyball etc., Chili cook off, wine tasting, adopt a fire hydrant with prizes for best painted hydrant, get out alive (kids smoke house), CERT, FIRE CORPS, Fire Explorer Post, Emergency management/planning seminars.

 

But, ask! Ask your neighbors, ask your extended family members ask friends and you will start to figure out what they would like to see you bring to the table. Then go for it, have fun, educate and build relationships!

 

Don't forget to post your results!

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Callie Durborow on May 24, 2011 at 8:32pm

Thanks!! they go over this all the time in the meetings but no one can agree with one another to come to the conclusion, and being part of the Auxiliary, I am hoping that the guys will get more excited and hoping to get more and more to commit! I  am going to try a suggestion box at the city counsel meeting too. Thanks for the advice!!

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Permalink Reply by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on May 24, 2011 at 10:00pm

Callie I agree it is very important to be in the public's eye. More often times than not, we are only in the public's eye when the media reports. Sometimes accurate often times not, and god forbid if it is negative. That is extremely damaging and difficult to overcome and regain that trust of the citizens. 

 

But I must first state that in reality, and I work with many volunteer fire department's around our way, what you are experiencing is the "norm". You state never more than 10 in a department of 40, for which is 25%. That is the norm in many departments, with a 1/4 of the members carrying the burden of work.

 

Now in the volunteer fire departments that have greater percentages, I find they have clear expectations from the department's leadership. Without that and in today's extremely busy society, family commitments will win during times of conflict with the membership.

 

These are great examples as to why to create a committee that includes leadership, firefighters, and auxillary to prioritize functions that would be best suited for your memberships time constraints. PJ gives some really great examples and I would like to add possibly a public, media or politician mini fire academy to teach them first hand, and show them our difficulties within our line of work and then they can report via the media or future budgetary sessions what we do.   

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Permalink Reply by Michael Bricault (ret) on May 25, 2011 at 11:33am

-Put on a Fireman's Muster and invite all the neighboring FD's. This is really old school, cool fireman stuff and usually inspires other FD's to do the same.

-Make contact with the local Scout Troop, grade schools etc.. and invite them in to your station for a tour and show off your great stuff. Parents usually accompany and chaperone most of these things and you will be advertising to mom and dad as well. One fireman deals with the kiddies while another does q&a for the adults.

-Stick to fire dept related topics, your station and your equipment... avoid the previously mentioned wine tasting, car seat installation or even the home inspections unless you truly have qualified/trained/certified people for this. Those ideas carry more legal problems than they're worth.

-Painting hydrants is a huge no no as this makes spotting them so difficult that many communities actual make this a criminal offense.

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Permalink Reply by P.J. Norwood on May 25, 2011 at 2:09pm

 

Michael, I am concerned by your reply or specifically your statement "avoid the previously mentioned". Many departments have adopted these programs very successfully within their communities. I do believe Callie is looking for suggestions as you also provided to build relationships with her community. Those relationships take allot of work and time and more importantly allot of diversity. My departments as well as many locally have had very good success with many of the programs I mentioned. Obviously, when planned and done correctly with the properly trained members. Yes, even adopt a fire hydrant program where there are limitations that must be kept within can be very successful.

 

Too many departments and firefighters are stuck in the "we never did that before" mind set. Many departments, firefighters and officers have become very creative when allowed to think outside of the box and serve their communities needs. There is no program that should be discouraged if it is going to build relationships with members of their community. Everything that we do in emergency, non-emergency, prevention and education carries a level of liability. But, when we prepare, plan and execute a well thought out plan we can take measures to reduce that liability and serve our residents needs.

 

You mention "stick to your fire dept related topics". What are those specific topics? Today's departments are changed or should I say should have or should be changing to serve the community when they call. We are no longer the fire dept. we are the department that solves our neighbors crisis regardless of what that may be. 

 

With today’s communities looking to cut staffing, funding and close down stations we need to make our departments as diverse as possible and build as many relationships as possible with as many community members as possible. Station tours get your grade schoolers and their parents. Musters get your older community members and those citizens with school age kids who want to go see the cool fireman squirt water. That leaves huge gaps is who we contact and build relationships with. Great ideas that have worked well in the past but we need to do more.

Michael Bricault said:-Put on a Fireman's Muster and invite all the neighboring FD's. This is really old school, cool fireman stuff and usually inspires other FD's to do the same.

-Make contact with the local Scout Troop, grade schools etc.. and invite them in to your station for a tour and show off your great stuff. Parents usually accompany and chaperone most of these things and you will be advertising to mom and dad as well. One fireman deals with the kiddies while another does q&a for the adults.

-Stick to fire dept related topics, your station and your equipment... avoid the previously mentioned wine tasting, car seat installation or even the home inspections unless you truly have qualified/trained/certified people for this. Those ideas carry more legal problems than they're worth.

-Painting hydrants is a huge no no as this makes spotting them so difficult that many communities actual make this a criminal offense.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Bricault (ret) on May 26, 2011 at 12:15pm

-Some of the suggestions brought forth are not fire dept related and do not showcase the local FD goals of continued public safety. More to the point, is holding a wine tasting event doing anything for the local FD other than creating unnecessary liability? Defacing fire hydrants under the guise of a paining contest, though cute, has proved to be disastrous, making hydrants difficult to locate and sometimes problematic to operate. Home inspections and car seat installation require specialized training and certification and both are still frocked with unnecessary liability; an unfortunate reality in todays ever changing overly litigious society.

-The over-diversification of the fire service is something that has become so problematic within the fire service community that we have become Jacks of all Trades and Masters of none; certifications trumping certification... something Tom Brennen lamented many times in Random Thoughts. EMS, paramedicine, haz mat, crisis intervention, wild land, technical rescue; all requiring specialized certification and continued education and o yeah that other thing... structural firefighting; our raison d'être, the single most dangerous activity members engage in with any regularity but the thing we devote the least amount of training time.

-Sticking to fire based publicity events, such as an old fashioned Muster or open house, will allow the local FD to showcase itself to the community in a manner consistent with the primary function of the department... firefighting without exposing the department to unneeded negative publicity or potential law suites. 

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Permalink Reply by Greg Rogers on May 26, 2011 at 1:51pm

Our small department has much of the same issues as listed previously. 

We have been approached about the MS "boot drive".  As a department that runs mostly off donations from the public how many times can you go to the people and ask for money without hurting your own potiental for raising funds for the department? 

We previously went into the school system during fire prevention and EMS week but now the schools state they don't have time in their schedules for us to come in.  We try to have fund raisers and the members complain that I did not join the department to have to "beg for money".  True, they know the money raised is going to help them get what they need to operate but begging for pennies gets old.

In a class I took several years ago an instructor talked about the 20/60/20 rule of volunteers.  20% of the membership, no matter how hard you try is not going to be motivated to help do fund raisers or things necessary to keep the department going.  20% Carry a majority of the workload in fund raising, building maint., day to day activities and responding to calls too.  60% of the staff will show up every once in a while, do a little bit of half a**** work, and leave when it become a burden or inconvience.  I'm still trying to find my 20% of active people lol. 

We try to make sure that we keep our name in the local paper with pictures of our members at calls, training classes, etc. and have had some people come to us and mentioned they saw how "active we were".  We have done the open houses, letters to business and churches asking for support (including membership), Facebook pages announcing membership drives and events, and training in public places to be seen. 

Thanks for posting ideas and recommendations. 

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Permalink Reply by Callie Durborow on May 26, 2011 at 4:21pm

Thanks for the input everyone!!

 

We have our hydrants color-coded by pressures so painting is out.

The CPR/First aid is put on through the health dept and the EMS service

Seat belt installments are done by the police department.

Wine tasting is out of question, super religious town!!

 

 

They did bring up open house / chili cook off / and emergency service softball tourney.

Much more will be discussed in the meeting on monday night.

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Permalink Reply by P.J. Norwood on May 26, 2011 at 8:52pm

 

Callie, good luck! Giving back to the community we serve in the many ways we do is very rewarding. The things that work here in the Northeast may not work in your town. Things that work in your town may not work here. That is the great thing about the FE Community. We represent departments across the country and you will get varying opinions. Out of those opinions you need to look at your department, your community and your goals. Formulate a plan, organize, execute and build those relationships. Every member who commented on your post has great ideas and now it's up to you to move forward and report back with what worked and what didn't work so we can all learn from each other.

 

You may also want to check out Fire Engineering Blog Talk Radio on June 8th at 7:30 eastern. I co-host a show with Chris Brennan titled "Making the Turn". Our show of the 8th is about "Mission". The mission of the fire service has changed and it's us to up to define our mission and adapt to the change but not forget about our true mission to serve and protect. Stay safe keep motivated and build those relationships.

 

FE Blog talk radio - http://www.blogtalkradio.com/fireengineeringtalkradio

 

Also check out our Facebook page -

P.J.

Thanks for the input everyone!!

 

We have our hydrants color-coded by pressures so painting is out.

The CPR/First aid is put on through the health dept and the EMS service

Seat belt installments are done by the police department.

Wine tasting is out of question, super religious town!!

 

 

They did bring up open house / chili cook off / and emergency service softball tourney.

Much more will be discussed in the meeting on monday night.

Making The Turn - Fire Engineering Blog Talk Radio



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Permalink Reply by Brian Jones on May 27, 2011 at 8:03am

Start small, get some of the publics attention and find out what is needed as far as public education.  Are you a small enough community where everyone knows each other?  In this type of community it realy does not take a lot to educate the public when they already talk to members and know what issues face the dept and everyone usually shows up to department fund raisers.

If not, than try a few open houses.  A lot of people have said this already but I did not see a more detailed description of what an open house should be.  When you have the traditional "Open House" a lot of departments just open their doors...thats it.  Let people walk around a little, maybe answer some questions, but than the people generaly loose interest and leave.

Juice it up a bit!! lol

Have a barbecue grill going all day and offer free hot dogs and soda to all that come in, have bowls of chips and some give-away material lying around like pamphlets and pencils with safety information.  Give guided tours of the trucks and all the equipment, maybe even a demonstration of its use like extrication, or pump operations with deck guns and targets, let them use the hose and hit targets for fun.  Have the County Fire Coordinator and the Emergency Management Officer on hand, maybe the local forest ranger or Encon officer with smokey the bear handing out balloons and answering questions.  Get as much info as you can from the public as far as their knowledge of the fire service and fire safety, what to do in an emergency like flooding and storms.

 

Than, you reel them in with a community fire department carnival.  DONT GET NERVOUS!!!!  It doesnt take a lot to set up a small carnival.  Use your imagination and make some games of chance using fire safety as motivation for the ideas, like a booth with a mock phone and you give them a scenario and they have to call "911" and "talk" with a "Dispatcher" (the chief or other member in the booth) and see if they give the right information.  Have a coin toss with dots certain sizes and if the get the coins on the dots they get a prize like a kitchen fire extinguisher or pack of new smoke detectors, or a Carbon Monoxide Detector.

Have a target game set up with a small booster line or 1 1/2" line and if they hit the target in 20 seconds they get a prize (get some things from local vendors like stuffed animals and coloring books donated, and you advertise their business on a board during the carnival.) 

This gets the community involved  more in the fire service because for once they are not being hounded for cash and getting nothing back.(I know, we respond to their calls for help free of charge all hours of the day and night, hollidays, extreme weather but they still see it as this when we do fundraisers, they dont know where the money goes and want to know)

 

After all is said and done and you start to use any of the money obtained by fund raising efforts, post information in local papers on what the money was used for, or bring it up at community meetings or do a department mailing.  List details that the community can see how imprtant their money is to the department, like if you buy a thermal imaging camera;  list the money used from fund raising alone, than what the department had to get through grants, loans or from the community  government.  This helps tell the people that we realy do need to have fundraisers and we dont use the money for any frivolous expenditures such as banquets or awards for firefighters.

Just another few ideas for you, good luck and keep up the good work.

Stay Safe.

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Permalink Reply by P.J. Norwood on May 30, 2011 at 7:17am

Good morning, and Happy Memorial day to all of you. To continue this discussion to learn from each other go to the following link and lets discuss; https://www.facebook.com/#!/home.php?sk=group_166389320089727

 

This page is Facebook Page for Making The Turn - Fire Engineering Blog Talk Radio hosted by Chris Brennan and myself. Our next show Wednesday June 8th ties right into this discussion. I look forward to the opinions.

 

P.J.

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