Funds and Keeping up

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jay Wieners on April 4, 2008 at 10:35am

Ryan,
I wish I could give you some great advice on tackling your budget issues, but I probably can't, especially not knowing exactly what you're up against. The little advice I can give you is to maybe bring the families a little closer to the firehouse. I don't know what you do already in this area, but aside from a few formal dinners throughout the year, Friday night tends to be social night at our firehouse and a lot of guys bring their families. Whats nice is the guys get to be with everyone, the wives get to talk with one another, and the kids get to play together. This goes a long way toward keeping the families on the "understanding" side of the fence when it comes to all the other training and meetings that are being required of us. And lastly, YES, it is worth fighting for!

Keep fighting the good fight,

Jay

Permalink Reply by Jimmy Weber on April 6, 2008 at 5:47pm

Ryan
Believe me I understand where you are coming from. The Department I've been with for 19 years has survived since 1981 and for 2007 our budget was only $12,000 we spent $17,000 repairing trucks our youngest is 30 yaers old the oldest is 40. And we cover 55 square miles of rural area but according to AFG nothing constitutes replacement.
I have been trying to get classes at our Department thru the Indiana Fire Fighting System, but I,m getting flak because larger Departments in the area want to put them on. My last statement was "It's not right to make us drive all the time. If you want us at the current levels you have to bring training to us" 19 Fire Fighters with jobs and families already put in too much time just keeping the trucks running. I'm not forcing them to give up a bunch of hours and money driving when the system was designed to come to us for free.

I like Jay's Idea hand have thought about doing that very same thing . I'll be back to discuss some ideas later

Jimmy

Permalink Reply by Todd McKee on April 6, 2008 at 6:09pm

Mr Sparks- Is inportant for all firefighters to stay trained and keep up to date with standards, I think most volunteers and paid guys understand that. One thing volunteers can do is look for free training and have them come to your Fire House during your regular training night. My old volunteer FD we seemed to ahve members at the FH as much as paid FH's, so we started to do training when we were on station, instead of just hanging out and talking. I really believe that the support is not disappearing but I do think that the support is changing. We will have to adapt to it and figure out how to make it work. I also beleive that the volunteer fire service is diminishing and to fix that is a strong recruitment committee. The other issue is that familes must work 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet, leaving less time for the FH. Stay positve and keep working hard. Be proud to say that you are a FIREFIGHTER. Know the job as much as you can and have a sense of humor. Be SAFE and remember to train, as training will save lives! God Bless

Permalink Reply by mike diener on April 10, 2008 at 4:58pm

Wow , we had this discussion last week at the station. The general feeling boiled down to we are being forced to train in locations that are a good distance away. Driving to these training sessions is not always easy for everyone , so some training gets missed. We have a training night at the station ,but still some people cant make these every month either. As a dept we are currently trying to get members trained as instructors so more of our training can be done in-house. Also we have invited other depts to our training and have been invited to their's. This cuts down on drive time for most of us and gives more flexibility in scheduling . Having instructors on the dept will hopefully allow us to increase participation , allow members to increase their training level and take more pride in the department as a whole.