Posts Tagged: Volunteering
Joining Forces
From our sister site: FireRECRUITER.com
What started out as a vision for a successful joint recruitment project has morphed into a passion to connect firefighters and soldiers of all stripes.
Based on the concept that we're looking for the same peo…
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Video Killed the Recruitment Star
In his February 17th Morning Lineup features (and updated on February 20th), FireGeezer.com's Bill Schumm discusses and demonstrates the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of using video as a recruitment tool. While his perspective on why we face the…
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@FireRECRUITER: Rise to the challenge
An article recently posted to FirefighterNation.com outlines the challenges faced by volunteer fire departments in Pennsylvania in recruiting and retaining their members. Although these types of articles are becoming all too frequent, this one in particu…
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Impact of the Digital Age on Recruitment and Retention
The world is changing rapidly and the fire service is getting caught up in the tornado effect of technology on our society.
More and more fire departments are smartly using web sites, e-mail and social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter to …
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X-Box Live
That's right!
"From the X-Box to the Box Alarm: Motivating and Leading Today's Firefighters" is back by popular demand at FDIC 2011. I hope to see you in Indianapolis March 22-26, 2011. Look me up if you plan on attending and look for my presentatio…
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@FireRECRUITER: Are you flush or flushing?
As I do with much in life, I take new experiences and new information and compare it to other aspects of my life in emergency services. Whenever it's the least bit relevant - I try to apply it to the business I love: the fire service.
Such was the cas…
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Is this Case and Point for Volunteerism? You be the judge!
Could this be a reflection of the topic we are discussing? Could this have happened anywhere?
We are discussing Volunteering and how much training, knowledge, and experience volunteers need to keep up with Firefighting this day in age.
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What’s your story?
It's been a great, long, hot summer --- causing me to take some time away from blogging to spend with my family and friends. Although I haven't been writing much, I have been doing a lot of reading and observing. And, it's my observation that the need f…
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Run-to-the-Curb Radio: Chief Tim Sendelbach
It’s like “Run-to-the-Curb Radio” — but better!
“Firefighter Storytellers” is a natural outgrowth from my popular “Run to the Curb” series — as it offers a radio show designed simply to facilitate kitchen table type discussions bet…
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Get Fit. Get Safe. Make It Personal.
[caption id="attachment_1745" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="My Three-Part Risk Management Plan: Alex, Laurie and Kathleen"][/caption]
Despite the fact that I wrote this piece for Fire-Rescue Magazine last year, I'm pretty sure its content is …
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Raising a flag about lowering THE FLAG!
It's after Memorial Day-2010 and I've been working on this blog for about a week, in hopes of having it finished prior to the start of the holiday weekend but life got in the way and that didn't happen.
In retrospect, I'm glad I procrastinated. I'm gl…
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Run-to-the-Curb is Top Story
[caption id="attachment_1811" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="That's me with Past Chief John Latimore, one of my best friends in the fire service and the neighborhood I grew up in."][/caption]
It's been more than a month since my presentati…
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@FireRECRUITER: It’s EMS Week – Roll With It!
From www.FireRECRUITER.com:
In honor of EMS Week-2010, I thought I’d promote the (dare I say) sexiest video I’ve ever seen come to volunteer recruitment and retention.
“Roll With It!” is a part music video, part movie trailer — full-on hig…
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Tis’ the Season
One student was D.O.A. and the other seriously injured, requiring extrication and transport to the trauma center by helicopter; while the teenage driver was put through a full set of field sobriety tests, arrested and hand-cuffed in front of his peers.
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@Run-to-the-Curb: Planting a Seed.
It should be no secret by now that I have a passion for story telling, and especially telling of the importance of sharing stories in the fire service as a means of passing down our history, traditions and values.
It's almost an obsession.
It's got…
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The FDIC Experience: Returning Home
For the next four long hours I felt like I was in a scene from "The Terminal" --- the movie about an eastern immigrant stuck living in the airport with nowhere to go and unable to leave because he had no country to return to, and therefore no official citzenship anywhere.
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Live, from Indianapolis, it’s Saturday Morning!
[caption id="attachment_1732" align="alignleft" width="350" caption="ChiefReasonArt, Chris Naum and some other guy at FDIC 2009"][/caption]
Join Snyder NY Chief Tom Merrill and I for a live broadcast from the show floor of FDIC on Saturday-April 24 fr…
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Going to the Show! See You in Indy.
I hope to see all of my loyal followers (both of them) at FDIC in a few short weeks. I'll be presenting "From the X-Box to the Box Alarm" on Thursday-April 22, 2010 at 10:30am in Room 127-128. There's room for 308 of my closest, most personal friend…
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@FireRECRUITER: Recruiting in a Gray Area
My helmet is off to the folks in the Syosset NY Fire Department for recognizing 40+ aged recruits as a viable part of the solutions to our recruitment and retention challenges.
Age is Nothing But a Number at Syosset Fire Dept.
Joining later in life is…
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Run-to-the-Curb Kids: Collect the whole set!
Rhett Fleitz at FireCritic.com has compiled one of the greatest collections of firefighter stories in hosting his first edition of the First Due Blog Carnival which asked our brothers and sisters to answer the question: "I am a firefighter because..."
…
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FireRECRUITER: The Art of Speed-Recruiting
If you had just 30 seconds to convince someone why they should join your volunteer fire department, what would you say?
What would your message be? Do you have a standard sales pitch that you use for just such occasions? Can you even say hello in 30 seconds?
I recently had the opportunity to coach and practice some speed-recruiting exercises with the Doyle Hose Co. 1 in Cheektowaga NY. They had been invited to be a part of career day at the local high school in their response area and they invited me to join them.
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It was in the cards.
The Evans Center Fire Hall (as we called it) was just down Bennett Road and around the corner on Route 5, maybe a few hundred yards away from my house, as the crow flies. Closer than that was the rear entrance to the sixteen acres of fire company property, directly across the street from our driveway.
Growing up so close to the firehall, it was an obvious choice as a place to hang out with my friends. We played baseball on the ball fields the fire company leased to the Little League for a dollar a year. We helped out at and patronized the carnivals and other fundraising events. When the fire company added on a large banquet hall in 1971, we helped the contractors move supplies and materials. My initials are carved in the concrete sidewalk they poured. I was eight.
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Re-Enlist.
I don’t know if it’s the fact that my father served in the US Army in two wars, my self-inflicted guilt for not serving in the military, or simply my love for country; but over the past several years I’ve experienced a growing appreciation for – OK, almost an infatuation with – our US Military and the men and women who serve in it.
My logical side admires these ordinary people who perform extraordinary missions in defense of our freedom.
My creative side is in love with the marketing machine that is the US Military.
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LIVE: Casting a Net over Recruitment and Retention Challenges
I've been asked by FireCritic and FireDaily to join them as their special guest on this week's edition of Firefighter NetCast.
Naturally, we'll be discussing volunteer recruitment and retention along with an overview of my presentation at FDIC in April and my cover story in the March edition of Fire-Rescue Magazine featuring my online book project: Run-to-the-Curb.com.
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@FireRECRUITER: Big Win for the Youngins’
While I haven't had the chance to read the entire 52-page report cover-to-cover, I can tell you that it's comprehensive in scope and a well organized resource for anyone involved in creating or maintaining a fire department sponsored youth program. It holds something for everyone including chief officers, youth leaders, fire department administration, parents, support liaisons and the youth themselves.
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