Desperate for Ideas

[emsff32515]

We are a vollie dept. and are always lookig for more people.

[sleepyemt]

My department was in a similar situation about a year ago...

We spent the money and hired a training coordinator full time to train the new probies ( I was one of them)...she helped us all move up and now I am charge EMT and have my own duty night thanks to her training me on how to train people...it takes a lot of work and dedication but it can be done.

answers:
1) maintaining members in a volly dept. is hard because how can you convince a sane person to spend 20+ hours a week for free? Try adding a meal incentive program...for ever 4 hrs they spend, they get $4 and at the end of the month, add up the hours they spend in the station riding, and give them a gift card to a local food store or resteraunt. Incentive to become an officer? I think anyone who joins would want to move on up to become an officer.
2) Word of mouth, open houses, go to local high schools and get junior members(if your county allows), go to locoal colleges/comm colleges, lots of ideas.

You have to make your firehouse look good to others...I am in a county where most if not all of the stations are volly and career so I know the problems associated with keeping members....my house is fun and people join because we are a really small group of amazing people...make sure the people you bring on would fit in with the current members, have activities for your members outside of the house...we try twice a year to have a volunteer paid outing with no chief present just to get to know eachother out of uniform...

good luck and e-mail me if you need anymore help! kglaud1@umbc.edu

[emsff32515]

Thanks for the help - Only forseeable problem, $ - We dont have a lot of cash flow in our dept and people are sticklers on where we spend our money - but I guess proposed in the right way - you never know what might happen - I agree that we need more comradere in our dept. People just like to complain about everything - Its the young people group and the older member group - Hard to bring them together -

[sleepyemt]

Yeah...we are in the process of re-writing our bylaws and the older members who we haven't seen in a few years (>5) are startng to come back and refusing to allow us to change them...annoying! Don't let them abuse you...just stand firm on what you want and why you think it would benefit the department and the community. If $ is still an issue...go to your community and tell them that you want to provide the best care for them, and the way you can do that is to get money to hire the help you need to keep your department going.

best of luck to you! and i am here for more help if you want.

[orangebuster]

Try asking the older members why they are opposed to the items that are being brought up for change. You may be suprised to hear that some just do not understand and some are bullheaded. Either way, open the communications line between the two groups.

Sometimes the older members just feel left out of the loop even though they have not been around for a while they feel that they did their job and got the department to where it is, so they should still have some input.

Don't ever waste an older members offer to help you either. Sometimes, we tend to think that we know all and that they like our parents were never our age and never went through what we are trying to do. Funny thing is, they had to deal with similar issues along the way also.

Does your agency bill for EMS runs? And how many runs do you handle?

One thing I remember being told way back when I started some 35 years ago was to always listen first, because someone may have something good to say. The other point is that if you can not sell yourselves to the older members, how are you going to sell yourselves to the community.



STILL STANDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!