Need Creative Ideas...

[GVFD5]

Hey everyone! I have recently been elected as one of the Assistant Chiefs of my Vol. FD. Part of my responsibility now is to be the Training Officer. I am excited about the challenge. In the recent past we have fallen short of hosting "significant" training nights and I plan to change that.

I want to "encourage" our guys to attend training and one way I have thought of doing that is to design a "Training T Shirt". This is where your help comes in... I am looking for cool training or FD quotes or sayings that I can incoorporate in the shirt to make it more appealing. I would also entertain any other ideas or things you guys may do to "encourage" everyones participation in trainings.

Thanks

Stay Safe!

FD5

[Mr. John Doe]

I highly doubt that giving your guys another T-shirt is going to encourage them to attend training. They'll just have another cool firefighter shirt to wear in public.

I find that a good meal tends to bring people out of the woodwork. You might consider having a "training night cookout".

[fire49]

Pre plan some interesting businesses

Sometimes they like to see what a business does and you can incorporate pre plan into the walk through

[JayDudley]

Incentives

If your looking for smart sayings on t-shirts...go to www.firefighters.com. I think the suggestion of a meal after the drill is a great idea. Firefighters always love a good catered meal even if it is burgers and fries....

[GVFD5]

We already do the meal thing. Just looking for more ideas. Thanks

[PaladinKnight]

If you want to give them a T-shirt... make it yellow with the words "TRAINEE" on the front and back in 4" Letters.

When they ask how do they get the Blue Shirt tell them "when you complete the training."

I urge you to not pass out T-Shirts... that just feeds the T-Shirt Firefighters egos....

And by the way... Congrats on the promotion... I hope it is all you hope it to be...

[NY911Bowhunter]

T-shirts awarded upon completion of a training series is a great idea.

[GTRider245]

The meal night works well here. The first 3 mondays of the month we do regular training. The 4th we have classroom training and eat. It is a change of pace but not a wasted night.

The biggest thing I noticed from being the training officer with my small volunteer department is that people will be more willing to train if you get out there and train with them. In the past it was normal for the officers to explain what we were training on, send us out to do the training and then have "officer meetings" while we were gone. That has sence stopped and morale has improved.

Make sure you change things up. Don't do the same stuff over and over. While some things need to be trained on more than others, try to cover a wide cirriculum in a given year. Keep in interesting. Take ideas from your guys on what they want to train on.

I agree that a t shirt probably wont accomplish your goal and just eat into your uniform budget. Spend that money on something that matters.

[BSFD9302]

Ask them straight up..."What kind of training do you want?"

My guys want physical types of training, RIT, S&R, Hose practice, ladders, etc..

I have even found ways of incorporating non physical types of training into physical types of training, i.e. communications and teamwork. For a short description.........

Darken your bays.
Have at least two teams of two but four teams is better.
Put together at least a 5 piece nozzle (nozzle, tips, reducers, couplers) for each team
They where full PPE with SCBA.
Take apart their nozzle and spread it out in the bays.
Have them reverse their hoods so they can not see
Have them search and assemble their nozzle
It is also good to have a little noise going on while they search.

It teaches them to speak up while in SCBA, communicate to each other what is going on and also to help out the other brothers by letting them know if they find an extra piece where and what it is.

That teaches more than sitting at a table talking about how to communicate.

I would advise you to be creative while trying to teach a point.

One last thing we do, no matter what, we always train with full PPE and SCBA..

Sometimes when it is SCBA training, we even do silly stuff like play soccer in full gear, do class work in full gear, do apparatus checklists in full gear. We will do whatever it takes to have our guys feel comfortable and confident with themselves and educate the officers on what some individuals limitations may be.