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Permalink Reply by Wade Seely on January 9, 2011 at 9:49am

If you hsve the ability to have livving quaters in the station, I would recomend trying a reserve firefighter program. These programs allow you to draw in people from outside of your district. They shift atthe station for at least a minimum amount of hours a month.

Our department has had the same type of problem in finding in district people that want to join, and now the majority of our volunteers are out of district people that come in. We have to shift a minimum of 36 hrs a month and attend trainings and meetings.

Hope this helps

TCSS

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Permalink Reply by ashfire on January 9, 2011 at 10:13am

My vol company is putting up a banner to see if it will help bring in active members for both firefighting and ems plus auxiliary members. Other depts use different types of signs in front of their stations to draw in members. We also depend on a county recruitment program that runs ads on the public safety cable channel. I served on the county fire and rescue association's recruitment committee until the county frie commission took that over. We had different ideas like bill boards that moved around the county, radio ads, recruitments stands at public events and handouts.
We have had high school cadet programs in the schools. There are the federal programs that bring in members like Fire Corps and CERTs if people don't want to be a regular firefighter or ems person at least they could be a member of the company and help with dept projects or needs and still be a help in a emergency.
We have a (LOSAP) length of service award pension for members with over a certain amount of years as members. Right now you have to have 25 years and age 55 to start receiving it. There has been talks to lower the time and age to keep members around and interested. We also have tax credits for members who don't draw LOSAP.
LOSAP and the tax credits are either county or state programs which to get fire and rescue associations to get behind to talk to politicians about.
Thats just some ideas to try.

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Permalink Reply by Norm Tindell on January 9, 2011 at 10:24am

When you mentioned "well-to-do" and "middle class" I thought of an issue we've had some difficulty with. It's the fact that in this litigious society people are getting less and less willing to take risks that put their assets at risk. We have an individual on the department who has a large sum of assets. He refuses to be an officer simply because if the department ever gets sued he'll be a large target for some aggressive lawyer to shoot at. So what we're thinking about doing is taking out a large general liability policy to cover every member in case something bad happens and a citizen decides to sue the department. Benefits are a big selling point. Provide life insurance, extra LODD benefits and solid workers compensation benefits, then tax guidance for those interested in using FD membership to get those elusive deductions like the mileage deduction to and from the station. Grants can be used to pay for all this and more...and this is the kind of stuff that really entices long-term participation.

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Permalink Reply by James Mclennan on January 9, 2011 at 5:26pm

we have the same problem. our limit is met and less than half actually show for meetings, practises and fundraising events. we are a paid on call department, and do not have many calls in the last two years. it is very hard to keep the interest up and training active. my worry is when an incident arrises, the members will not be trained enough to do the task efficiently ,or worse, safely. which i have seen before. so more ideas or comments the better on this thread, im happy it was created

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