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Permalink Reply by James Tubbs on March 28, 2009 at 2:54pm

Good Tips. Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by jesse wright on March 28, 2009 at 4:21pm

always show the community that you serve that you are above all else, a professional. secondly, give the community something to get behind and participate in, I.E. bingo, scrapbooking events, pit beef sales, community flea market( charge the sellers a small fee for the good of the dept. and let the community browse. of course you guys have a few stands for food and drinks!). just make the community feel like you guys aren't just there to wait for the s**t to hit the fan!

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Permalink Reply by Jason Hoevelmann on March 28, 2009 at 4:32pm

Look for ways to give back to the community that you are in. If you can get the local businesses involved, all the better, it gives the community "ownership" of what you are trying to accomplish. We started having free coffee and pastries on the first Thursday of every month. One of the local churches started cooking free breakfasts and it is a huge success. We started a residential lock box program with no money out of pocket, businesses buy one box and sponsor the box. Have art contests for the high school art classes and make flags for shirts from the winners. These have been very successful and little or no money out. Just stay creative and keep the community involved.

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Permalink Reply by Chief 29 on March 28, 2009 at 6:25pm

One good event to hold is on Trick or Treat night. We shut down the main square of Main St. with a truck at both ends and provide additional lighting for the kids as well as hand out treats to all the trick or treaters. Not only is it a hit with the kids, the parents are also very appreciative for us making it a little safer for the children to have fun without the worry of traffic for a couple of hours.

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Permalink Reply by James Tubbs on March 29, 2009 at 12:35pm

I forgot to add that one in. We have a Halloween Party at the station for the local kids. They can come in and get a bag of candy, numerous baked goods and play games for fire dept prizes (pencils, stickers etc...) Of course there are no losers!!! This past Halloween was the first one that I had to organize and I thought it was a huge success. The local radio station even gave us free on air advertizing. The tips you all have given are great so far. Anyone have experience with FD open houses or Pancake breakfasts?

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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on March 29, 2009 at 9:17pm

We just held our annual breakfast at the fire station and it was the most successful one to date.
We have door prizes that are donated and serve an excellent breakfast. Anytime you serve food, it has to be good. Cold pancakes and rubber sausage will not increase your fan base.
Our breakfast is by donation only. We do not set prices.
We also have a bake sale in conjunction. The ten dollar pies sell out first.
During the breakfast, firefighters will talk with the folks and we often get questions about joining up.
Local politicians will come and though we encourage them to do so, we ask them to be subtle with their message. It has worked out very well. We don't want it to turn into a town hall meeting. We don't want to scare off regular folks.
We will have another fundraiser in October. We are hoping for continued success.
Our roster is full and we have some money to spend.
We seem to be going in the right direction.
TCSS.
Art

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Permalink Reply by James Tubbs on March 30, 2009 at 10:07pm

Wow these are all great tips. Thanks everyone.

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Permalink Reply by Julia Heltemes on March 31, 2009 at 2:49pm

When I was with the department I was the PIER officer which stood for Public Information, Education and Relations.

Every other year we did a pre-prom auto accident simulation followed by a series of presenters who spoke on the importance of responsible choices. The school's chapter of SADD "Students Against Destructive Decisions" asked us to do this. We asked the local auto body lot for a banged up car put our members in as victims had the Red Cross moulage them (and it was amazing how real the injuries looked) we always had a DOA who we placed in front of the cars after extrication and a drunk driver who caused the MVA. Because the area we served had many MVA's and more than it's share of crosses on the roadway we tried to hit home. The simulation was well received the presenters were a police officer who spoke about what a DUI offender would go through,, an attorney who spoke about the cost,time in jail and loss of license, a parent of one of the
DOA victims and our Fire Chief who offered a $500.00 scholarship to the person who could write the best essay on the importance of responsible decisions.

I also scoured the internet and found many organizations that had free give-aways for our open houses especially FEMA. I got a lot of ideas from the Phoenix Fire Department who in my opinion is beyond amazing.
as well as Acomack Virginia. There are tons of ideas out there. Posting your state's policy on DNR's and how a person may obtain them is a great idea, offering the vial of life, car seat testing, babysitting classes and C
PR classes are also big hits. I know when I left the department we had a closet and a locker full of PIER information and give aways. It has been about 6 years now since I left the department but I just kept scouring the net and one site would have links to another site and it was great.

Good Luck to You, I know you will do a good job. I have some time on my hands so I will try and look some up for you and send them to you if you would like.

Julia


Julia Heltemes

Good Luck

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Permalink Reply by Julia Heltemes on March 31, 2009 at 3:39pm

James,

After I wrote my first response I started thinking about some of the other things we did as a department. Every Good Friday we had a fish fry the response was always huge, also we adopted the concept that the people we responded to were our "customers" and therefore deserved nothing but the best customer service we could deliver. We were not doing them a favor by responding they were doing us a favor by allowing us to help them. For structure fire victims we put together a small 1 inch binder with our logo on the front explaining to the people who to call if they needed further assistance, all of our phone #'s, the Red Cross and Salvation Army #'s, if their clothes and bedding, curtains, carpets etc were not a total loss how to clean them and how to remove the smoke smell, how to clean the walls, basically any information they needed to get their life back in order. We had an advocate from the department who made calls for the families to the insurance company to see how soon they could come and assess the damage and any other calls they wanted us to make. We stayed with them to answer any questions to keep them up to date on what was going on and at the end of the situation our Chief took them through a walkthrough (safety permitting) of their structure and again offered any information and explanations needed. The head of the Arson Taskforce would also talk to the family and again offer information and answer questions. I called photograph experts and asked them how to preserve photos with smoke damage they offered solutions and their phone number was added to the list. I had gotten in touch with our local veterinarians and asked if an animal was injured, or if the owner had to be taken to the hospital after an MVA would they care for and house the animal, they were more than happy to oblige. Do yourself and your department a favor and buy the book "Customer Service in the Fire Service" written by Alan Brunocini, Chief of the Phoenix Fire Department, it is not only amazing but funny as well. His take on the Fire and EMS service is certainly one of customer service. You will find that by giving outstanding "Customer Service" to those not only that call on you, but to everyone you come in contact with while in uniform works miracles. Just a smile at the grocery store, or a hello how are you, or helping an elderly person put their groceries in their car gets amazing responses. We had a call to a possible DOA when the crew responded they took in the stretcher that had just been pushed through mud to get to the house. The patient was in fact 'DOA so we waited for the coroner and in the meantime we cleaned the patient up by washing her face, brushing her hair a little bit and placing her back on the couch because we knew family members were coming to see her. The victims husband was beside himself with grief and was angry at everyone and everything which was understandable. A few days later he came to the station to basically yell at me because the crew had dragged mud all over their carpet. Understanding his situation and emotional state I asked the Chief if we could have his carpets cleaned for him the Chief said sure. we let him pick the carpet cleaning comapny and just asked that he present us with the bill which he did. That Christmas the grieving man came back to the station and gave us a huge ham and a beautiful card. We put our customer service to work. Another thing that is important is to make sure your apparatus is clean, especially the ambulances both inside and out. Having been a patient take in by an ambulance if it doesn't look clean I don't feel very secure. Make sure the ambulance crew engages the patient (if possible) in conversation and not each other in their own personal conversations. Ignoring the patient is a real fast way to get a bad reputation. The EMS crew can talk to one another about their personal issues at the station. I don't mean to lecture but we found that these mindsets and little gestures were greatly appreciated.

We also attended block parties (if invited) would try to send 1 unit to a birthday party for just a little while maybe 15 min to 1/2 hour again (if invited) we made ourselves visible at the schools athletic events, band events, carnivals and anytime there was something going on within the community.

I hope I haven't bored you to tears but again try and get that book I know Amazon sells it, it is very inexpensive and if you ever get a chance to hear Chief Brunacini speak please go. He knows what is going on and he makes it work.
O

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Permalink Reply by Julia Heltemes on March 31, 2009 at 4:39pm

James,

Yep it's me again. I forgot to add that a lot of the information I obtained was from Phoenix. When I went and heard Chief Brunacini speak I had the opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with him for quite a while and asked his permission to use some of his customer service "services" for our department because I was inspired with what I had read and heard. The Chief gave me the permission to use whatever would help the people of the community. I thought I would add that so if you do decide to use any of Phoenix's ideas a short call may be appreciated. Again, look over their website, read his book and the sky's the limit

Julie

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Permalink Reply by Tiger Schmittendorf on March 31, 2009 at 4:45pm

Don't have time to add much more than the suggestion that all interested join the PIO group at: to further this discussion with others who have a common interest.

I'll try to read and comment more later.

Stay safe. Train often.

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Permalink Reply by Tiger Schmittendorf on March 31, 2009 at 4:46pm

Kali -

You had another life we didn't know about? We need to chat...

El Tigre

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