Whats one of your favorite free time activites to do at the firehouse? I know some of the paid guys don't get a lot of free time, but we all enjoy the tidbits we get when we do. For volunteers, how often does everyone just stop in the firehouse and hang out for a few hours?
Balls in your court.

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Kinda like watching paint dry on TV,live I love it.
EXACTLY!!!!! Especially since these people they keep losing are the ones with the real training, not the backwoods yeah your good to go training. They are excellant training officers and should be the great officers that lead the departments, not the ones who are feared the greatest and black balled.
YA THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am glad we have a lot of harmony in our house but I have been on the other side and all I can say is make a point and get together and speak out with one voice, safe your house and speak up together in a forum in front of the Department and let the chips fall where they may you might be surprised how many agree.
I still believe in the brother/sisterhood I have to or I will be done.
I still can look in the eyes of anyone around here because I have never betrayed any of them
Seems we're in the same boat together, I'm told I need to find a balance... In my eyes it is balanced
I'm a member of an all volunteer fire co. Myself and a few of our other guys, including the chief stop in at least one day a week. I usually stop in with the chief every day when we get off of work. We do some housekeeping and go over anything else that needs to be done around the station.
I just re-joined the Fire Service and during the day most of the FF's in my county work full time as we are all Volunteers. While my son is in school, I go down to the Fire Hall and do some cleaning, and acquaint myself to where everything is in the hall and on our truck. I also attend the Junior FF training classes so I can refresh myself until Fire Academy comes around again. There are alot of old guys who have been doing this forever and occasionally they will come down to my hall or I will go up to theirs.
I go down to my station just about every chance I get, regardless if anyone is there or not. Usually though, after a run some of us will sit at the station and shoot the bull. Even the medical runs in the middle of the night, there will be 4 or 5 of us show up and we'll sit around in the chairs in the truck bay and talk about past fires, how things use to be (I've even noticed changes in the 7 1/2 years I've been on). We had a run the other night at about 11 pm and I think we left about 1 in the morning. It was great, we're all pretty tight.
We have four companies in town 3 have a barroom up or down stairs from their engine rooms, So 4 nights of the week are a practice night monday through Thursday. Ours is Wednesday night, the guys usually start showing up around 6p training starts at 7. We usually get a good solid 3 hours of training in. Sometimes it's hose lays, sometimes ventilation. If the weather isn't coroperating we do some inside training like airpacks, using a tic or one I like alot, we send everyone to retrieve a piece of equipment from the engine or squad once everyone has something in hand they each get to explain what they have, what its used for and where it's found on the truck. but I got a little off the subject..... after practice there is usually someone there 'till 2 or 3 in the morning playing cards or just watching tv.
I was active on our volunteer department for 22 year; the last 14 as chief. I would stop every day after work, check the mail, make sure everything in the bay was in its proper place, check apparatus to make sure nothing was left on, check the run log to see if there was a run, contact the lead officer for a sit rep, etc. My vehicle at the station worked like a magnet. When I was at the station, guys would stop by.
Now, I am president of the board of trustees for the fire department and I go to the station often. My dog, Chopper, likes to go for walks and since I will turn 55 tomorrow, I have been working on getting in better shape, so we go for a walk to the fire station every night for our exercise. I still check the roster, mail and apparatus bay. Some will see the light on in the meeting room and stop. We have a pretty close knit bunch. You don't have to threaten them to go to the station.
But for fun? I like to play golf, especially in firefighter tournaments. When it turns to snow, I will watch it on TV or play it on my computer. If I am really jonesing, I will read Golf Magazine. I also like to ride the motorcycle. In fact; I took the day off today as an early birthday present to myself and played a round of golf this morning and rode the bike this afternoon. I rode to a couple towns over. Chief there is a good friend and they just had a structural fire there. Fire marshal was there and I have always been fascinated with fire cause/origin, so I got to go in with my full leathers on, of course, and look at the structure. The fire department in that town did a fantastic job of stopping it. Could have spread to a restaurant and barber shop, but they put a great stop on it.
What was the question?
Art
Hmmm, noticing a theme here of resurfacing topics that deserve more air time? We all are full of stress from working a full time job, families, and being a firefighter/medic and need time away to vent. Come on and chip in some imput
Eco913:
I guess when you break it down, what I was trying to say in some of the previous discussion is that high call volume doesn't necessarily reserve your spot at the rubber room. I think being involved in this profession as a career or volunteer takes a certain psyche' on the part of the person. Some think since they have seen all of the goriest horror films, they can handle it. Some think because they are older that they can do it. Still, some think simply because they want to "help", they can do it. The fact is; if you don't have the mental capacity to process and separate the good things from the bad things, then you will suffer a type of mental exhaustion. There are any number of ways that you can use to cope (coping mechanisms). You have to understand that dreams/nightmares come from the subconscious. As an example, on any given day, something happens that brings back memories of your childhood, chances are that you will dream THAT NIGHT about being a kid again. If you have had a particularly grisly MVA and are still actively thinking about it when you go to bed, if you can even get to sleep, there is a good chance that you will dream or have nightmares about it. Now, we have several dreams a night; most of which are not vivid enough to remember. So, those types have no ill effects on us. But the ones that we can remember? Those are the ones that might impact us negatively. They scare us to the point that we don't want to fall asleep for fear that we will dream about it again.
I was never suggesting that one segment of the fire service was any more susceptible than another, but statistically, it does make some compelling argument. Each time a department rolls on a call, statistically, you are likely to see something that you haven't seen before.
The key is recognizing that it's having an impact on you and getting help with it, however you feel best served.
Hope this clarifies my earlier comments.
TCSS.
Art

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