Tactics

I’m so intrigued by firehouse live-in programs that later this week, the FireRECRUITER is traveling to Hyattsville MD — home to one of the longest standing and most successful bunk in programs in the fire service — and home to the X-Box ...

Having just completed a week-long National Fire Academy course in Advanced Safety Operations & Management, I was thinking of the correlation between safety — and recruitment — and retention. One could argue that the connections are both direct and significant. If ...

Last week’s release of the highly popular article: Can you afford to live without a live-in? garnered a lot of attention and peaked my own attention to the idea. Thus, the FireRECRUITER has significant plans to connect with www.fdlivein.com soon to expand ...

Congratulations to the members of FASNY’s Recruitment and Retention Committee for being proactive and planning a statewide recruitment effort for April 9 and 10, 2011. They’re promoting the simple concept of each volunteer fire department hosting an open house that weekend and have backed ...

As many volunteer fire departments struggle to maintain adequate staffing, there’s still a long-standing solution available that is often overlooked. Like many of the challenges we face, the solution to inadequate staffing may require more imagination and sheer will than it ...

The organization IndependentSector.org released a document identifying the value of volunteers in America. The study indicates that the average value of a volunteer’s time was $20.85 per hour in 2009. According to the report, that number was as high as $28.52 ...

Is it just me, or does any one else smell opportunity? You say you don't have enough volunteers? Here's an idea, take those donations and invest them in a VOLUNTEER RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN!!!! As I've spoke and written of many times before, why is it that we spend the thousands and sometimes millions of dollars to support the inanimate objects of our jobs that are entirely useless without the proper quantity and quality of firefighters to operate them?

Check out this reporter’s experience as he dons a firefighter’s gear and learns about the life of a volunteer. Training shows reporter how much volunteer figherfighters deal with: http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_23a66580-50c4-11df-b21a-001cc4c03286.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

As I wrote in "From the X-Box to the Box Alarm" --- This demo includes settled homeowners; their kids are growing to an age of independence; focused on giving back; perhaps even looking for an outlet – or just an excuse to get out of the house.

If you had just 30 seconds to convince someone why they should join your volunteer fire department, what would you say?  What would your message be? Do you have a standard sales pitch that you use for just such occasions? ...