Hey team, how many volly firemen we have here? Where are you and for how long?
I am in whangarei heads, small station with around only 60 calls a year. Been a member coming up two years.
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Hey team, how many volly firemen we have here? Where are you and for how long?
I am in whangarei heads, small station with around only 60 calls a year. Been a member coming up two years.
Hey Smidy,
your timing is impeccable. Check this out. (I sent you a PM but went to the wrong Smiddy :oh noes: )
http://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co.n...ly-room-11085/
haha yeah i saw that so jumped straight in :)
good idea. should create a fair amount of traffic especially with the upcoming medical changes for the fire service.
Tell me about it. We are missing so many calls at the moment and get asked by the community why we weren't there to help them :(
i don't follow?Quote:
Originally Posted by sako75
we are 30 mins from whangarei and have always done medicals that i am aware of. It's important for our community and we are happy to do it until the ambos can get there.
At the recent chiefs meeting they told our chief that we would trial the van thing but we will loose our appliance as we are a single appliance station (Aux actually). That doesn't seem to make sense to me as at a guess half to 60% of our calls are medicals so what do we do in the situation of a fire with half the equipment. I totally agree a dedicated medical vehicle would be very useful on medical calls but at the expense of an appliance, best to have one each. That and what is the benefit of have a bed in the vehicle? We have never used the stretcher we have on our appliance and it has been stated we are not to transport patients so what's the point? It has been a fairly up and down topic for us as a while back st johns were using us a lifting help returning patients home from hospital to. They would send a single ambo officer and turn us out to assist to get the patient inside. that didn't last too long thankfully, they were given the cease and desist.
I'm a rural fire volley, joined June this year.
Attachment 17459
My fav pump, and my fav pump operator :)
Attachment 17461
Happy Valley fire earlier this year
27yrs a volley, fire Chief 16yrs. Both kids are volleys and the son is a Crew leader. We are under National Rural not NZ fire service. Two great volley units who sometimes work together. Last nite myself and Son and 1 of my medics spent 2.5 hr's trying to keep a Suicide victim alive, hope we succeeded as I haven't heard the outcome today. Spent all day today training and tomorrow Saturday I will be training Volleys from other departments. Hope this goes better than the last time when I was called away to recover the 2 lake Victims. My motto ( Volleys rock become One )
My old man is in the rural fire force in maungakaramea, I'm nzfs but we have plenty of scrub fires in our area.
My uncle up here has 2 or less years for his gold star, hanging in there just
For anyone that doesn't know, a Gold Star is award for 25years service. That is a great achievement :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by moonhunt
Smidy, have you been on Firenet and read the regional notice on the St. John MOU update?
He's raining in on 50yrs, maybe its a second gold, not sure how it works, he's fire police now
They left the price tags on the helmets ;)
Hey guys
Me and my best mate are planning on joining the Morrinsville volunteer fire brigade. Im 16 and mates 17 just wondering what we have to do to sign up and what sorta training and that do you go through. Much appreciated.
here you go , all the info you could want in one hit
New Zealand Fire Service - An Introduction to Volunteering
Cool cheersQuote:
Originally Posted by stumpy
You will get a lot out of it
Yea mate . I recon itd be a bit of fun and to know that you changing lives would be pretty cool. How hard is it to become a volly, is there many positions available usually or do you just go on a waiting list? CheersQuote:
Originally Posted by Gapped axe
Ask your brigade mate, they will have the answers. You may be too young to be an operational volley but I know at my old station we had Cadets that were under the age of 18. You can do all the training, just not allowed at a real fire.
A lot of the rural stuff is running up hills with big packs, chopping down trees and digging holes [emoji4] so awesome cross training for hunting!!!
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Six years as a volley ambo here...plenty of yuck sights
Yep vol nzfs here in Fairlie heading towards 5 years. Love it
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@possummatti although the black and white print says 16 years you may find that your local has a minimum age of 18. Don't take this as rejection. Fire brigades are quite complex in comparison to years gone by. We no longer sit around waiting for fires but are called to assist ambulance to all status 1 calls (CPR) and other medicals as required, storm related incidents, mobility scooters with flat batteries etc. the list is long. The Fire Service has changed from Fire to Fire and Rescue and now changing to Fire, Rescue and Emergency's.
We have operational budgets based on the number of crew they say is our complement. To kit out a new recruit is over $2500. Your local brigade may already have a full complement.
A brigade requires commitment. A new recruit has to complete a 2-day 1st aid course followed by a 7-day Basic and BA course in Rotorua as a minimum. All this comes at a cost so the Fire Service (and your brigade) would like to get a good 3-5 years out of you.
The good side of joining are the skills you will learn at your age, the teamwork with people of various ages and walks in life, pushing yourself when you know that others are relying on you to complete a given task, the training they are paying for you to learn, the rush when your pager goes off and not knowing what you are going to, the social time after training or callout. That is just a few of the benefits and most of all knowing that you are only 1 of 9000 people in NZ that are doing what you do.
Go down to your local brigade and talk to the chief. You may have to make a time as the chief or deputy chief may be busy organising the brigade training for the night. If they say there are no vacancies, ask if you could go back in a couple of weeks to tag along for a few training nights to see if been a volly is what you think it is looking from the outside. You won't get to ride in the truck but is a chance to show maturity to the officers and they may invite you to keep going.
Remember it is a commitment you have to make as others will be reliant on you to be there for training and on a operational roster if your brigade has one. It is not something you can just rock up to when you feel like it.
I have just knocked up 20 years and although the enthusiasm is just starting to wane, I still enjoy doing what I do
I would have thought as a volunteer organisation it would be the more the merrier ?
After all people go on holidays,go to a family members 60th and get pissed etc and either cant make it to a call or are not fit to respond so best have some spares yea?
Cheers sako appreciate itQuote:
Originally Posted by sako75
Wishful thinkingQuote:
Originally Posted by veitnamcam
The NZFS says a volly brigade can have a compliment of 20 (as an example) they will provide a budget for 20. They will let you go a % over that then the costs come out of your grant or operational budget. Each year The NZFS give each brigade a grant based on the number in your brigade. You can spend that money on what you want. Some will spend it on operational equipment, some on a pissup. We go out for dinner once a year (one year the piss bill was more than the food bill). If you go above the compliment you pay for the extra out of your grant. The grant also has to pay for honours with are medals for number of years service. A 25 year Gold Star cost a couple of thousand dollars.
In the 80s a brigade would require 20 members (as an example) to provide coverage and the service required. Nowadays the same brigade requires 24 to provide the same service. This is due to 7-day shopping, working on weekends, people going away more to 60th pissups, weekend sports etc
No prob.Quote:
Originally Posted by possummatti
The FS is a great organisation to be a part of and to be proud of. At the top it is pretty heavy and start to ask yourself why you want to be a trog with the workload that is getting worse than easier. At the beginning you won't see any of that and will be none the wiser.
The FS strive for excellence and will ask the same from you. Take the opportunity and run with it. There will be hard times and plenty of fun times
Trogs - if Stumpy calls you a Trog it is a name the career guys/girls call volleys and comes from the name Trogolite who only come out after dark
trog ..... trog trog trog trog ..... trog trog trog trog ..... trog trog trog
its a compliment ......:)
also , when ever we had scrub fires to go too , we are always happy when the bush bunnies (dougie) turn up , because that means we can pack up and go back to relaxing while those lunitics run all around the bush putting out hot spots !!!!!
after near on 20 years full time service in the NZFS I recommend it in all ways , be it perm, vollie , ops support, rural etc etc .... and you only get out of it what you put into it , even my wife is in the job , in central fire comms , any of you talk to her on the radio , be nice ... cant miss her , shes the only Canadian on there
I'm in my third year as a volley and actually got back from the QFF course in Vegas today. I do thoroughly enjoy it even with the varying and sometimes outright horrible nature of calls we attend but the social side and skills you learn far out weigh the short term stress of the horrible calls. I would also tell anyone that joins and goes through the recruit course and didn't enjoy it to sick at it until you've done the QFF course, it really is a big step up and a much more enjoyable course. The compartment fire training is tops and it teaches you so much.
Sent from my workbench
Off to Waiuru on Tuesday to do a 3 day Air Support Supervisor course. The last requirement I need to get my Unit 4 in fire fighting. I figure after 28yrs in the service I should be able to get something out of it.
2nd call in to days.
Grass fire stopped just before a hay barn:) @kiwijames you should of come for a ride:)
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Dry weathers not helping. Our calls have sky rocketed. We have a new toy from Draeger to help with that though ...http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...34cc2cf6a1.jpg
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Fire porn:)
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IR Camera? Cool.Quote:
Originally Posted by anderset20
Get my Drager BA's coming up soon with carbon wrapped tanks. They make nice gear.
Hey guys, just joined up on the forums and this was (almost) the first post I saw.
Been a volly at Papakura Station for just over 18 months now. Usually float round 200 calls a year.
The majority of calls are PFA's and being the second appliance on station, usually K28'd
Hi Shaun, Welcome aboard.
Did you sign up for the Pukekohe V8s in November?
Hope you and Joseph survived getting the last of the steel :) I got a bit of stick for giving away so much but it's what you do for fellow vollys
Cheers Stephen
Hi Stephen, fancy seeing you here haha...
I haven't signed up yet. Bit low on money at the moment to pay the subscription, but will have a look closer to the time when I am back at work.
Yup we did thank you. She ended up scraping the tables we were going to take though :(
No subscription for the V8s as it is as part of a fire crew on the track.
Any other fire vollies want a trackside view of the V8s in November?
Wait what!!!??Quote:
Originally Posted by sako75
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