Brigade Crew Problem

[tft]

Lots of brigades are having massive crew problems. If you check the pagers site, you will see lots of brigades defaulting.
Some Brigades and groups have some great systems in place to fix this
Crew Roster
Duty Drivers
Responding 2 brigades in the day to any calls
But the big question what is the CFS doing about this? Yes they will try and help with recruitment. But this is not enough.
Don't just think this is a CFS problem. SES have problems, SA Ambulance have problems in country areas and so do the MFS in some country stations.
What is the government doing about this?
In some parts of SA I would hate have a problem and need help.

[CFS_Firey]

Good question tft.  I'd suggest in some brigades it's not just lack of membership either - they're having problems getting the crew they already have to respond regularly, (hence the recruitment help isn't much good).
How can you motivate the crew you already have to be more dedicated and respond often?

[6739264]

CFS_Firey is right. For exmple we have 40+ on the books, yet maybe 10-15 that turnout on a regular basis.

[bittenyakka]

Well we have the problem of just getting members to training. And yes there is the same bunch who do most of the calls but i don;t think this will ever change.


Our solution is really just calling more brigades. Already we are Dual to everything (im not sure why it just is this way.

The debate i have had on this forum in recent time as some may remember is that a solution is to respond what crew you have and call another brigade as well. This is often a requirement for many brigades who's members work in town.

Or the case of 2 brigades get called 3 members arrive to both should they default or roll?

[chook]

40 on the books! I remember when we had those sought of numbers, but after it was decided to "cull" the alleged dead wood now we have eight. And in two weeks seven, makes me sometimes wonder if the cull was that great an idea
And you are right everyone is having problems, and there has been various solutions applied in the different services/ stations, brigades & units.
I'm not sure about success rates though & employers are getting less understanding. At work one of our sites had a false alarm yesterday, one of the employee's is with SAMFS & their EBA allows for emergency service callouts(at full pay!). I had to go to the site to assist with the investigation & you could see the site manager watching the clock - waiting for his employee's return.
Now for that job we lost 2 employees( one from the other site is also SAMFS)& 3 to the call out to the river later on. So from an employers view they had lost 5 hours 2x1 for the first & 2x1/2 + 1x2 hrs.
So I can see why employers are reluctant to release people + our people have lives outside of the service too (I know some may find that a bit shocking )
Even I'm seriously considering whether it's worth my while joining any of the services once I move to NSW. When you consider how much time & effort is given to be a part of the respective services & how much is sacrificed it makes you really stop & think.
Anyway we will see
cheers

[Katrina]

Get's back to we are volunteers, we have a life, we have a job, we need to earn money, if we don't work we get no money and then life becomes hard. Some people are not around at certain times of the year due to work commitments (just because my car is in the driveway does not mean I was to slack to turn out, I might have worked the last 12 hours on afternoon/evening shift and now I am getting some important sleep to be able to do it again tomorrow so I have my pager turned off) There are also some people that will only ever be around during the summer as they are interested in helping the community fighting bush fires but are not wanting to get caught up in the rest of the stuff. Well that is there choice and boy are they handy over the summer, they don't need to be penalised because they don't want to go to VA's etc.
Too many people are interested in getting rid of so called dead wood without looking at reasons as to why they might not be around at certain times of the year and taking into account all the extra work that they have done over previous years.
How to get rid of a volunteer, never acknowledge the extra work that they might put in (whether it be vehicle maintenance, radio checks, cleaning equipment etc etc) and just have it that you expect them to continue to do that without any help or thanks and the one time they are away, working or unwell jump all over them for not doing it

[chook]

I agree Katrina, however there is dead wood & others who aren't the frontline always respond people. When I'm talking dead wood I mean people who can't do anything or who are just damn dangerous on any task (for various reasons).
It is pretty bad when you have people who can't even do "walking traffic cones".
I know what you are saying about people who have been around along while & their days of being on the front line are well & truly over. However they are different from those I descibed above. But each to their own!
Remember this it looks pretty silly if you have 30 people on the books & you can't respond a truck, & those who notice these things really don't care about how good a bloke someone is or how many yaers loyal service they have provided. It's all about the ability to provide a service & to justify budgets (Not that I totally agree with this statement but its the facts of life in this modern world).
cheers

[bittenyakka]

Katrina I think all the members you mentioned are not the so called dead wood. However if they don;t tell the brigade then it really sucks.

i am happy if i have members who only turn up over summer but tell me so i can shift their gear to the back of the shed over winter.

[pumprescue]

Dead wood is people that don't do anything at all, we have a guy that isn't really interested in the run of the mill stuff, but is always there in summer, due to a large waiting list we asked him to drop back to Auxillary and he was happy with that, he still trains all the time during the year, so skills aren't an issue.

If you have a good reason, so be it, but if you make no effort whatsoever, then don't waste your time or the brigades time, as you clearly don't want to be involved.