The one single thing that I think the CFS needs to work on in the coming years is simply the culture of the organisation. The CFS needs to foster a far more positive and forward thinking environment. From this we should then see certain things fall into line. Better appliances, more specialised equipment for the needs of different areas, volunteers will be staying with the service as they are not sick of the way they get treated.
At the moment the CFS seems to have some serious issues with the way that it treats its employees, both volunteers and paid staff. As we have seen recently there has been a huge exodus of skilled people. Now I don't know the specifics of each case, but if people are treated well by their employer, you general don't see huge numbers leaving at once.
We need to see ourselves as a modern fire service that delivers a professional service to our local communities, even though we are staffed (at the coal face) by volunteers. Too many people hide behind the "I'm just a volunteer" As has already been suggested here, we need to lose the Rakehoe and Matches attitude for certain areas. Don't get me wrong, this is not the case for most places. We seem to forget that the BA/Rescue/Hazmat/etc specialised Brigades are the minority. There still needs to be recognition of those busier brigades, even though there aren't that many of them, and the fact that they have different requirements to those other, quieter, more rural Brigades.
Volunteers also have a huge responsibility on their shoulders to help those in the upper ranks in the CFS. Volunteers are terrible when it comes to most things. If the volunteers could argue their opinions in the appropriate manner and if they went about things in the right way, things would work SO very much easier. And before you start, I'm not laying blame at the volunteer, trust me, I've been there, clashed heads with people and had to jump the chain of command due to personalities. But that should be the exception, not the rule.
As much as we all whine and moan about appliances, will anything ever be good enough? Will a busy Brigade EVER be able to have new trucks, high volume pumpers, and cool gear without ever other small brigade kicking up a stink? It seems like people can never ever be happy with what they have, even when it suits and exceeds their needs. I'm sick of hearing the arguments that "Houses burn the same in Shitsville West as they do in Burnside, why do THEY get a Pumper? We need one too!" The service will NEVER be able to move forward when everyone is so concerned about their own Brigade and not the service as a whole. Strategic resources? Ever heard of that?
Whats a big bonus of giving everyone the same truck? No-one has anything to whine about. Seriously though we should all be able to work towards a better service. Make things easy for your captain, that makes it easy for the GO, which in turn can lighten the load of your RC. Same with training. Do things the right way, make it easy for the BTO, the GTO and RTO. If the people with the power aren't running around dealing with "Awww but that busy brigade got a TIC, we need one too for our 30 rural jobs a year" then they may have some time to implement some changes.
Sorry to rant, but I just think that every person of every rank needs to take a good hard look at themselves and the service that they want to be a part of. Its all about small changes. Volunteer retention can be dealt with at both the top levels of management and the lowest levels of the brigade. We're all a part of it, why not start working as a big team?
Jesus everyone is a moderator now.
Too many cheifs not enough indians 
Christ you're not wrong!
Atleast you don't have to know anything about firefighting to be a Mod around here...
Oh I wanna be one too! PUHLEASE?
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