EMTbravo

I just wanted to say a quick thanks to all the Verified and Alpha Members for making this site what it is.....you guys rock! -Seth G.

Just a bump to say you're doing a great job, Tim!

I just wanted to note that DOC22 is not only our Spirit Ambassador, he's also our Director of Member relations, and doing a great job at it as well! He works very hard to make sure each member is comfortable in our community, and his hospitality and kindness is appreciated by many. Keep up the great work, Chris!

Another promotion from within..... RWC130 has been with this forum since the start, and has done whatever he can to help this forum suceed. With all the new work I've taken on, I don't have time to work on our advertising program, which we use to fund the operations of the site. Nor do I have time to administer the program properly. RWC130 is currently a Senior Moderator here on EMTBravo.net, a position he has held since the inception of this forum. Well, although he'll maintain his moderator abilities, he's being booted out of that role and transfered to our newly formed Adminstrative Division as Director Of Sales And Marketing, to maintain our advertising program that keeps this site free, and to take some of the pressure and work off of me. Congrats, RWC130!

I have to add that Rob has also been given the title of Director Of Events. He has some ideas planned that I think many people will really dig. Rob has been here since Day 1, and he has passionately encouraged me to plod foward, depite me being totally resistant to everything, thinking it'll be too much. However, with the delagation of the new role, Rob won't have to worry about moderating tasks and can focus more on his new duties. It'll be a little while before you see things start to happen while we set up the infastructure, but some of these ideas will take the site to a whole new level. Also, Rob, sorry for not returning your calls-haven't felt much like talking on the phone, I'd much rather type.

I just wanted to say that I really, really appreciate all the members who work hard to post high-quality, factualy, and timely Incident Alerts on this forum. IA's are one of the most popular features on this site, and a lot of people rely on them. It really helps to keep people informed. It wouldn't be possible without you guys, and I truly appreciate it. Incident Alert's are NOT intended to be a buff page, but rather a log of incidents. That's one of the reasons you don't see us going to a paging system, but we do make IA's available for viewing via our mobile site, http://www.emtbravo.mobi And we are are also especially proud to keep the Incident Alerts completly free-we don't believe in profiting off of our members hard work like the for-profit services do. I know many other members also really appreciate it, and hope they'll chime in and show their love!

Members- We are in the process of rolling out a new Live Help feature of the site. The EMTBravo Staff will be manning this to help you with any issues you have using the site. For now, our hours are limited but as we equip and assign our staff there should be close to 24/7 coverage available. Look for the icon on EMTBravo.com, just below the top of the page on the left hand side. Eventually, this icon will be available on ALL EMTBravo websites. This icon will indicate if we're online or offline. If we're offline, you can leave a message and the next available staff member will get back to you. MAKE SURE TO SELECT THE CORRECT DEPARTMENT SO THAT THE RIGHT STAFF MEMBER CAN ASSIST YOU! -Seth

Members- As we continue to expand our infastructure, we are currently recruiting for the following positions: Member Support Associate (2) Posiitions Available In this role, the incumbent will provide assistance visitiors and members of the EMTBravo websites through our new Help Desk system. We are rolling out a new Help Desk Ticket system, where if a member needs help, they will submit a ticket and it will go to a department, depending on the members problem. From there, the ticket will be assigned to the appropriate MSA. It will be up to the MSA to either help the member with his issue, escalate the ticket to the appropriate department, or take other actions as described. MSA's will also be required to post knowledgebase articles for members to reference when they are having problems. REQUIRMENTS: -Must be 18+ years old -Must Be A Verified Member -Must be completly proficient with all aspects of the EMTBravo forums softwares -Must complete a 20 question multiple choice exam -Must have a friendly and helpful demeanor -Must have 100+ posts on any EMTBravo forum or cummulatively -Must have proficient spelling and grammar -Must be able to work with limited supervision -Must be able to respond to and troubleshoot a members issue within 48 hours of the ticket being assigned to you -Will Triage Tickets Appropriately Member Support Associate Program Adminstrator (1) position open REQUIRMENTS: -ALL ABOVE PLUS -Must have 500+ posts and be of Alpha Status -Must monitor MSA's for performance- timeliness and client satisfaction -Ensures quality of staff -Must be able to provide assitance in troubleshooting -Must be able to train and work with MSA's to help them to use the Help Desk system -General Administration of the Help Desk/Ticket program -Liason To EMTBravo All EMTBravo positions are 100% volunteer. However, if this site at any point in the future makes a profit, it will be split equally among the staff. (logisitics of that are still being worked out). If you believe you have what it takes to help make our sites the best, then email our EMTBravo Staff Recruiting Division at recruiting@emtbravostaff.com and tell us why you're right for the position.

These openings are now filled. xfirefighter484x: Member Support Associate Program Administrator SageVigiles: Member Support Associate Level I ems-buff: Member Support Associate Level I I will be in contact with you guys this week regarding the positions as soon as I set up training and infastructure. Thanks to everyone who applied!

With all the changes currently going on here at EMTBravo, and with all the things we have in store for the future, we've decided to launch a "development blog" to keep our members "in the loop" as to what's going on. If you're a fan of EMTBravo, or if you just want to keep up with the changes and new additions, then you'll want to check this blog frequently. EMTBRAVO DEVELOPMENT BLOG "BEHIND THE SCENES AT EMTBRAVO" http://emtbravo.blogspot.com/ From this point foward, all general EMTBravo news, such as staff promotions, etc will be posted on the blog. However, all new and information specific to this forum will continue to be posted in this section as well as cross posted on the blog.

I was Member #1. For some reason, when we upgraded from the software we used originally, to the software we use now, I was "bumped" to Member #2, and everyone else bumped up a notch. (Including RWC130, who was and is Member #2, as he always reminds me, lol!) Instead of resolving the issue and realinging the numbers so I was #1 again, I decided to (quietly) dedicate that honor to my late father and grandmother, who inspired me in many ways and made this site possible, even though they never got to see it except from up above.

I wish Brian luck with his new venture! I must say that I think that we'd be better off synergizing our resources, obviously BergenFires.com feels differently but I feel there's room for both of us right now. RocklandFires.com puts out an excellent product, and does a great job providing a communications resource for Rockland County's Emergency Services as I'm sure they'll do with BergenFires.com as well. Although people have aksed me why I haven't expanded into Rockland, it's because I felt RocklandFires.com served their needs and there was no need for me to create a forum and potentially take away from that. I want to make it clear that I'm not out to compete with anyone. It's my policy only to start new forums where I see a need for them, where they currently don't exist or are underserved by existing forums. I don't want to take away or detract from anyone else's forum efforts, as I feel people don't have time or energy to read and particpate in several forums regarding the same area on top of all the other internet content that's out there. However, I still feel strongly about EMTBravo and the areas we've expanded into recently, and feel we offer very unique websites. Whenever possible, we try to form alliances with existing sites, like we've done with LAFirePhotos.com and 10-75.net to provide the best possible forums we can for those areas. Although no one "owns" any territory and it's completly free enterprise, we still have THE best staff, and THE best members, whom are the heart and soul of our forum, and no one can ever compete with that!

The EMTBravo Group is proud to announce the launch of our new Help Desk for ALL EMTBravo websites. http://www.emtbravo.com/help This new site will allow users to submit help tickets for assistance using the site. This will allow the staff of the site to organize support requests more efficiently so we can respond quicker. We ask that if you need help using the site, for example if you are having log in issues, that you use our new Help Desk system. In the future, we will be adding to the Knowledgebase feature of the site, to answer many commonly asked questions.

Members- EMTBravo Forums & 10-75.net have partnered to bring you EMTBravoUpstate.com We launched this website after noticing a lack of a place for Emergency Services personnel and those with an interest in emergency services to communicate interactively online in Upstate NY area, like down here with these forums. We hope to maintain this forum as a positive, constructive, and friendly place to exchange information. We hope you will enjoy and participate in this latest addition to our forum family. Please help us to get the word out to all interested in Upstate NY emergency services operations that we are here. http://www.emtbravoupstate.com Eli Gill (FDNY 10-75) has been appointed Adminsitrator of these forums, and has done a great job right out of the gate. I look foward to working with him & and his website, http://www.10-75.net to bring you the best forums for Upstate NY that we can. Eli can be reached via email at FDNY1075@EMTBravoUpstate.com -Seth G. Administrator The EMTBravo Group

With the expansion, all the existing moderators on this forum have been promoted or assigned to other roles with the EMTBravo Forums divison. Due to that, we have appointed a new Lead Moderator and 3 new Moderators. All these members were previously Alpha-level members, and have always contributed positively to this forum, and understand our mission completly. They are all truly supportive of this forum. I am glad they accepted the offer, and am looking foward to their help in keeping this forum a positive, constructive, and friendly place to exchange information. So, here's where we stand as far as this forum is concerned on Friday, February 1st 2008 Truck4: Promoted to EMTBravo Forums Director Of Operations. Will also retain his role as Deputy Administrator Of Incident Alerts here on this forum. TR54: Promoted To EMTBravo Forums Director Of Operations. Will also retain his role as Deputy Administrator Of Protection From The Past, as previously announced. RWC130: Director Of Sales, Marketing, And Events. DOC22: Director Of Member Relations, Spirit Ambassador Jack10562: Lead Moderator, EMTBravo.net And, our three new moderators: Chris192 jcoppola moosecfd362 IzzyEng4 and RescueKujo are Deputy Admin's of other EMTBravo forums, are also Moderators on this forum. tbendick is the FDNY moderator, and ja3kfd retains his role as honorary moderator. Thanks to all for their help, and I am proud that all of our promotions came from within. We have a really talented staff, and all of the EMTBravo staff works tirelessly, for free, to bring these forums to you. I find that very commendable, and I couldn't do it without you guys.

Sorry about that. Should be fixed. Please also note these forums include the Albany, Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, etc areas of upstate.

An Alpha Member will be a member with 350+ posts. It will be to signify a member who regularly contributes to this forum, has experience posting, and has been around for a while. If you have 350+ posts and aren't clasified as an Alpha member yet, then you will be promoted automatically on your next post. If you have LESS than 350 posts, you will be automatically promoted on your 350th post. Again, I want to reenforce that posting to increase your post count, or "spamming" the forum is not tolerated, so anyone found to be doing so will have their post count reduced by 350 posts. If you want to get to Alpha status, then continue making quality posts and the time will come where you will get it. ALPHA-QUALIFIED MEMBERS: You may make a post in this thread to automatically promote you.

Recently, I heard that some people who donated money were upset over the expansion of this site. I would just like to inform these people that this expansion cost NOTHING financially, since we have our own server now (which was required anyways, and we needed to consolidate everything onto one server to save money). The only thing this expansion costs is time. The forum software I'm using for the new sites is free. The hosting space is already there and paid for-it costs me nothing extra to run more forums or sites. The money I recieved for donations was to help me pay for a couple of months of the server costs. I was in a financial bind Otherwise, I would have had to shut down the site for a few months until I saved up enough money to consolidate all the sites and upgrade to a Dedicated Server. (Current costs of running this site are $300+ a month) We subsidize with ads, and the deficit I usually cover out of my own pocket. Since I'm only being paid my base salary while I am still out injured from work, my mortgage, food, etc has to come first. I also don't see, given the growth of this site, why I should potentially have to go into debt to provide it. I expanded the sites becuase that was part of my master plan, and now that I have the time to implement it, I am using that time to do so. Again, the hosting costs remain exactly the same as before the expansion. This is exactly why I didn't want to ask for donations. For those who donated, I thank you very much for your trust and allowing this site to remain online and get financially stable again. To those WHO DONATED money and are concerned or complaining, please contact me via email, EMTBravo@EMTBravo.com . When I can afford it, I would be glad to refund your donation. But, please, I ask that you refrain from assuming and talking behind my back...if you want answers, I'm the one to ask. To those who didn't donate, and are complaing about the donation situation, it really doesn't concern you at all, so please mind your own business, just keeping in mind those members and advertisers who make it possible for you to use this site for free.

As we continue to grow, we have started an Administrative Division of EMTBravo to deal with all the administive tasks that keep this forum running. Additionally, I'm trying to shed some of the work off of me so that I can focus more on doing what I need to do. Truck4, currently Deputy Adminstrator of EMTBravo Forums, has been appointed to Director Of Operations of our newest division, EMTBravo Forums, which encompasses all the EMTBravo Forums sites. Truck4 has been with the forum since the begining, and he invented the "Incident Alert" concept which fueled this forum's growth. He also continues to be the "Incident Guru", posting an average of 4 IA's a day. As EMTBravo expands, their are more roles to fill. Truck4 has been very reliable in assisting me with the administration of this forum, he's my "check and balance", and he also has filled in for me several times while I've been sick or traveling. Thanks for all your help, Truck4, and congrats on the newly added stress! (PLEASE NOTE: All EMTBravo staff work hours upon hours to bring this site to you. They don't get compensated at all-they work for free. I really thank them for making these sites what they are, and they are a tremendous resource for me. If it wasn't for them, I don't think I could handle running the sites)

The EMTBravo Group Announces New Division, Major Expansion Tuesday, January 29th 2008 Hartsdale, NY- The EMTBravo Group, a unique social media company for the Emergency Services community, has announced the launch of a new divison, EMTBravo Forums. EMTBravo Forums goal is to provide a positive, constructive and friendly atmosphere to exchange information relating to emergency services online. All forums have local Administrators and Moderators, and a local-specific focus. Using the EMTBravo platform, we hope to connect all those in the Emergency Services community through an easy to use, feature rich online forum channel. The newly launched forums were determined using several factors. Factors taken into consideration were the lack of existing forums specifcally for the area, great potential for growth, and eager and enthusiastic users. We hope the new forums will build on the success of the existing EMTBravo forums. The EMTBravo Group is a division of Granville Enterprises, a privately owned company. The EMTBravo Group was founded in 2003, and was aqquired by Granville Enterprises in 2007. Currently, The EMTBravo Group maintains central offices in Hartsdale, NY. Current forums operated by EMTBravo Forums: EMTBravo Network Online Emergency Services Community For The New York City Metro Area including the Hudson Valley and Southwestern CT. http://www.emtbravo.net EMTBravo New England http://www.EMTBravoNewEngland.com Online Emergency Services Community For Connecticut, Massachusetts (Including Boston And Worcester), Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, And Maine EMTBravo West http://www.EMTBravoWest.com Online Emergency Services Community For Southern And Northern California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, and Oregon. Our NEWLY LAUNCHED FORUMS: EMTBravo New Jersey http://www.EMTBravoNewJersey.com Online Emergency Services Community For New Jersey EMTBravo Austin http://www.EMTBravoAustin.com Online Emergency Services Community For The Austin, TX Area. EMTBravo Midwest/Chicago http://www.EMTBravoChicago.com Online Emergency Services Community For The The Chicago Area. EMTBravo Florida http://www.EMTBravoFlorida.com Online Emergency Services Community For Florida. EMTBravo Upstate http://www.emtbravocentral.com Online Emergency Services Community For Upstate N.Y.

Members- We have just started a Health And Welfare forum, that can be found under the Information Exchange Section on the main page of this forum. This forum will focus on health and welfare of Emergency Services Personel, including exchanging healthy recipes, excercise and physical training ideas, etc. This forum will have an emphasis on living a healthy lifestyle while working in a stressful career Thanks to Calhobs for the development and suggestion of this idea! -Seth

I do own both companies, and founded the website. The EMTBravo Group handles all operations under the "EMTBravo" brand. I formed Granville Enterprises last year to branch out a little, and take on different projects, including some private web work I do as well as consulting and marketing. I put The EMTBravo Group as a division of Granville Enterprises instead of making it a whole seperate entity. I made it a business so that I could write off all the expenses of running the site. Also, I wanted the name of the company to honor my late father, and his business ventures.

I think this sums up the feelings of everyone. But I don't know what to do? Do I lock this thread, and get blasted by some people? Or do I keep it open, and get blasted by some people? I think if I locked this thread, it would be the equivelent of "sweeping this topic under the rug". That doesn't do anything justice. The more these issues are pointed out and discussed, the more aware and concious people become of it. I think it slowly brings change, except for those who would rather get defensive, sling mud, and pretend it doesn't happen. If we don't talk about it, does that mean the problem doesn't exist? Can a career firefighter point out that a volunteer firefighter is held to different standards without being labled "anti-volunteer"? No one bothered to post a constructive response to that, rather people decided to dig up incidents about career firefighters that were completly irrelevant to this discussion. Maybe they should be labled "pro-proper conduct"? Some people should pause, read what people are typing, think about it, THEN respond. It's sad that for some people it's more about ego then THE PUBLIC WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PROTECTING! Please note though, the personal bickering and profanity needs to end now.

If you've registered for an account within the past 24 hours, please reregister. Instead of hitting the "Bulk Approve Registration" button, I hit the "Bulk Delete" button instead. Dumb move. To the 12 people affected, I apologize for any inconvienece.

Here's the administrative take on things: 1. This video was posted on YouTube 2. This thread was created to share and dicuss the video 3. From an administative standpoint, I think I would be doing the fire service an injustice by deleting this thread. I believe this is a SIGNIFICANT safety issue. Obviously, the person taking the video was standing, with his hand's primary focus on holding the camera, not holding on. Additionally, there is NO reason why they couldn't have stopped, put on gear, and then responded. Also, if this apparatus is so unsafe, then have the ladder respond and use a suburban or other type vehicle for the crew to respond in. 4. People need to stop getting so defensive, and TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS! This forum, nor the members commenting on this thread who are not involved with PCFD, are in the right to comment about this situation WHICH WAS POSTED ON YOUTUBE!! 5. All I see is EGOS, and nobody saying "Yeah, it was not a smart move and we've addressed the issue". If this video was shown at Firehouse Expo, in front of a bunch of respected fire service leaders, would the members of PCFD commenting on this thread be able to justify their actions? Please, stop the crying of "we're getting bashed", and save it for the funerals of Firefighters who may possibly get killed because of actions such as this, and the officers who allow it to happen. I'm locking this thread because it seems that SOME members are more concerned about their "EGOS" and "PRIDE" than professionalism, safety, and saving lives. It has gotten out of hand, but it is a great example of why the fire service around here is so screwed up. BLAME THE ACTIONS OF THE PEOPLE INVOLVED, NOT THIS SITE! If you can stand behind what you do 100%, then, there should not be an issue.