Parade Prep Interfering With Training

[Guest]

Of your regularly scheduled drill/training nights, how many of them are spent preparing your apparatus and department for parades, inspections, or other non-firematic activities. Please include the approximate number of drill/training nights you have a year in addition to how many of those are spent on this sort of activity. This does not includes regular vehicle maintainence or washing off the rig quickly after driving in the snow, or when very dirty.

To paid department members, how many parades does your department participate in a year, what type of apparatus do you send, what sort of coverage do you have for your department when you go to parades.

Thanks in advance for the info.

[mfc2257 464]

Of your regularly scheduled drill/training nights, how many of them are spent preparing your apparatus and department for parades, inspections, or other non-firematic activities.  Please include the approximate number of drill/training nights you have a year in addition to how many of those are spent on this sort of activity.  This does not includes regular vehicle maintainence or washing off the rig quickly after driving in the snow, or when very dirty.

To paid department members, how many parades does your department participate in a year, what type of apparatus do you send, what sort of coverage do you have for your department when you go to parades.

Thanks in advance for the info.

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In short, very rarely did preparing apparatus for parades conflict with training.

In detail.......When I was Captain in Millwood, in a 4 week month we had 3 Tuesday operations drills, from 7-9:30 or 10:00pm plus a company meeting on the remaining Tuesday. I also hosted Captain's drills or drivers training on Wednesday nights every 3 weeks or so where younger members or folks looking for refreshers could work with me on Q&A items and hands on examples. Parade prep was usually done on the Monday or Thursday before a parade. If possible the current 2252 coodinates with the younger more motivated members to wash the apparatus on thier own time then the company would get together to detail the apparatus on the Monday or Thursday immeadiatly before the parade assuming that it didn't run a messy job in the time following its washing.

Edited July 28, 2006 by mfc2257

[Guest]

DISCLAIMER: The following reflects my individual views only. They are now way a reflection of any agency I am, or have been, affiliated with.

Thanks mfc for the quick response. I guess the point I was getting at was the following. Assuming you meet for drills 48 weeks a year, and you go to 8 parades every year and you have one inspection dinner a year. Let's assume that you spend the drill night before the inspection dinner/parade detailing the trucks. The means 9/48 training nights (one for each parade plus one for the inspection dinner) are spent on detailing rigs, an activity that most likely won't do too much to enhance the training of your members. 9/48=0.1875, or nearly 20% of your training nights are spent on what is essentially a non-essential task.

While I am sure many departments have a lot of highly trained personnel, I'm sure many departments could use this time to go over NIMS, EVOC/CEVO, arrange to do live burns at the FTC, get an instructor to cover FF survival, arrange a FF training course, reinforce fundamental skills at your department or at the FTC, etc. My point being that we are fire departments first and foremost and it seems we lose track of our primary objective during parade season.

I am also wondering how many departments put their frontline apparatus OOS to send it to a parade. This also means taking some of your best FFs OOS so they can attend. How many departments have alcohol at their parades? Is this what we want a bunch of uniformed FFs with apparatus costing several hundred thousand dollards getting drunk? What about the FFs under the age of 21, do they drink too? What sort of liability does the hosting department have?

The reason I bring up the career departments is that I am curious how paid departments handle parades (e.g. what type of apparatus go OOS, how many FFs go OOS for it, etc.)

We recently had a thread where people were arguing whether or not you should leave a M/A assignement to go back to your home town if there was another call, but no one seems to object to substantially weakening your departments ability to protect its district for parades.

Sorry, I just think the amount of time and effort spent on parades is detrimental to the Volunteer Fire Service and is a tradition that should be gotten rid of.

[cas2383 22]

Not to discredit anything said previously, on the other side of the fence, parades to allow those of us who do volunteer to show off our pride and have fun. They help people get together and instead of working, blow off a little steam. IT is nice to have fun sometimes when all the other times you're giving your time to respond to calls.

Once again training and drills are very important but so is making the atmosphere more conducive to memebers having fun together as well.

[Guest]

Not to discredit anything said previously,  on the other side of the fence, parades to allow those of us who do volunteer to show off our pride and  have fun.  They help people get together and instead of working, blow off a little steam.  IT is nice to have fun sometimes when all the other times you're giving your time to respond to calls. 

Once again training and drills are very important but so is making the atmosphere more conducive to memebers having fun together as well.

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While I agree with you, it's the number of parades, the presence of alcohol, and the impact on the communities we serve that concerns me. One or two parades a year, something for Memorial or Veterans Day, no problem. It's when a significant portion of your training time is spent on preparing for parades that I have a concern.

[mtd452 0]

While I agree with you, it's the number of parades, the presence of alcohol, and the impact on the communities we serve that concerns me.  One or two parades a year, something for Memorial or Veterans Day, no problem.  It's when a significant portion of your training time is spent on preparing for parades that I have a concern.

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Parades are a tradition and part of the whole fireman experience, the buildup to parades (washing the trucks etc.) is a way to help show off the apparatus and how proud we are as a department, so after reading your comment I believe that you are really out of line. Instead of posting this on a website you should have talked to your members or your chief to see what you could have done and to hear everyones opinion.

Keep in mind your post does get read by many people throughout the county and various parts of the country.

[Guest]

Parades are a tradition and part of the whole fireman experience, the buildup to parades (washing the trucks etc.) is a way to help show off the apparatus and how proud we are as a department,  so after reading your comment I believe that you are really out of line.  Instead of posting this on a website you should have talked to your members or your chief to see what you could have done and to hear everyones opinion.

Keep in mind your post does get read by many people throughout the county and various parts of the country.

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I was wondering what other people felt about this, and wanted to have different perspectives; it is in fact the diverse population of this board that had me decide to post this. I wanted to see what other departments do. This is an issue that has been botering me for some time, and I felt that I should gather more information and other people's perspectives. I have seen very diverse opinions here on a wide variety of issues and I hoped that I could get some insight into this particular tradition, and see how prevalent it is. Many things that I thought were universal I have found out, as a result of this board, were in fact not.

My appologies for offending anyone, I posted to try and create a productive discussion about this and to see if I could either bring to light something which I see as a problem or to find the error in my views.

[IzzyEng4 427]

My company havs very rarely done a parade drill and when we have, they were always held separately from training drills. We mainly go out and have fun at parades. If the parade is local, then our in service pumper may go, and we just wash and wax it. Most parades we try to take our 1962 ALF pumper, still in its original service state.

In previous years we have one many awards at the CT State convention inlcuding best drilled and best in parade. More recently we win awards at the New Haven St. Patrick's Day parade for best volunteer fire department and also best color guard.

We just go hand have fun and try to look our best but mainly to have fun. Our attitude is if we win we win, if not we had a blast.

Just a look from the other side for ya.

[Remember585 815]

Maybe this is an answer you're looking for.

In 2005, my Company trained for 114 hours, not including driver training and Department drills.

We went to our Inspection and attended 4 parades.

For the parades, we spend 3 nights per parade, 12 hours total, of SCHEDULED time to prepare. For one parade we only washed it that morning, and responded to two incidents during the parade (our own). Other time put in by the membership is optional and non-required. For Inspection, cleanup was four nights (16 hours) and one whole day (12 hours).

So... we spent 65 hours cleaning the rigs. It seems like a lot but it isn't, considering the time we take to answer alarms (190 Company, 300+ total and 600 EMS calls that many of our guys do), time spent on standby and other PR details, time spent taking courses at WCFTC, Camp Smith, NYSAFS and other places AND time conducting weekly rigs checks.

Parade cleanup was only a fraction of our time....and the last thing on our priority list. We also take the time to wash the rigs after most alarms and drills because we are proud of our rigs, even though one is now a big pumpkin.

[Guest]

I once had a conversation with a Chief in the area who described the parades as "very competitive", so for some depts. it may be higher on the priority list.

Scheduling time specifically for detailing rigs for parades would be the best option. The question of which rigs you send is different...do you send your new ladder truck or tanker, those rigs which would most likely bring home a trophy, and leave your station in the hands of mutual aid companies or your older equipment? (Esp. if you're heading out of state.)

[FF402 133]

Instead of posting this on a website you should have talked to your members or your chief to see what you could have done and to hear everyones opinion.

Keep in mind your post does get read by many people throughout the county and various parts of the country.

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I think that is the point of this website.....to hear and see OTHER peoples ideas and opinions. I know I have learned things I ordinarily wouldn't have just keeping things "in-house", as you imply. I still don't understand why some are so secretive about their operations....if your confident you are doing the right thing, then what are you afraid of?

[Guest]

People talk about how parades allow you to meet other FFs and take pride in your department.

How about take pride in lowering your response times, increasing and diversifying your training, meeting all NFPA and OSHA standards, having certified training requirements for officers, drivers, and chiefs, ensuring you have full crews, making sure all you FFs have AVET, Survival, and FF 1 as a minimum, encouraging members to take as MUCH training as possible, practicing essential firefighting skills regularly, having your members take First Aid, CPR, and AED traing, and/or instituting a physical fitness requirement? It seems to me that these are the things that matter, and that you should take pride in, NOT some trophy. If you care about trophies so much as the County to issue one for the most live burns done by a department, lowest response times, and other such non-trivial things.

As for meeting other FFs, why don't you meet them at the training classes offered at the FTC, or by doing more joint training with your neighboring departments?

Ask yourself this: Who are we serving by going to pardes? By taking frontline apparatus and top FFs OOS? Our communities who we protect, or ourselves?

Yes there is a place for volunteers to enjoy themselves, but remember our primary mission must be to protect and serve the communities we are in. If you truly believe your department is as good as it could possibly be, then maybe you should go to the occasional parade, but I would suggest you take your reserve truck and make sure you have enough officers, FFs, and chiefs left in town to make sure you can cover any call that comes in.

Don't be so enamored with the past that you don't look towards the future.

Also be careful with the word tradition, it has been used many times to defend antiquated practices that should have been abolished or reformed (segregation, equal rights for women, inter-racial marriage, etc).

[Jason762 2]

How about take pride in lowering your response times, increasing and diversifying your training, meeting all NFPA and OSHA standards, having certified training requirements for officers, drivers, and chiefs, ensuring you have full crews, making sure all you FFs have AVET, Survival, and FF 1 as a minimum, encouraging members to take as MUCH training as possible, practicing essential firefighting skills regularly, having your members take First Aid, CPR, and AED traing, and/or instituting a physical fitness requirement? 

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But those things don't involve shiny plastic trophies and beer. Oh yeah and getting to ride on the hosebed of the engine..

To paid department members, how many parades does your department participate in a year, what type of apparatus do you send, what sort of coverage do you have for your department when you go to parades

We attend our own St Patty's Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving Day, and probably one or two others. We only send 1 engine company and any off-duty members that would like to attend. These aren't the typical volly parades, just march the route and at the end, off you, go back in service. Other than that, none.

[Guest]

I still was wondering about the alochol and underage drinking at parades, in addition to the impact it has on your ability to respond (number of FFs at a parade, type of apparatus OOS, impact on training, etc). Trying to keep this thread alive.

Thanks,

Jared

[DOC22 1]

We do our drills on Monday nights, with the exception of the third Monday which is our regular Monthly meeting. The Monday before parades is set aside for detailing the vehicles. However quite a few show up other nights as well. There are always a few members who don't go to parades, so if we get anything it gets covered. Exception to that is a parade any distance away. such as last night in Bedford we had a neighboring Department on standby in our headquarters. Our younger members have been informed that if they drink underage, they will be disciplined. But as I have stated in previous posts, we are VERY lucky to have the kids we do. They are a responsible bunch.

[mfc2257 464]

DISCLAIMER: The following reflects my individual views only.  They are now way a reflection of any agency I am, or have been, affiliated with. 

Thanks mfc for the quick response.  I guess the point I was getting at was the following.  Assuming you meet for drills 48 weeks a year, and you go to 8 parades every year and you have one inspection dinner a year.  Let's assume that you spend the drill night before the inspection dinner/parade detailing the trucks.  The means 9/48 training nights (one for each parade plus one for the inspection dinner) are spent on detailing rigs, an activity that most likely won't do too much to enhance the training of your members. 9/48=0.1875, or nearly 20% of your training nights are spent on what is essentially a non-essential task. 

Sorry, I just think the amount of time and effort spent on parades is detrimental to the Volunteer Fire Service and is a tradition that should be gotten rid of.

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Jared -

0% of our training nights were spent on washing apparatus for parades. If you reviewed my post, I indicated that 3/4 Tuesdays were spent on training, rigs were washed on Mondays (for a Wednesday parade) or Thursday (for a Friday - Saturday parade).

Sure parades are a non-essential firematic task. There is no doubt about that. But for many people, after they've worked a long week, been to their regularly scheduled training, put dinner on the table, helped the kids with their homework, fought off the flu that got picked up at daycare, and ran 5 calls between the hours of midnight and 6 am that week... etc etc etc etc.... A parade is a nice way to hang out with your buddies.

NOT everything in the world has to be all serious all the time. Maybe we should write to the FDNY and Boston FD hockey teams and tell them that they should stop playing because they could use that time to do more training.

People are allowed a break.

[Guest]

I appreciate that, and in fact one of the reasons I posted was to see if people were able to balance their actual firematic obligations with parade duty. I have no objection to people going on parades, but when it crowds out other tasks (like training), or when your department essentially puts frontline apparatus OOS to be at a parade along with a substantial amount of FFs that I am worried.

Edited July 30, 2006 by JaredHG