September 25, 2012
This past week, September 21-23, your Executive Committee along with members of our Leadership Institute and the SC Firefighter Assistance & Support Team (FAST) met in Anderson for our fall planning session. While part of the meeting was dedicated to the Executive Committee conducting regular business and hearing committee reports, the most exciting part centered on the presentations by the Leadership Institute and a training session led by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF). If you are not aware of the work of the Leadership Institute, very briefly, this is a group of firefighters from around the state who were selected to participate in a year long journey that gives members an inside look of the workings of your Association and fire departments throughout the state. As a final project, members are assigned a research topic relevant to our state fire service. This year, the topics included the current arson problem in our state, online training, firefighter standards and statewide fire department data collection and analysis. These presentations allowed us to evaluate how each issue is affecting our state, what progress has been made to address it, and a recommended course of action. As a committee, it is our goal to write these topics into our strategic plan for continued evaluation and action. To this year’s participants: “job well done gentlemen.” On Saturday, members of SC FAST along with your executive committee joined the NFFF and fire service professionals from across the nation for the premiere offering of the new Stress First Aid course. Behavioral health continues to be a concern of your Association, and courses such as this along with the formation of the new SC FAST are benefits that we want to make available to our members. So far, I have been very impressed with the behavioral health committee and the SC FAST, and I look forward to continued success. On behalf of the entire Executive Committee and Association staff, we are honored to serve our members and want to provide you with the best service possible. Each firefighter is a customer, and we want to keep the lines of communication open. Please feel free to contact us at anytime with your concerns. You can follow Chief Gibson on Twitter @BillyGibson11
South Carolina
Firefighters' Association
111 Westpark Boulevard
P.O. Box 211725
Columbia, South Carolina 29210
Email: [email protected] Phone: 1.800.277.2732 Fax: 1.803.454.1801
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