 Good evening and welcome to the April Volunteer Forum coming to you live this evening from Dimpooler Fire Station in the jewel of the crown of the of the CFA according to Deputy Chief Officer Brett Boatman here of the fantastic West Region. I'm sure we'll have plenty to hear about the West Region and the Dimpooler Brigade later on. As always and firstly and foremost and importantly we'd like to acknowledge the Aboriginal lands to which we all meet and celebrate tonight and pay our respects to Aboriginal elders past and present and recognise the strength and resilience of Aboriginal people in this land. A jam-packed agenda tonight but as always tell us where you're watching from whether it be Ian from Hamilton, Brett from Beechworth or Debbie in Badagini and everywhere in between we're keen to know where our members are tuning in from so we can continue to deliver an informative session to our members right across the state, interstate or in fact as we do know many of our members actually tune in whilst they're also abroad so welcome to all for tonight's forum. Jam-packed agenda this evening and as always we have an exciting panel and as I said our Deputy Chief Officer for Region West Brett Boatman thank you for coming along Jenny McKinnison thank you you're the Region District 17 Community Engagement Coordinator and you're going to come and tell us about some exciting things happening in that space so I'm looking forward to to having that chat and we've got of course the Dim Bull the Brigade and we've got Ashley the Captain thank you and kindly the Secretary thank you for opening your home and allowing us to to come in and celebrate and I guess share the forum here this evening so thank you for your hospitality and as always we have a fantastic live audience hot in their seats like coiled springs ready to jump up and ask a question at any moment a really difficult question as I've laid out the challenge to them earlier because Brett's ready to answer anything they've got to ask so welcome to yourselves and thank you for for coming along and I know we've got brigades far and wide here in 17 so thank you for taking the time this evening to for joining us so a couple of things that we'll cover off for tonight we'll talk about our mid-year budget review and and some savings that we've managed to find and put and reinvest back into our brigades and and volunteers so we're going to touch on that and talk about that in a little bit more detail we're going to look at the next generation wildfire PPC and take a trip through the factory that's actually manufacturing the wildfire PPC and understand how it's made and a little bit more about why our next generation gear is so special and so good Jason Lawrence has done a piece for us our aqua for operational communications on the next release and the new release of SAS version 8 and particularly the turnout function within within the supplementary alert system so we look forward to hearing more about that from from Jason and as usual and as I promise every month we're going to have an update from DCO Luke on the training side of things and we are up to in respect to training so a lot to to be discussed this evening as always the chat function is live so please feel free to put your question to the panel on anything you want to talk about will pick that up and have that discussion here this evening and as always our senior managers and executive from CFA are also online ready to answer your questions if they're not answered here in the panel odds are there's someone behind the scenes working the magic to make sure that they get a response for you in the chat and I thank our CEO group general managers and all our managers and senior staff for joining us this evening in order to answer our volunteers questions so without further ado let's be in it so firstly I'd also like to have a bit of a shout out to our Brigades who participated at the Good Friday appeal 72 year tradition across CFA and many of our volunteers were out there rattling tins stopping traffic holding up makeshift toll roads and any other you know shenanigans that they could come up with to shake the coins loose in the pockets of communities to ensure that they got the maximum that they could to go to the Royal Children's Hospital a fantastic cause and a cause that certainly has been a tradition in this state for many many many many years and CFA has a long and and dedicated tradition to ensuring that the kids are being looked after this year thanks to the efforts of the volunteers when CFA managed to raise a staggering 1.6 million dollars for the Royal Children's Hospital and that's 200,000 dollars more than last year's total of 1.4 million bringing CFA's total for the 72 years to be 37 million dollars collected and passed on to the Royal Children's Hospital I took some time out with the Hoppers crossing crew who joined me at 11 30 at night at the Melbourne International Convention Centre or Jeff's shed where we joined the telephone for the Good Friday appeal to hand over the check for the kids and let's see what the crew from Hoppers had to say but here at the Melbourne Convention Centre where myself and the team from Hoppers crossing have just come to present the check to the Good Friday appeal many brigades have been right across the state today Good Friday raising funds for this fantastic cause a big thanks to every single CFA member that was out there shaking those tins raising those funds you've done a phenomenal job the CFA has been at this for 72 years and thanks to the tally tonight we've raised in those 72 years 37.6 million dollars for the Royal Children's Hospital I got dimmer in the team here from Hoppers crossing how great is it to feel that we've done our bit in raising funds for the kids and and been here tonight to present the check it feels amazing that we've been able to contribute like this and see the number at the end of the day awesome that's fantastic and tonight we had a big round of applause from all the call handlers that we see here behind us they've done a fantastic job to taking donations from right across Victoria but also wherever the broadcast for the Good Friday appeal is held team thank you very much for everything you've done for the fund raising thank you for coming here tonight it's nearly midnight it's been a big day for you all it's been an absolute honor and a pleasure to be here with you this evening as we present your 1.6 million dollars for this year to the Good Friday appeal Royal Children's Hospital back to the panel we're here at the Melbourne how fantastic to to see dimmer in the crew they're handing the check over and certainly a fantastic effort and again my personal congratulations and thanks to everyone involved in the Good Friday appeal and the raising of that 1.6 million Brett isn't it fantastic to see a that the amount of funds raised by the regates the I believe and probably stand to be corrected by understand it probably was the largest check presented to the Royal Children's Hospital on the evening why is it so important and why do you think it the CFA has such a connection with the Royal Children's Hospital it's just an extension of part of the work that we do in communities chief and I guess every year the check that we hand over is the record and we always strive to break that record in the following year if I reflect on particularly the brigades who get involved in Good Friday appeal it's not just the bigger busier urban fire brigades it's right across a whole range of communities it's not necessarily just on Good Friday that they're doing that work as well to lead up to it I mean it's a very iconic thing the Good Friday appeal Victoria Royal Children's Hospital touches so many people and so many families have had an experience with I've needed the help of the Royal Children's Hospital so the bit that we do in communities to help support that appeal and ultimately support Royal Children's Hospital with their mission is a very positive thing absolutely and Ash and Kylie so I understand you may have been involved in this in the in the past why is it why was it important to dim bullet I guess that you get involved in events and causes like the Good Friday appeal yeah as Brett said I suppose it's it's just an extension on what we already do in a lot of respects as he said you know it is people from our own community who benefit from the work that the hospital do and and yeah we certainly appreciate it now I understand there's something that the Brigade does do that collect some some funds and I hope I'm not falling foul of the system here tonight it's not the wheel of cheese if anyone that has watched Crack a Jack but it is the tin of some sort tell me about it we do have a finds Tina our monthly meeting and anyone who does something silly it's not allowed to be on the fire ground it's yet off the fire ground so if anyone does something silly they get fine and how many times is the captain falling foul really the good thing is I usually on our first attendance at a meeting you usually get one just for being your first meeting so you might not escape very good and then also a fantastic cause and and as I said the CFA is a is a Victorian you know tradition it's part of the fabric of our state and certainly the Good Friday appeal is the same so it's only fitting that an organization such as ours you know really does everything we can to as we do put the community at the centre and support the cause like the Royal Children's Hospital. So Ash tell us about Dimbool we're here in your station this evening for those that don't know where Dimpool there is tell us tell us where we are and a bit about place. So if you don't know where Dimpool there is roughly not quite but near enough to half way between Adelaide and Melbourne so we're like located here and in district 17 in the Wimmera it's a really beautiful part of the world and lucky to live here so it's Dimpool is a relatively small town population is around about 1400 we to our south we do have the Little Desert National Park which for us in a fire management context is obviously one of those key risks we look at but more broadly you know we're surrounded by broad-acre cropping type country and we're in your station tonight broadcasting but it's pretty special that we are here tell us why well I suppose this is a relatively yeah we've only moved in in the last few months so yeah for us it's it's a brand new station after being at our previous site for over a hundred years yeah it's been a long time coming a really big project for us and really important and I suppose it's fitting that we're here in our motor room actually because that for us was a really big focus we'd certainly outgrown the space that we had in our old station anyone who'd actually been to our old station would attest to just how tight the fit was you know sort of after Christmas don't eat too much because you might not fit between the trucks sort of tight so yeah we're really really happy to be here and again bit of a combined effort and community effort obviously funds from CFA but also the community raised funds to put into the project as well as the brigade which is absolutely absolutely fantastic so a hundred years in the old site how I reckon you probably set up well for a hundred years plus in in the new site here so congratulations on that it's fantastic to see the stations like this being built for brigades like like yours so kindly secretary of the Dimboola fire brigade many people would tell me if you end up with a secretary job it's because he didn't step back quick enough when it was called at the annual general meeting tell us what's it like to be a secretary of a fire brigade yeah it's pretty good yeah yeah it has challenges but now it's very a very rewarding job and yeah we've got a great crew out in Dimboola and everyone just helps each other so it makes yeah obviously the secretary's job yeah and how long you've been secretary for I reckon 2017 and so what would you obviously as a better secretary of a rule brigade what are some of the challenges what don't you like about the job you got the microphone go for it um I suppose the technology is hard when you've got like we've got a broad range of ages yeah from the young you know 16 year olds to yeah I'm not sure how old our oldest member is but yeah that can be challenging so yeah the young kids teach you know some things and we have to help each other so it's good if you could change one thing what would it be one thing for secretary or operational oh well we'll start with secretary secretary I know they've done a lot of work around recruiting but I think it's still got a lot more work yeah yeah just takes yeah the process of yeah it takes too long getting police checks and then that's gonna come back and yeah yeah and certainly that's a challenge that we do hear quite quite often and we've tried to streamline it and I know that Kayleen Jones and the team from OPC are working on improvements yeah taking feedback from the brigades and secretaries like like yourself to to try it because ultimately we need to make this easier yeah yeah you've got multiple roles and I'm sure you're managing things at home managing things in the brigade and the rest of it and it is about trying to make yeah everyone's lives easy particularly the office holders in the brigades and absolutely so Ash what about from a I guess as a captain of a of a brigade what's it like being the captain of Dimbool and what are some of the challenges local in I would say it's a privilege to be the captain of Dimbool and to have the people who around us that that support me in doing that job really yeah some of the challenges I guess yeah coming coming from just building the the new station has been a big big task for the for the group challenging from time to time and particularly building a new station through COVID it's been quite interesting yeah so I think one of the things if I zero in particularly on the on the building process and such it would be around communication and COVID really made so much of that quite difficult so yeah that that would be one thing I'd say yeah awesome and so how busy is the brigade I guess call wise it's a typical numbers for us somewhere around the 40 to 50 jobs a year roughly they seem to come in hits you know we'll have a period where everyone's standing around at training and so go hmm a call for a while and then all of a sudden you know get two or three within a week or something like that so you know we're semi busy and members membership how you going for membership yeah not too bad I think our rough numbers are somewhere around 28 members operationally in terms of our key challenge though for for membership and recruiting and all that is is daytime response though so so dim ball for those again who don't sort of understand the geography we're about half an hour from our major center which is Horsham and there's a lot of people within the brigade like myself who you know we live in dim ball but we commute that sort of half hour for our work and then you combine that with members who are farmers from the local area and things like that it can mean that the daytime response numbers can be quite quite challenging and I'm we were talking earlier and I guess you you you made mention of something a change that you saw especially post COVID with the number of people coming into into town tell us a little bit more about that yeah so as I said before dim ball is sort of typical population around about 1400 mark post COVID though I think I'm not sure where the where the actual population numbers are at necessarily but it's been a noticeable increase in particularly around traffic on on weekends and things like that so I think like a lot of rural areas probably you know postcode seeing a lot more travel of people to the regions and certainly you know it's harder to get a car park down the main street on a Saturday morning now than it was say five years ago it's really noticeable we've seen new shops opening up and things like that a lot of people are attracted to the Wimmer River which runs through town it's a really good spot we've always known that but now it seems there's more and more people secrets got out yeah the secrets got out and everyone wants to come and visit so we're going to complain it's a good thing but it does again it changes the profile of the town and yeah awesome so Brett we've heard dim ball's story I guess any resonance across the the west of the region yeah so I mean West region is you know it's a big place and we're obviously at the western end of it here and it's an important part of our region particularly across the Wimmer and I look at dim baller and think about every piece of rail freight that travels between Melbourne and Adelaide and beyond goes right through the front yard of dim ball here highway runs just past it on top of the 1400-odd people that live in the town and like many of the Wimmer towns it's an aging population it's older housing stock and some of the challenges that come with that so that brings a different set of challenges for Kiley and Ash in terms of the way they put the fire brigade together but as we can see here proud history more than a hundred years in dim baller that's not unusual in CFA towns but you know proud history over the journey able to move into the new facility just down the road from the old fire station but much better amenity for our people to work from to train from and operate from across a group headquarters for the M&As a group as well so and we see in this context we're a brigade like the baller is the hub and the spokes are the other brigades in the group around it talking with Ash before you know dim baller is a central part of the M&As a group as we see across these different communities in the Wimmer. Absolutely and I think it's you know we are seeing and when I talk to brigades from across the straight they're particularly you know post COVID that move from more out of metropolitan areas into into rural and regional areas and and some are seeing opportunity whilst you know maybe there is an opportunity to get more members and and interact with the with the communities more so and it's great to hear that even if it's from a tourist perspective yeah there's more people coming in dim baller they're spending their money and you know it's doing a lot more for for the town which is which is fantastic and going from strength to strength so congratulations for you both and and the brigade I think it's a great achievement and you've done a fantastic job but in this in this station here which is fantastic as as we do from time to time Natalie McDonald our CEO and myself are really focused on ensuring that where we have opportunity and particular where we do find some savings or initiatives from within the organization that we seek to invest that in direct resources straight to our volunteers and brigades across the state and this year has been no different with the identification of $1.4 million being able to be directed into programs and initiatives to seek to improve the operational efficiency and effectiveness of our brigades or increase the safety of our brigade members whilst in in operation so this year we focused on a number of initiatives being a breathing apparatus mask fitting set for each for each district and Brett I know in your former role as manager structural planning tell me how important is it that we have one of these for every district so one of the features of our new breathing apparatus sets chief is that we have three different options for face mask in the past it was one size fits all literally now we have a small meeting a large mask so the Meridian mask is the standard and that fix you know more than 90% of our people but to go through the process of validating a face face fit we have a testing kit or set up that came with the with the BA project the procurement of those was eight sets for the state so we wound up with one in each region and then a few floating spare but it often meant that the kit was always needed in Mildura when it was in Bendigo or the like for the Northwest region and the kids spent a lot of time being transported around by our people so one of the initiatives that's come up through this year and I'm grateful that's been funded is there will be a kit for each district so there'll be 21 of those and the other part of this is that each kid has to go off and be serviced each year so there still will be a little bit of sharing amongst districts and within regions but certainly better capacity in supporting our people that are coming to do a course like breathing apparatus which is quite an intense and time-consuming course making sure they've got the right skill light kit and capability from the game and the Australian standard requires us to actually make sure that the masks are fitted properly for the individual user so it is an important piece of equipment and not only to make sure that we're getting the right equipment for our people but increasing the safety other programs and initiatives associated with the 1.4 is the acceleration of the replacement of our positive pressure ventilation fans and if my maths is correct and I wasn't overly good at it at school so I could be wrong I reckon that'll bring to conclusion the replacement of all the petrol PV fans from across the service or at least we'll go exceptionally close to that so it's fantastic to see that be able to come to near completion. More than 2000 operational tabards and I'm talking about for those that may have seen the red the red tabards that that we do see they are pro band treated they're able to be worn on the fire ground and actually will increase the safety rather than the polyester type ones that we saw and Brad I know again in a formal life yeah that it is important that we make sure that the equipment that we do give the firefighters is safe but now we're not trying to put additional flammable materials next to the body of our firefighters. Logic says it's got to be consistent with our PPC chief so that's where we're moving to identification of our people and our roles on the fire ground is really important whether it's stickers on the helmet the colour of our helmet but also with tabards we obviously have people who are qualified for different roles not necessarily their their rank within CFA so making sure they can put on the appropriate tabard at the job to indicate whether you know the incident controller CFA commander etc and also particularly for our brigades who operate you know an interoperable sense complementary sense around FRV and the like making sure that we're distinguishable in terms of our our leaders on the fire ground. Absolutely and that's one of the benefits of the of the new tabards the operational ones is they are multi purpose so you know sector commander incident controller safety and the like so it will have multiple multiple uses. The other tabard that we that we are doing after a quick survey of our brigades from across the state we found out that not all BACO boards or breathing apparatus control boards have a BACO tabard to indicate the BA controller. A lot of acronyms there and I do apologise Brett again your area or former how important is it that the BA controller is readily identifiable. Critical in any BA operation particularly we've got people working internally we aim to have a BA control officer in place which is actually managing the remaining air time within the firefighters sets and ensuring that they're operating in a safe manner so critical not only that we have someone to do that role he's trained in that role but there is the identifier on the fire ground. Absolutely and to round off this year's direct and volunteer investment is for our trainers and assessors our volunteer trainers and assessors and the AFAC peer review called out the need to acknowledge the time and effort that they put into gaining the additional qualifications to be able to undertake that important work so there will be an additional work where for our volunteer instructors and assessors so quite a bit of a bit of gear there Ash what's what's your thoughts in I guess and some of the stuff that's been being proposed. Yeah I'm really happy to see those ideas coming forward and look forward as you're listing off some of them I can think of yeah we'll probably be in line for some of those here at Dimbool so yeah very good you're very happy Christmas all all all around. So certainly we will wherever possible seek to ensure that our identified savings are directed into our volunteers and the great work that that they do right across the state. During last month we saw the release of the initial assessment of the fire district review panels assessment and methodology to preliminary fire risk across Victoria as a result of the release of that report the fire district review panel has identified 13 brigades from across the state adjacent to existing fire via rescue Victoria fire districts where they've identified a potential or or probability of an increased fire risk and have called upon myself as Chief Officer of the CFA to provide a response to the panel in how CFA is going to be seeking to address the potential increase of fire risk to those areas. The brigades are concerned are primarily located within District 2 8 14 and 15 and I know many of those brigades have subsequently had a presentation discussion with their respective District ACFOs or Deputy Chief Officer and I know Brett yeah you you've got a few in that in that boat. What we will be doing for now is we did or I wrote to the fire district review panel seeking some clarification to their report and they have provided me with a response to that now which is actually going to allow us to be able to inform the brigades a little bit better to to what the next steps are so I know there's been a little bit of frustration in the time it has taken for some communications from when the report first released to now but that's because we have been seeking some additional clarity and information to be able to have a meaningful conversation with our brigades. A toolkit with some templates but also some important data specific to the brigades in in the report is now in the process of being prepared and will be distributed to those districts and the brigades as well as a continued open line of communications and dialogue and what we will be doing is working with the with the brigades to be able to pull together a state response which needs to be submitted by myself no later than the 30th of January 2024. This will then be considered by the fire boundary review panel with recommendations provided to the Minister for Emergency Service who ultimately then make the determination of whether part or all or some or none of the brigade area will be transferred to Fire Rescue Victoria. As I said before what is important to note is because the report has highlighted those 13 brigade areas and areas of increased risk it does not mean that the community is at risk today the report merely highlights areas of potential probable risk and is asking the CFA to address those those areas likewise just because the brigade is listed within the report does not mean for certainty that those brigade areas or part of the brigade areas will be transferred to the fire district. A lot of water is yet to go under the bridge and we've got a lot of work to do with the brigades in order to prepare our response and submit that to the panel for further consideration. I'd like to take this time to thank all of those brigades for your mature approach to the report the panel and the way forward to ensuring that we're on our best foot forward to putting our response to the Fire Boundary Review Panel to ensuring that CFA brigades continue to deliver the fantastic world-class service they do to their local communities. Brett how important is it for us to I guess work with districts regions and brigades to ensure that we get it right? It's a critical bit of work it's obviously one of our board's priorities and for me in West Region it's one of my key priorities as well so we've got three brigades that within the Ballarat Area and District 15 that have been identified through the Fire District Review Panel work so there's lots of questions we need to be asking brigades there's lots of questions that they'll be asking us over this journey we've got to put together the narrative that tells the story about how CFA does do a whole lot of activities that minimise fire risk but also respond to fire risk how we do that in a Ballarat sense in a complementary way with fire risk in Victoria as the partner in town there. There is lots to do I too have been grateful for the particular maturity that has been shown from Ballarat Wendory and Sebastopol in our context and the conversations we had leading up to that and then post that with the captains and the leadership of those brigades and they're certainly not shying away from the challenge of working through this process with us and that's what we're really keen to do back through the district is make sure we support those brigades on this journey and because we really are looking to be as the act requires us a complementary fire service so I guess our position is it's not just black and white yeah we can have a shared joint responsibility in response to these communities that have been listed because ultimately the community benefits from the expertise and the experience of both fire rescue Victoria and and CFA so again I said a lot of time to go yet a lot of work to be done with the brigades and certainly my advice to those brigades is just continue doing the fantastic work that you are doing in service to your communities we'll be working with you to put forward those submissions and certainly we'll continue to update those brigades and the broader membership as to what's happening in the fire district review panel space and so that everyone is up to date with the latest of what's of what's happening um so Kiley congratulations you're the first one to to get a question tonight and I have a I have a Brenda asked a question here or I guess puts a question in a bit of a statement and I'd like to get your view to this as secretary I find the hardest thing is finding documents on CFA online search returns irrelevant or outdated results ability to results by any date does that resonate yes certainly I know um the team in in Kaylene Jones's area and is working very hard to ensure that our search engine on on the members online tries to return the best results that it that it can and we do appreciate it is a bit of a bit of a frustration so thanks for raising raising that issue Brenda it's it's it's absolutely important one and certainly one that Kiley agrees with so well I do agree totally it's very difficult at times I understand so I think the so question for you Brett would Brigades under this district review panel become integrated no so integrated was a previous world of CFA so post-fire services reform we've got 35 I think co-located five brigades where FRV and CFA exist in the same facility and still do many of the things that they used to do before reform together so there won't be any reintegration in terms of career staff moving into existing CFA brigades if boundaries do shift and the other point to be really I guess clear on is that FRV has a model around how they deliver service and community CFA has a model if there is a shift in boundary it doesn't necessarily mean the way that CFA did work in a particular area will be done by FRV if the boundary went back the other way it's not you know we would do the work the same as FRV does it so it's very much about how the agency sets up for that absolutely Roger ask will petrol PVV van fans be replaced in pumper tankers such as ours certainly one of the reasons why we were undertaking a replacement of the PVV fans to the battery type was to remove the hydrocarbon off the tank off the of the appliances to A to limit the amount of combustible fuels that are held on the appliance but be also to reduce the carbon monoxide poisoning risk so the ultimate plan was to replace all PVV fans from across the organization so if you do have one currently I'm pretty sure it's sitting on a list for replacement so thanks for thanks for asking the question as usual as I said we do give a training update every month and this month is the first month for DCO Rowan Luke to provide his update on training and where things are up to so Rowan take us through training thanks thanks chief for the welcome and it's good to be with you tonight it's a real pleasure to be able to talk to through a volunteer forum on the programs and activities in operational doctrine and training as people will be aware I've stepped into the rail replacing gene and really excited about that opportunity it's a challenging time but there's certainly a lot going on if I can talk about our training programs and campuses over the last month so we've had 91 different courses roll through our eight training campuses over the last month in excess of 1300 participants or students have attended the campuses it's a really good number it's good to see people on the training grounds and also look forward to those numbers increasing as we progress some really good news about respond to urban so our respond to urban training package has been released it's pua compliant and it's been benchmarked with other fire services so we're hopeful that it's come up as a really good package it's out being tested at the moment and being implemented hopefully very soon across the five regions the package itself includes both theory and practical training and assessment includes 12 drills hot fire drills and three assessment scenarios that'll be conducted in one of our eight training campuses I think people will be really excited to to join that theory training with the hot fire training and to be able to walk away with a really strong qualification each of the regions will have the opportunity to roll out a pilot of respond to urban and we'll allocate some people across that to just to do some observations just to keep it on the program to make sure it's working so as we speak the southeast region the first cab off the rank and they rolled out their first night of respond to urban last week so really interested to see and keen to see how that goes the regions have been working on their original training plans also as we move into the 23-24 financial year so it's a really important stage for the districts and regions to develop their training plans the chiefs been really clear in his expectations that the aquavos will sign off on the district training plans and the regions obviously on the regional training plan as it escalates up and I'll have the opportunity to collate and to observe the the regional plans so that I've got the opportunity to understand the degree and depth of training that's being delivered so that we can support it better as we move forward into the next 12 months so it's been a it'll be a good process and I look forward to those results and see how those regional training plans sit particularly with the use of our training facilities the availability of our instructors and also the utilization of our volunteer instructors I think that's really important to try and understand that mix of of our delivery across the organization maintain safety on the fireground for our non-operational members there's been a discussion item through these forums next week we will load on to LMS the maintain safety enterprise skill set for non-operational members so people like our headquarters brigade members that will be able to go online and and do the maintain safety to allow them to enter things like staging areas on the fireground those who do GFF or our firefighters themselves will still need to do a unit of competency through the GFF program but this will give another option for people who are non-firefighters that do go you know certainly closer to the front line no different than what we do with our municipalities and our other agencies that support our fire operations in a doctrine sense there's a couple of documents that have been released last week firstly two operations bulletins the first one two thousand and twenty three oh one which is around community engagement in FRV area and it provides some guidance on how CFA should engage gain support and deliver community engagement activities in FRV areas I think it's a really good document it sets some really strong consistent processes and it'll be really good for our brigades to have that clarity so they can go out and deliver community engagement community safety in areas that were previously co-located brigade areas the second one is twenty two three oh two which is notifications to work safe and again an important document that provides guidance on how we will ensure that work safe are notified appropriate for notifiable events essentially it requires or leads to the HSC or the health and safety OH&S duty officer providing that notification through to WorkSafe so it's a one-pointer contact essentially and that's intended to ensure that we've got consistency in messaging and in clarity about our notifications and what we do need to notify WorkSafe for and what we don't so I'll ask people encourage people to keep their eye out for those they're really critical pieces of work the last one I want to talk about is around our observations and understanding with some social media commentary that's been occurring and CFA as we know has a really strong position on behavioural standards and I have to say unfortunately it's been concerning that there has been some dialogue through social media around some discussions that people are suggesting or potentially discriminating against some of our members and preventing them with reasonable access to training and I just encourage people to avoid that it's not right we should be using our competency assessments to determine whether a person has the skills to do the job and we should be giving the people every opportunity to obtain those skills so competency based training is really around ensuring that people have the opportunity to learn to gain their skills and knowledge around a certain task and then have a formal assessment that's consistent across across the sector so essentially anyone who's been through and obtained a unit of competency should be seen as being equal to anybody else and that's the benchmark that we should be resourcing or providing guidance to resource in areas so I guess if people are feeling that they're being left out or discriminated against and the training is the format that people are using to discriminate I'll ask people to cease that but I'll also ask people to if they feel they need to report it please report it through the CFA complaints process because essentially it's a behavioural issue that we're talking about and I want to make sure that our behavioural issues that have an impact on training and therefore have an impact on our members that we play our part to ensure that doesn't happen so please feel free to reach out to within your teams but also don't be frightened to to reach out through the complaints process so that's essentially it for tonight there's a fair bit going on some really good things happening and I'll pass back now to the Chief Officer thanks Jason thanks Rowan and as usual the chat has become alive with lots of questions and lots to do with training and big thanks to Kirsty Waugh and the training team who I can see I'm madly answering some of those questions so thank you for that and thanks for your update Rowan an important update on how much training is actually going on and what that you and the team are getting on with getting delivered for our members and I know it is frustrating for some of our members and our Brigades and I know the training team are working really hard to ensure they deliver for you the best a product that is possible to ensure you continue doing what you do best which is in protection of life property and the community a couple of questions here Brett in your role as Deputy Chief I'm sure you'll be across some of these so sorry for the quick peppering Terrence asks if a brigade is transferred to FRV if a brigade area is transferred to Fire Rescue Victoria will that brigade be closed down or continue in parallel to the new FRV area so absolutely not won't be closed down that's a government commitment that's a CFA commitment to our brigades as well so if boundaries do shift and they shift into what was previously CFA territory it's about that conversation about role purpose and how CFA serves its community not just necessarily within the bounds of what was previously Brigade area but what they do more broadly and if I think about Eureka Group in Ballarat and what it does yes you've got those five brigades that look after their communities and do that very well in my view but Eureka Group is the first place the district 15 goes looking for a strike team if they need to do something quickly and it's an enormous amount of capability there whether it's the staging area work that Ballarat City five brigade do etc so no there won't be any five brigades closing down there might be a bit of a shift in terms of the role and purpose of some of our brigades I just need to keep to reinforce the complementary nature and that's the narrative that we're building within CFA again if I go back to Ballarat there's six pumpers in Ballarat and three of them belong to CFA three belong to FRV so there's an enormous amount of capability there it's about how we put it into action and I think that's that that conversation piece that we're having is it's not binary it's not black and white and and the reality is even before fire services reform when the career firefighters were part of CFA the volunteers you know were needed and the career staff were needed FRV can't do it alone without CFA and likewise CFA needs FRV as well so it is about that true complementary fire service delivery so so you heard it that there is a there is a government commitment that there wouldn't be wholesale shutdowns and it's about how do we work together in order to service the community where we're part of that where a transition may take place again some some of the questions here a lot of discussion about BOSIP bret and about I guess the need to ensure the BOSPs are up to date what's what's your view on that one so that's a statement of our people capability that's we identify a barrier based on their classification which is linked back to risk and numbers that we would ideally like to see trained in certain roles across a brigade general firefighters crew leaders sector commanders it might be structural firefighters BA whatever the case is so I know across the west we've done a lot of work over the last few years actually trying to standardize that so that a class one fire brigade that our learning and development team know what to expect to have to deliver to that brigade equally same through to a class four or class five fire brigade but we do allow a bit of flexibility in terms of some exceptions there might be a a class one or two fire brigade it's largely a rural area that has a particular risk inside that that location that's unusual and yeah we'll go and put that into the BOSP around some training and some special needs for those types of brigades so it's not identical across the 21 different districts and the 1200 odd fire brigades we're trying keep it as consistent as best we can and it's linked back to brigade classification ultimately thank you and I know the operational performance and capability team are doing a lot of work about reviewing BOSP and what a future BOSP might might look like into into the future some again some great conversation and we're and questions in here particularly around structural PPC and what are we doing with some of the reclaimed gear in clean gear at State Logistics Centre and thanks to Anthony Ramsey for asking that question in the chat but yes it is available and if you reach out to you to your district ACFO they can they can you know put the appropriate procedures and processes in place for you another question here Brett and I know again going back to your former portfolio structural PPC redesign is on the agenda looking to do a bit of a new tender tell us about that yeah so that's something that's been scoped at the moment so we have an opportunity coming to the end of the contract of the existing PPC so I've got an opportunity to go to market and seek the latest fabrics certainly the equipment we've got now is very much fit for purpose and meets the standards and suits our needs but again as things evolve it's around about 10 to 15 years old so look to go to market tender for a new fabric as part of that we'll look to upgrade our design in terms of the ergonomics and the fit of the garments to make that reflect you know current states so again learning off the last 10 years of experience and I know that Danny Jones and Mark Tarbott and the team particularly Mark Tarbott they spend a lot of time looking interstate and internationally in terms of what's happening in the PPC space and I think I can fairly confidently say chief that we'll be looking for you know in terms of the the brand of CFA and how we present ourselves in the fire around we'll be looking to move towards a single colour of fabric absolutely thanks thanks for that Brett Milton Taylor Ross and someone very close to my way of thinking I have to say can we please have a single PDF packed downloadable for all current versions of the SO and SOPs it's a quite out of date zip files downloading them individually is way too hard cheers oh Milton I could not agree with you anymore the some good news for you is where I've asked for and the project team has been pulled together and they've started work on a CFA pocketbook which will be an application on your mobile phone where you will be able to get whether you're online or offline all the SOs SOPs other important information and details including in-field calculators and the like to your phone so the team are working on it as we speak and they'll be going and doing a proof of concept and moving out to market in order to to have that productionised but certainly we appreciate the the need the thirst and the hunger for our volunteers to be able to get the information that they need when they need it without having to go through the the you know getting to a computer and all that sort of stuff so thank you very much for your question and it's an issue that's very close to my heart Brett a question here again for you and it seems to be that you're subbing in for for Rowan at the moment some training questions but I did tell you we're going to get the hard ones tonight in regards to respond to urban is such a long duration course which is stopping members from responding to calls and ultimately family and work commitments we know course duration is a bit of a bit of an issue but I guess what are your thoughts on on on Dillon's concerns so it shouldn't stop anyone from responding it's about the role you play on the fire ground which is consistent with the training that you've received so people have done the structural firefighter training program as we're calling it now there's a whole pathway that they go through to get to that point and you know it is our flagship structural training program yes there is a lot of duration involved in the course and that's because there's a lot of content that goes with that and we're trying to produce you know well-trained high-quality firefighters that operate in a very risky space at the other end of it so each region is piloting the program at the moment I know within West we're piloting that in terms of the the theory sessions and then the practical days that go along with that we'll learn from that process and work out how we can actually package that up it might be offered in a in a sense of across a number of nights and weekends it might be that we and we did this in West a few years ago where we put together a program we ran it on weekdays for people who are available during that period of time so shouldn't stop anyone from responding let's be really clear about that it's about the role you play on the fire ground but what I like about the structural training program too is you have a a few people out of a brigade like dim ball that have got the time to go away and do that I can guarantee you for the next number of x number of training sessions at dim baller the things that we learned on that program will be brought back into the fire brigade and then shared and I reckon that's a really good mission for our training people is to say that you know the best training is the training that comes back and is actually done back in fire brigades it's that trickle down economics type of philosophy and another another question here from Jacob that a little close to home pool you know for yourself Brett are talking district 15 here has anything come about with district 15 trialling at a different different helmet markings for easy identification of members qualifications either being external or internal for ba yeah absolutely so district 15 did run a limited trial last year over about six months based mainly on the eureka groups around frv and around ballerat feedback was put together it was a paper produced by steve polter and jesson here at district 15 and shared back through to gary cook my understanding is not lost track of the names of the current joint operational committees with vfbv but it's gone back into that committee for some consideration and I can confidently say we will have helmet markings that distinguish between internal and external ba yeah absolutely and I don't know dco cook has put a an update in the chat there for anyone that is interested in my thanks to district 15 for undertaking that trial and and you're putting together a proposal that makes absolute sense and look forward to to this matter progressing through the joint operations committee the vfbv um I've already I guess peppered you with a bit of questions Brett but now we're gonna get a little bit personal about you because you are in a different colored shirt now and by that I mean that you you're a deputy chief officer our newly appointed deputy chief officer graduating from when you were the aquifer of structural planning um tell us a bit about about yourself and your role in region west so west you know west is best in my view there's no doubt about that so a short history of me I've been involved in cfa for my whole life and came from a a family of cfa people with dad being a captain and group officer and I grew up at the other end of the Wimmera river that flows through um our dim ball here a little place called Elmhurst and the Wimmera just flowed through the corner moment that's property so had that linkage through the through the region certainly um spent a bit of time working in west at district 15 for a while but um and then some time at headquarters and then sought the opportunity I'm grateful for the opportunity to come back and work out here so it's a um you know like all of it we have big regions in cfa west is one of those is 209 regates spread across 27 groups 11 municipalities in our three districts in our functions so um we've got all the different mixes of risk um through that from growing urban fire regates um or growing urban communities on the fringes of Melbourne at Bacchus marsh through to declining rule places up in the Wimmera and everything in between and tourism and and major havers has facilities etc so it's you know like all of our regions are quite a diverse place in terms of the work we do um there's you know over five thousand committed cfa people that um that volunteer across west region that I'm really proud to be a part of and in terms of the work I guess the thing that I saw John Chief through the interview process to acquire this job you know the thing that I'm really passionate about is making sure that um our leaders both volunteer and career are visible and present across the region and that we're engaged in terms of the the challenges and the opportunities that we have with our people and then not all challenges there's lots of opportunities that happen out there in cfa and we often hear about the challenges there's no doubt but we've sort of got to exercise the opportunities and and making sure that we're connected back to doing things that are important to brigades and that's my relentless message to the regional leadership team at west region they're probably sick of hearing me saying it is if we're not doing things that actually help fire brigades and make lives better uh within brigades and within groups and for volunteers and we need to actually ask our question why why we're actually doing those things a couple of things that I'm really passionate about supporting at the moment is um I'm really pleased and grateful for the work our training team do across west um they deliver a whole lot of content and a whole lot of training programs with um career instructors and and our 14 volunteer VTAs across the region uh come together supported by coordinators and administrators now uh acting learning and development manager as well um I say this proudly I don't know that there's too many training instructors delivering training between Christmas and New Year but there was a couple in west uh this year so within the bounds of what we're able to deliver I think we've we've got them fairly well tuned and we're using those two training campuses we've got both at Central Highlands and and longer and I'm across our region so that's one thing that that I'm really passionate about supporting the other bit of work that we're doing at the moment and I know all regions are doing this but putting together a comprehensive needs based um asset and infrastructure plan so that um you know Anthony Ramsey and his team can actually go to government with um a clear expectations and list about what our needs are and hopefully at the other end of it we end up with facilities like the one that we're sitting in here at Dimbulla. Fantastic um so what are your priorities for I guess the next you know 12, 24, you know short-term, medium-term, long-term for for the west region? Probably touched on a couple of those in terms of the work that I'm supporting so for me um clearly now is about continuing to support that team and continue to support fiber gates um the fire district review panel piece and the work we're doing there is important to me in this this next sort of 10 to 12 months um I have said quite openly that you know stabilizing our staffing particularly um our seconded staffing across the region is important to me having come from that world and um previously with being seconded from FRV to CFA I want to make sure that the stories that the people who are seconded to um CFA from FRV the stories that they're telling are good ones and we have um you know when people say where's a good place to go and work in CFA west is one of those places that pops up um behavioral standards is really important and critical to me and Rowan touched on it there before there's a lot of work going on across all of our regions and certainly across west where we're delivering sessions each week on behavioral standards um but also linking that back to our complaints progress and making sure that people are operating outside the expectations that we have of them that we're bringing them back into line but giving them a fair and transparent process in terms of of how we do that um and you know going back into the sort of the board priority stuff is making sure with those operational capabilities we have or need in regards to risk based and making sure that people like Jen sitting next to me have got the tools and resources they need around the community engagement that we do and which is around the prevention of fires. Fantastic and so look congratulations again Brett for coming on board and I know um now you have the west region at your heart and five other of your four other of your colleagues I should say probably refute the uh the assertion that region west is the jewel of the crown uh that is CFA but certainly it's your job to advocate that so congratulations and uh and well done for doing so across the state today. Um a lot of questions in the chat a lot of discussions in the chat it's fantastic thanks for thanks for asking your questions and thanks for a particularly the training team who are madly typing answers to the questions a couple of things for myself that I that I wanted to touch on uh for some of the things that discussed there particularly around the duration and length of some of the courses uh there is uh nominated uh and required hours to be undertaken as part of training I know uh DCO Dysall when she was CFA really looked at that critically uh and also sought advice as to what that actually meant in terms of the hours spent on the course preparing for the course and obviously through the training and assessment aspect of that rest assured uh we value our volunteers time and we're not going to have you doing a training in a course for one second longer than we absolutely necessarily have to and certainly the existing or newly released respond to urban has had significant amounts of the course cut down to ensure that we are meeting the requirements of the national standard but are also ensuring that we're moving those things into skills maintenance and skills practice where it is appropriate versus loading up the the training course so I just wanted to I guess touch on that one I know there's been a lot of discussion about that uh in the chat we are very very alive to the issues of volunteer time uh and availability uh the other one I wanted to uh to touch on again with some discussions around the overlap or interplay between the respond to isolated structure uh and the BA course uh here's I guess some the reality for us uh because of the way the training courses were formalized previously uh unfortunately we are going to have a short period of overlap particularly where those people have done BA external and not necessarily BA internal or where those people have done BA external with isolate respond to isolated structure and as we know the respond to urban has internal search and rescue so I do anticipate there will be a period of time uh where people will need to to um to undertake the course in order to get their internal search rescue certification um it is unfortunate uh and because we are aligning to ensure that our training meets and or exceeds the national training standards for our firefighters it is a requirement and unfortunately I would ask people to be patient and bear with us through that the new training pathway will ensure that there is no overlap or duplication because again as I said we respect the time and availability of our of our volunteers and we don't want anyone doing unnecessary training uh that they don't have to I spoke about earlier uh our next generation uh wildfire PPC uh and last month I took opportunity to join our Minister for Emergency Services Jacqueline Symes uh with the uh the owner of Stuart and Heaton uh and the owner of Tufa Workwear the factory to where our PPC is being manufactured to have a conversation about the PPC in particular the 29 thousand sets that will be produced and put into into CFA some of the fantastic features of the new next generation wildfire PPC for anyone that has already done the fit-out session you will note how light the new gear is how quick it is able to be dried once it is wet and for many of you I'm sure you will scream to the rooftops when you hear it has more than one pocket in fact it's got a pocket everywhere where a pocket can humanly be sewn including radio holders, clip holders and yes even somewhere to put your pen so certainly hats off and congratulations to the PE team and all the consultative groups that have been working on the design and manufacture of the next generation of wildfire PPC it is in production as we speak and we'll uh hit our shelves hopefully in time for the next fire season the PE and infrastructure department have put together a 3D walkthrough and walk around of the next generation wildfire PPC so if you haven't seen it I would like to know more about it we're about to drop a link into the chat that will allow you to do a 3D tour of the next generation gear as I said I took some time at the factory to have a conversation with the team that was manufacturing the wildfire PPC and I'll throw over to to the video thank you morning we've just been joined by the minister for emergency services to announce a 10.8 million dollar investment into our volunteers in the release of the next generation wildfire PPC I'm here in the factory where the stuff's been made right here as we speak and I'm joined by Danny Jones Frank from tougher work fair and Steve from Stuart and Heaton CFA has a contract with Stuart and Heaton to produce and manufacture the 29,000 sets for our operational firefighters and Frank here is the owner of the factory and the dedicated team of people pulling it all together so Steve how important is it for Stuart and Heaton to get the contract for CFA to manufacture the new next generation wildfire PPC well Jason extremely important Stuart and Heaton have been a long supporter of CFA over many many years to the point where the old or the current CFA uniform we produced some 20 odd years ago so to continue on and have the opportunity to to work with the CFA again on this new generation PPC most grateful and do all of our best to get the product out as quickly as we can absolutely and Frank you're the one that makes the magic happen my friend tell me what's it mean for you and what's it mean to your workers behind us here as a business being locally made it's it's fantastic it's allowed us to obviously put more stuff on invest in new equipment without the backing of the government and CFA awarding this locally it wouldn't have been done so it's absolutely massive for our business and so how many sets do you think the team behind us here are going to be able to churn out a month we've got 29,000 sets on order what's your current manufacturer rate you think well we're looking to increase it we're probably sitting around a thousand sets a month now but we're trying to really look at doubling that as we go as we find efficiencies in production as we put on new equipment as we put on new staff where we can so really we're looking to ramp up as much as we can per month as we understand how important it is for the CFA to have their gear especially for the upcoming fire season in September it's fantastic and thank you to all involved and again one point I would make out as you would have picked up in the in the video clip there is the current manufacturer rate is about a thousand sets a month based on the current output of the of the factory as it is and as we heard Stuart and Heaton are seeking to boost the manufacturer capacity of that of that factory so for those that are quickly doing the maths thirty twenty nine thousand sets as you can appreciate it is going to take us some time to to roll that out so but it is important for our volunteers and we will ensure that we're able to get the next generation wildfire PPC on the backs of our volunteers as soon as we humanly possibly can one point I would like to make however is it does not mean that the existing wildfire PPC is obsolete or or outdated in any way it is perfectly fine and we will continue to issue and use the existing wildfire PPC until stocks deplete so look out for the sizing kits and the sizing sessions I have been sized trust me it's not as easy as just picking out your normal pant size you will need to get size and I encourage everyone to do so so thank you to Danny and the team for making that happen Jen it's been a big night you've waited patiently listening to what's been going on so you're the community engagement coordinator for district 17 tell us what does what does that role mean and how important is it well I've been doing this role since about 2001 so I've seen the full spectrum of the role it's really important and I think what I'm trying to do is support brigades in their engagement and delivery of programs building that link in the community I feel we've done a full circle when I first started many years ago as a CSF it was called community support facilitator I think there was about ADF is employed around the state which was to support brigades in building their link with the community and then transitioning into the KECRO we've now gone back to a lot of brigades doing really good innovation work and doing a lot of building the trust in their community locals talking to locals and on there to support the brigades in whatever way it can evolves with that and it's an important role and it's an important thing that I guess you do in as they say that a community engagement and I know myself in a formal life I as an inspector with the New South Isles Rural Fire Service one of the roles I held for quite a number of years was the community safety officer so I share that passion as well and I picked up in the media this week particularly in District 10 in a place called Dargo that ran a program of smoke alarms where 13 homes in that community were found not to have working or smoke alarms in any way, shape or form including a home that was 150 years old for a community that were elderly and had some mobility issues as well and I know you're very focused as well on delivering those sort of programs here in the West tell me more about what you're doing in that space Yes and I know Dargo did a deployment there in the early 2000s and I know how hilly in the terrain is and what I can visualise Dargo Matawa Brigade I'll give a shout out to one of our District 17 Brigades Mick Newell if he's watching in the captain in the brigade put their hand up to be a part of the smoke alarm installation program so I went over and had a chat and explained about what it was they had done a very easy module on LMS took about 15 minutes yes I had they were working with children's check I supplied the smoke alarms had the kits for them everything and we went over and had a chat and I said I can get some data for you of where we're going to target and Mick said oh fairly good idea local captain you know Matawa's a fairly small town I know know where the risks are I think we'll be pretty right and over three weekends there was just four of them two pairs of two um doorknock and cold called and ended up installing smoke alarms into 35 properties averaged about takes about half an hour per property but his feedback was it's one of the best experiences and programs that we've we've got he's so pleased that they did it but he said to open his eyes to the risk he said you know it's a volunteer and living in the town that's at them with that rural communities you live there you're a part of there you know everyone he thought in you the risks and he said I didn't and so some of the properties went from you know five or six working smoke alarms to none and you know we talk about the vulnerable but people you know they're saying over the age of 50 you shouldn't be climbing a ladder well there's quite a few of us Brett one of them now we wouldn't be able to do that but you know so there's a lot of people who they know know they've got the problem but how do we fix it and what do we do and just having that cold calling from the brigade and the vols and doing that as part of their you know a training exercise as well they've got new links that have worked out we've got this much bigger risk than we ever thought we did absolutely so Brett you know from the operational context that's talking smoke alarms we know modern construction modern furnishings and the like time to flash has moved from you know eight ten minutes now to something more like four minutes preservation of of life you know is really the primary primary aim of of vibrogates in that respect so having smoke alarms installed you know really is a key element of intervening early in the trauma chain isn't it absolutely so working smoke alarms do save lives and there's an enormous amount of data and evidence to prove that installing those into 32 properties in Matara is actually helping reduce the fire risk and obviously early warning in terms of you know smoke or fire on your premises that opportunity to get out flash over is a three to four minute scenario now whereas it used to be a ten minute or six to a sort of eight to ten minute process that means in terms of you know if he takes a couple of minutes to process a call at Esther from the time of triple zero calls made through to flash over the fire trucks you know brigades hardly ever made page let alone fire truck leaving the station so as those interventions are important the other thing that we're continuing to promote really is around smoke alarms yes battery operated smoke alarms are fantastic but interconnected smoke alarms are even better and hardwired and the other part that we're seeing through lithium ion battery fires that we're responding to as well as that we're starting to think at an AFAC at a national level that we need to be installing smoke alarms into people's garages as well as in their homes as well where people charge their devices yeah absolutely Ash how important for like a community for dimple that that we have community engagement program such as the smoke alarm program yeah I can't speak to the smoke alarm program specifically because it's not something that really come across to this point but you know I think community engagement in dimple it often tends to follow a bit of a pattern when we have incidents as I mentioned earlier you know we have the little desert national park to our south if we have a big incident down there we know that we're going to have an opportunity for some some community engagement following those sorts of events and yeah we do get a reasonable amount of interest from the locals and that's not unusual is it Chen that nothing gets the community more interested in preparing their property doing things that that they should be no better than when there's smoke in the air but as we know quite often that's too late yeah or even after an incident so you know when 2025 or 2009 we'd been struggling to get that community engagement the following summer when we're doing the prepadness you know where we would have had five people turn up to a meeting we had 120 or 150 but then it's how do we sustain that and that's the hard part and this is where I think our volunteers integral that I see as a community engagement coordinator the value of our vols local people local knowledge who can continue and have that talk and it's like when you go to the supermarket and someone will say oh June what's going on with that fire you know because when you live and work in that same community you become that trusted face and they think you know everything but you don't but just say oh you know I have a chat to whoever from whatever brigade but even for me with our volunteers the importance of that community engagement can come when I work as a PIO an incident control center public information officer is my operation support role being able to make a phone call to a volunteer to say what's happening there or could you go and get some photos or could you find out what the feel is or we need to run a meeting where somewhere that you would know it's that two way relationship between the community our volunteers and what I can do to support them in whatever way and I think one of the challenges in that community engagement space is obviously you know it's engaging with the community and quite often we have to go to the community more often than not just throwing open the fire station doors and hoping everyone comes in is not is not always the way and as you touched on that cold calling I guess check within that within the brigade really did result in in interventions that we know saves lives and certainly there are a lot of people going to bed a lot safer tonight as a result of the direct intervention of some of our volunteers across the community than they otherwise would be which is which is absolutely fantastic well Jen I've got to say you have a bit of a fan club and our good friend Eric says don't let Jenny get away with hiding her light she's one of the very best public information officers we have if Jenny's on an IMT you can stop worrying about public information issues so a bit of a a bit of a shout out and certainly testament to the hard work and dedication that you've put in and certainly recognised by by our volunteers thanks Eric but I think if you've been here long in the CFA for long enough you know well done and congratulations well ladies and gentlemen I'm running a little bit behind time here tonight but we do have some great information and important information to be able to spread to you this evening just recently we updated the supplementary alert system the SAS system to version H we saw the introduction of the new turnout feature and now I'd like to throw to Jason Lawrence our ACFO in operational communications to tell us more about the new SAS features good evening chief thanks for the the opportunity to be speaking to you again this evening and to be talking about an exciting development in relation to our SAS application being the launch of our turnout functionality for Brigades so in SAS release version 8 which came out a couple of weeks ago we now have access to a turnout functionality across CFA for the first time via the web version of the SAS application so for Brigades that have been running a turnout system in the past you can now access the SAS application on your web browser in your fire station and display a turnout system which will be on the screens in your station and will display things like the fire call the location of your station a map that routes between the location of your station and the fire call a timer to tell you how long it's been since the call was received you can also see the visibility of the members who are responding and using the SAS application so we're excited to see this come through and present in CFA as our option for the turnout functionality now to set it up you can contact the SAS help email address and we'll be able to provide you a dedicated login for that it's not a functionality it's available on mobile phones but is dedicated to the website functionality of the the SAS application down the track we'll also be looking at future releases and enhancements but for the time being there's things such as voiceover as well for stations that have speakers and the phonetics of which can be managed and adjusted in the back end so exciting development from our perspective really happy to see it launched and looking forward to supporting that through any brigades who want to set it up CFAICT and the comms help desk have also been briefed should brigades need any further support in setting up systems and applications in their brigade environment to run the SAS turnout functionality thanks and back to you thanks Jason for that update and thank you and the Ops comms team for the great work that you're doing on the supplementary alert system and for many people that might not be where SAS is not just a CFA product it is a whole of government Victorian product that's used by not only CFA but the SES life-saving Victoria and ambulance Victoria so certainly a program that is specifically designed to interact and to connect with Victorian systems and I know they are constantly taking feedback on how best to update and improve the SAS functionality so if you do have some feedback I encourage you to reach out to the operational communications team oh we have questions from our from our audience this evening and over to you Rob yeah thank you for the invitation to know it and from the group officer rather than the can I have a group we've got a couple of questions in regards to training view up our ways CFA is not really recognizing the many of our aging rural volunteers of their prior recognition and don't have time to be doing it all over again we're quite willing with the hazardous trees and the burn over which is most important to be done general firefighter training is not general general firefighter is learning what burns how hot where is it where is the safe place to be learn to watch smoke and be aware of wind changes awareness of hazards like smoke top sends explosive items safety for yourself and crew with you how to communicate on radio and learn to speak up if in doubt mentoring has been forgotten if the new members do the basic skills learning passions like minimum skills was then at the brigades captains or crew leaders discretion get the person on or in the truck and mentor them fulfill the skills required to one day up skill and do more training and become crew leader or strike team leader or advance further you cannot replace actual experience we as country members or volunteers we also volunteer to the community we volunteer for a lot of community things CFA ambulance scouts hospital football mep ball cancer cancel blind auxiliary hockey church groups community co-op roadhouse lions rotary and the list goes on time is precious and we fully understand about training and safety but we think it needs to be handed back to us to help monitor our new members great set of questions there Rob thank you and look can I say from my from my tours around the state and speaking to many of country volunteers the themes that you've raised this evening are common across across the state so I'll have my I'll have a go at answering a few of these as best as I can and I'm sure Deputy Chief Officer Boatman will jump in as well RPL I couldn't agree with you more and that's where I know again the training team looking at ensuring how do we recognize the skills and competencies of our members remembering the competency based training is essentially it doesn't matter how or where you got the competency it's about whether you can demonstrate the competency and be recognized for it and we actually had a scenario recently with a brigade where we undertook an individualized and specific RPL process to ensure some recognition of those members so very much on the agenda Rob we've heard that loud and clear likewise we've also heard you know the many complaints about recognizing the skills and competencies of people that have transferred from interstate whether they be from the CFS, RFS or the like to ensuring that we're also being able to recognize their skills and competencies as well so Brett did you have anything you wanted to add on that one from your perspective? No I'm really grateful for the questions Rob and I know there's a conversations we've had over a period of time and it for me the best training happens in five brigades there's no doubt about that so our requirement as a registered training organization and what our career instructors and the like do is about making sure we've got the programs and packages available and trying to deliver them as locally as possible where we need to help and put instructors into a place that we will if we don't need to then we're happy to let brigades go and do that work themselves but again we've got to comply with the RTO standards that's important in terms of the general firefighter bit a lot of that is done online now there are opportunities to that to be delivered face to face nothing in the context of you know I can have a group you're not going to do that an individual brigade level it's going to be done as a group level bring your community of recruit firefighters together and do it that way we can certainly support you in terms of that work the HAZ trees and the burn over drill police and I know that was you know a topic that was subject to a lot of debate in district 17 when it was implemented a few years ago from my perspective it's the chief standard the reason why we have that training is it's been born out of evidence and data from issues we've had on the fire ground safety issues particularly but at the end of the day it sits with the brigade as far as I'm concerned in terms of the responsibility for that so I don't spend a lot of time looking into lists of who's done what but I expect the brigade captains know their membership and know who's safe to actually go and be deployed onto the fire ground in their context and that's the important part I think in terms of that basically yeah look I know I couldn't agree with you more Brett in terms of and I know you know our training team are looking at and I know the regions now in charge of training delivery is about making sure that our training delivery is tailored to the local needs it's not a cookie cutter one-size-fits-all approach and just because we might have online type modules it doesn't mean it can only be delivered that way and I'm actually buoyed to hear Brett that you're having conversations and looking at doing face-to-face events in the brigades and in the groups to in order to do that the other thing I can let you know Rob is I know in talking to Deputy Chief Officer Luke there is a GFF review underway at the moment and again we've been hearing across the state it is finding that balance that balance between making sure that our people understand the fundamentals or the minimum skills I guess yeah to your point and being able to be safe on the fire ground and meet meet our national training standard requirements and less so again it's not lost on us some of the challenges and I do think Rowan's very keen in part of that GFF review to make sure that we are tailoring training programs for the needs of locals and again and not just applying a cookie-cut of one-size-fits-all type approach so your point made has been heard loud and clear and in fact Rowan and myself are only talking about it the other the other day so hopefully when we come back out this way I'll have I'll have some good news for you mentoring again I hear it quite a lot a lot of call for mentoring and I know things like the Captain's Peer Mentoring Program continues it is growing in in strength but I also think to your point there's probably a lot more we can do in the brigade setting and in the group setting as well how does how does a how does an experienced firefighter get to be an experienced firefighter and it's generally because they were taught and mentored by another experienced firefighter so it is part of that part of that journey and I think we do need to encourage more mentoring more exercising and more not necessarily the formal training but certainly the more exercising of of skills either that be at the brigade level the group level or or the district level so again thank you for raising that note I agree it's something we need to we need to look at more explicitly I wrote number four here and I didn't write anything there so I think I've done your list yes no excellent thank you Rob we're there volunteer I've been in small community for a long time yeah yeah Dimbola Rainbow we're all involved in several other communities events that take up a lot of time yeah and that gets back to my point before about we need to recognize value and respect the time of our volunteers and particularly for our rural you know doubles I guess it doesn't really matter if you're metropolitan or or rural but particularly for our rural volunteers small communities multiple hats are often worn and as you say that they're all part of the fire brigade part of local SES part of local footy club part of the the Meals on Wheels you know part of being part of the the community fabric and again we're very alive to those issues which is why from a training perspective yeah we want to make sure that we are valuing volunteers time and not asking our volunteers to do anything more than what is utterly necessary to deliver our services to the community so thank you Rob for for highlighting that this evening and if I can quickly chief in terms of our volunteer leadership programs that's a conversation we have together as a group of senior leaders regularly is around we're not just training people who have had you know helping people on their journey about being leaders in our fire brigades it's the the captain of the fire brigades on the hall committee sits on the bush nurse committee is part of the footy club chairs of cemetery trust we understand that in particularly can declining rural communities the hats are worn by a few people so it's something as the chief said we're very alive to absolutely and I thank Rob for his question because again a lot of the themes that Rob raises and can I have a group are common across the state and I you know we have got a lot of we've got a bit of work to do and that's part of ensuring that and particularly you know through the operating model review that we're doing and other programs and actions that we're doing with through within CFA is really about ensuring that as an organization we return to our volunteer roots that's that's what fire services reform was all about to ensure that we're enabling the best we can our volunteers to do as I said what they do best in protecting lives and property right across Victoria well ladies and gentlemen that time has come the chat is madly going wild I can see at the bottom of my eye thank you to everyone who is asking the hard questions and thanks to the team in CFA who are madly trying to answer those questions and we'll be ensured to try and get an answer to all the themes in the chat as much as we can the one question I do want to address that I can see at the bottom there is will the GFF be affected by the review the answer to that is no the training will not stop it will continue whilst the GFF review is being undertaken it's a foundational introductory course into CFA it is absolutely vital and must continue to ensure that we thrive and survive within within CFA I want to take this time to thank our audience for coming this evening thank you very much for sitting here and being part of of the audience and and discussions this evening it's greatly appreciated I'd like to say thank you to our panel Brett, Jenny, Kylie and Ashley thank you for for coming along and joining in the conversation there's been a lot of topics covered tonight which has been absolutely absolutely fantastic and I know our volunteers appreciate the hard work and dedication that that gets put into putting the putting these on I'd like to also say our next if we always want to improve volunteer forums and if you do have a topic a topic, a discussion or in fact if any volunteer out there wants to come and join me on the panel feel free to nominate yourself and the topic that you wish to discuss by emailing internal comms at cfa.vic.gov.au we're always keen to talk about topics that are relevant and topical to our volunteers so certainly this is your forum I want to make sure that it's delivering the best benefit to to you the whole lifeblood of our organization big thanks to to the cfa staff that are online answering the questions and also so our next forum will be on May the 17th celebrating and highlighting National Volunteer Week and we're going to be talking about some very fantastic stuff and in the great great topics for that forum I won't be there as of next week Monday I will be taking some leave and I'll be returning to cfa in June and in my steed the cfa board has approved deputy chief officer Gary Cook to be acting chief officer during the time of my absence so thank you Gary for stepping up and taking the role whilst I'm on leave and my thanks and appreciation to all those people and patients whilst I take a bit of a well-learned well I consider it well-learned I guess that whatever it is up to you break from cfa so thank you very much as always thank you to the team behind the desk this forum doesn't happen without the hard work and dedication of our stakeholder relations and comms team in particular Lucy Bishop Beth Renshaw and Martin Anderson thank you very much for your hard work and dedication to ensuring this volunteer forum this evening was a great success well ladies and gentlemen that wraps up the April volunteer forum thank you very much for coming along and participating this evening and have a great night and stay safe