President’s Introduction and Report – Annual General Meeting 2013
(Feb. 15, 2014)
At our General Meetings we spend a lot of time talking about finances, equipment and assets, but I want to point out that our most important asset is you, the many volunteers who have made this the great department that it is today. From me and from the community, thank you all.
Once again this has been a good news bad news kind of year. No amount of good news will make up for the sadness we have experienced in the past twelve months. We lost seven members of our community who have had a profound impact on the development of the department. I would like at this time to reflect upon the influence these people have had upon us.
George Wilson
Alex Nowick
Bob Smith
Judy Cole
Erik Skold
Norm Rastad
Pete Simpson
Ron Guenther
Also in the past year, our board has been plagued with a bit of illness that has somewhat slowed us down. I had some problems that forced me to take some time off during the summer and Ken Leyland has not been feeling his best over the past couple of months. Our collector and resident surveyor, Bill Thomas, is thankfully recovering at home after open heart surgery. We all wish Bill a very speedy recovery.
On the good side, although I have hinted in newsletters, in the newspaper and at meetings that we may need an increase in the annual fire dues, we will not have to ask for this increase for at least another year. The twenty-five property owners who paid their dues for five years in advance to help pay for the renovations to the two halls have returned to paying on an annual basis and this will keep us out of the red for a bit longer. Also, through careful financial planning and the juggling of grants, we will have a new (to us) fire truck, hopefully by the end of this month. Last spring Chief Andy sent out a letter to all the fire departments in the province asking if they would let us know if they were disposing of any reasonably new equipment in the near future. He had several “sorry nothing here” letters and then, surprisingly, back in October there was a reply from Oyster River on the Island with what we think will be an excellent addition to our fleet until we have saved up enough money for an even newer vehicle. I will ask Alan Watrich to tell us all about the truck later.
As I said, I will cut this short and cover some other issues later. Our Chief and Training Officer tell me I always cover all the departmental items and leave nothing for the officers upon which to report.
So, I will stop for now and introduce our guest speaker. Donna Barnett is the MLA for the Cariboo Chilcotin which is, of course, our area and she truly has our interests at heart. She has long been a strong supporter of all emergency services, and our small, independent fire and first responder service has benefitted from her concerns. We somehow manage to keep our department running within the confines of a budget the size of which is determined by the payment of annual fire dues. Anything extra, training, equipment, newer vehicles and our rebuilt halls has to come from other sources. These other sources are the fund raising on the part of the Auxiliary, and BC Lottery grants. Several times Donna has suggested other sources within government operations to which we could apply for additional funding and we thank her for her help and support. Please welcome Donna Barnett.
I will now open the Annual General Meeting for 2013 and let me remind you once again of the ground rules.
According to our bylaws the Chair will only recognize paid-up members of the Society. Instead of coming forward to the podium when you wish to present your views, I ask that you stand, identify yourself and speak loudly enough for everyone to hear. Each speaker will be given three minutes to make his/her case and the chair retains the right to limit debate to a reasonable time. Please refrain from personal attacks and address all your comments to the chair. I insist on a level of decorum and I will rule any trifling or dilatory motions out of order.
As always all documentation coming out of this meeting is available for viewing through arrangement of a convenient time with the Secretary.
The remainder of my introduction is in the form of a report and open for discussion since some of it should perhaps have been under new business.
First of all, I would like to clear up some lingering misconceptions about the Firefighters’ Memorial Fund. I have talked and written about this several times in the past year, but I guess the word “memorial” must be misleading. Upon the passing of George Wilson, Bob Nathane suggested the formation of this fund and got it started with a very generous donation. Kathy Wilson liked the idea and asked that donations be made to the fund in lieu of flowers in memory of George. A month later Alex Nowick passed away and his wife, Barbara, asked that he too be remembered with donations to this fund. The initial purpose of the fund was to do useful things for the department on a continuing basis. We had thought we could invest the funds and use the interest for useful projects. Well, there isn’t much interest to be gained from an investment this small so we came up with another plan. We will save the money in a bank account to be held for us by the Auxiliary and we will draw from this account for special equipment purchases.
The name of a firefighter or first responder being honoured will be inscribed on a small plaque and this will be affixed to the piece of equipment. No further money will be drawn from the account until this first amount has been repaid. At Bob’s suggestion we took out $1000 to help with the finishing of the training room at Hall#1 and this room was named in honour of George Wilson. We have no plans for using this fund to build cairns or flag poles – we just aren’t that rich. Actually Alan Boyd and I have discussed trying to do this sort of thing this summer using volunteer labour and equipment.
Another fundraising possibility that could perhaps be a part of the Firefighters’ Memorial would be legacy funding. No one likes to think of the inevitable, but there are ways to continue your support of the Department after your passing. This is not just a plea for more funding. As it says on the legacy web site “this is not just financial, but a social legacy – “what will you be remembered for.” We will have more details of this on the web site and in future newsletters.
Back in late December when we had a considerable dump of snow the question arose concerning the ploughing of driveways for the widows of late members, specifically Kathy Wilson and Dianna Smith. Most of the time Vito and Alan can keep up with their quads, but if we get a sudden snowstorm and then the plough goes by (seldom happens that quickly) it’s more than they can handle and we would like to do these two with the plough on FR11. This time Alan was able to keep Kathy’s driveway clear, but Dianna’s built up too quickly and we had to have it done with a truck. There have been some rumblings that if we do anybody’s driveway we have to do everyone’s. What we would like to propose is that the membership pass a motion that would either set a policy or have us abandon the idea entirely.
I would like at this time to welcome our new members to the Department. Earlier this year we found numbers dangerously declining. We still had something like twenty-five names on the roster, however, of this number several were away at any given time. In consultation with Chief Andy, we decided to put on a membership drive. This was not without some pretty intense discussion. There was a concern that publicizing our pending membership shortage would place us in some sort of jeopardy with the property owners’ insurance companies and with our own insurance carrier. It was determined that fire departments surrounding us were in a far greater membership crisis than we were and they were still in operation with no apparent concern by the insurance companies. In any case, we put on a membership campaign last summer with newspaper ads and articles and a plea in the summer newsletter. The result was scary – nothing! Recently, however, a reach-out effort on the part of the board and department members has encouraged these eight people to join our ranks with a possibility of a couple more to come. Thanks once again to the department for the extra effort and a special thank you to our new members. Welcome!
In my time off I took on the small project of doing the ground work for the construction of two dry hydrants. I was ably assisted in the design and layout by Bill Thomas and we hope to have these located at Accesses 14 and 20. I have obtained the approval of Highways, and the Ministry of the Environment saw no need to get involved. The Water Rights permit has tentative approval pending an Archaeological survey. I have contacted an archaeologist for a price, but he has yet to reply. In reading through the information from the Archaeological Branch in Victoria we may even be able to bypass that step provided we find no artifacts in our digging. Pending WorkSafeBC regulations will stop us from entering the lake when it isn’t frozen and from going out on the ice to pump water into the tenders. The solution is to build these dry hydrants and we will gain ready access to water all year round. The construction consists of digging an excavation to insert a vertical pipe roughly 13 feet down into the shoreline and extending out into the lake to a point below the average thickness of the ice. The extreme end of this pipe is suspended above the bottom of the lake with a tripod arrangement to avoid drawing in sand and gravel. The suction end of the pipe is also capped and perforated to keep fish from being sucked in. This is a necessary project, one that will require outside funding and tapping into our Safety and Training Lottery grant. Once again, this project must be completed without drawing from our operating budget. Any suggestion and assistance will be welcomed.
I wish to thank Director Lee Granberg for following through on an insurance issue that has been ongoing for the past couple of years. As important a service as the First Responders are, that service is not our mandate as a volunteer fire department and we state in our bylaws:
When qualified First Responders are available, to provide first responder service to the community at no charge.
As you know there is a charge of $1000 per hour for fire call-outs to non-member properties, but for First Responders – no charge. In December of 2011 we found our membership lacking in First Responders. The Chief at the time informed the 911 dispatch in Prince George that until further notice we would be unable to respond to calls for medical aid. Unfortunately, a member of the community suffered a heart attack and subsequently passed away. This gentlemen’s partner ultimately decided to sue us, the BC Ambulance Service and the Cariboo Regional District for slow response. We were all contacted by lawyers who took statements and it looked as though the issue had gone away. Well, it didn’t totally go away. Unknown to us, the partner’s lawyers contacted our insurance company’s lawyers and the resulting conversations ended with the termination of the suit, but they ran-up a $4000 bill. We knew nothing of this until we recently got an invoice telling us we owed $1000 on our deductable. Ironically, the statement was made that it was slow response by the fire department. Had it actually been a fire department call-out we would be suing the gentleman in question since he had never paid his annual fire dues.
I will conclude my report here and let my colleagues give our state of the department reports. But I do have one last comment. In this life, death and taxes are inevitable, but success is what we make of it. Our little fire department is a model of how successful a community can be when so many people work together with a common goal. I am very proud to be a member of this community and for all you have achieved, thank you.
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