just a couple questions

[traumagirl1029]

hey everyone..i have a couple of questions and any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated. First of course comes the background information heh..I've been an EMS explorer now for three years. First with Rural/Metro and now with another private company in the Buffalo area. When i was with Metro i was basically immediately put onto our board serving as treasurer and as the fill in Vice President running and coordinating drills and meetings and such. When i transferred to the other company because of my past experiance i was made coordinator of drills and a crew chief. Alright to make a long story short I have quite a bit of experiance in the field especailly as an explorer and training and such, but my first problem comes in that im out of ideas and i really need help. We have about 8 active explorers all of whom are CPR and First Aid Certified including one in his EMT class and one CFR. We've done MVA's like theres no tomorrow, obviously CPR/First Aid, proper use of O2, heart attack, stroke, bleeding etc. Does anyone have any suggestions as far as training excesises go as to what you've found helpful to yourself or if your involved with explorers what has helped them?..also finally my second question is those who have been involved in explorers or again something that would get you intrigued...what suggestions are out there as far as fundraising and reqruiting ideas? we've done a few things such as cookie dough sales and car washes but we're just stretched for ideas and anything would be helpful...thanks for reading all of my rambling if you've made it this far and next time i'll try not to post so long. ....thanks again...take care everyone

[Chimpie]

Have you thought about planning something on a larger scale, say a mach tornado, train derailment, plane crash, numerous MVA (5+ cars), etc.? Of course something this large would require you working with local PD and FD departments, Red Cross, EMA, etc. This would be a great way to teach the explorers are about triage and how to work with other departments.

Chimp

[ffemt8978]

Hazmat/WMD drills may not be a bad idea either. Depending upon the age of your explorers, you should also think about arranging some type of emergency vehicle driving course.

As far as fund-raising/recruitment goes, you could talk to your local newspaper about running a special intrest story about the explorers and what you do. My previous fire department had an article done about their recruitment campaign, and as a result we got 10 new members just from that article.

[traumagirl1029]

thanks for the above comments....i'll definately take them into consideration :D as far as age of the explorers im the youngest lol..but i really like the recruitment idea of the newspaper story..i'll check into that..any other ideas come along lemme know ...thanks again
-liz

[Chimpie]

Originally posted by traumagirl1029@Jun 13 2004, 10:04 PM
as far as age of the explorers im the youngest
So, if you're the youngest, how old are you? And how old is the oldest Explorer?

Chimp

[MMiz]

I have a whole bunch of links, I'll post them tomorrow as soon as I find them :)

[traumagirl1029]

yea that last reply i put out didn't make much sense did it? lol..sorry...im the youngest being 17 and the oldest is 20...we have three graduating from HS this year and one thats working for a vol. fire co. and is a CFR and the other is already and 2 EMTs..im taking my EMT-B classes in Jan..

[MMiz]

I never found the links, but here are some ideas I remember:
Lifeguard Training
Water rescue training
An explorer "challenge". Part obstacle course, part endurance event to bring the explorer group together.

And here are some links I did find:

http://www.pfexplorers.8m.com/
http://www.angelfire.com/mn/katofireexplorers/
http://www.exploring.org/stl/posts/stlfde/act.htm

The last one has a list of activities that you may find helpful.

I hope that helps.

[traumagirl1029]

wow thank ya'll for all the ideas..they definately are things i will be using and working with to help salavage my post lol! thanks again and take care
-liz