Some CFA volunteers never hold the hose
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If you don’t feel you have the skill, fitness or commitment to be a frontline firefighter, you may be just what your local CFA brigade needs, according to Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria.
VFBV President Gary Lyttle says your local brigade is like any volunteer organisation, it needs the people behind the scenes to keep it running.
“Some of the best volunteers we have are long retired from serving on fire truck crews, or perhaps were never on the fireline at all,” Mr Lyttle said.
“They are people who can make the community safer by doing the paperwork, maintaining equipment or teaching fire safety to the community,” he said.
“We call them Non-Operational Volunteers, and their job might be anything from tidying up the station a couple of times a week, to carrying considerable authority and workload as Secretary of the brigade.”
VFBV, which represents Victoria’s 60,000 CFA volunteers, says about half of those volunteers are non-operational.
“Any football club that fields a team on a Saturday also needs the coach, trainers, fund raising auxiliary, secretary, president, committee and people who fill match day roles like manning the ticket box or the scoreboard,” Mr Lyttle said.
“And your local CFA brigade is the same – the crew that turns out to a house fire is backed by non-operational volunteers doing all sorts of other jobs that keep the brigade going,” he said.
“Every CFA brigade needs its equivalents of the coach, the scorekeeper and the person who cuts up the oranges for half time.”
“And they are CFA volunteers, part of the brigade and vital to the organisation, just like the crews who respond to fires and car accidents,” Mr Lyttle said.
“So even if you can’t see yourself as a frontline firefighter, volunteering can still offer you the camaraderie, the chance to serve the community and the respect that goes with the words ‘CFA Volunteer’,” he said.
A visit to the CFA’s website at www.cfa.vic.gov.au, seeing the VFBV site at www.vfbv.com.au or talking to a local brigade member can help you discover how you can be part of the team.