President’s Message

October 2010

It’s been such a whirlwind of events since the beginning of September until now, it’s been near to impossible to get to the computer to put this report together, but today, luckily I found a few spare minutes, so here we go…..

First….”The One Ambition Tour” was a great success. While we would have liked to seen better attendance, we did have 66 Brothers and Sisters show up for some really great training. All of the instructors came thru in a big way and shared some very timely and insightful information. I want to Thank Ray, Pat, and Carl for taking time out of their busy schedules to come to New Jersey and spread the word. The one real big point with the whole seminar is that the Convention Center was very impressed with our whole package, and invited us back again next year, and the “Tour” will be back. And this is big for both our Chapter and also the South Jersey FOOLS, it gets our name and message out to a lot of firefighters. So….next year…I want to double if not triple the attendance of this year’s event. So spread the word, mark your calendars, for the “Tour” will return to Wildwood in 2011. And I want to thank Aaron Heller, Dale Gentek and Art Hayden for all the leg work to put this all together. Without them, it would never have happened.

We also had to throw a Bash while we were in Wildwood, so we all made our way to a neat bar called Kahuna’s. Dale and Arty got us set up with food and drink specials, and also got some great raffle prizes. It was a great night of Brotherhood, and “a great time was had by all”.

And with no chance to even recover completely from the weekend in Wildwood, I was on the road to Orlando for the FOOLS INTERNATIONAL Convention. For those of you that are unaware, the International holds a yearly convention to enable the Chapter E-Boards to get together and work out issues and share information. This year several of the Central Florida Chapters got together and hosted it in Orlando. I, VP Heller, and Danielle B. represented our chapter at both formal meetings and several “informal” gatherings. Dale Gentek represented the South Jersey FOOLS, and together we put out to the others there our concerns over the general direction that the FOOLS are headed in. Aaron took the floor and expressed the concerns from our chapter that we needed to re-enforce our mission statement, and try to get all chapters working towards a common end. The FOOLS have always placed the training of all firefighters with the best information available as a high priority, and we wanted to see that supported by every Chapter. There was good support for this from the floor, including one of our founding FOOLS, Brother Mike Gilbert. International President Depoto stated that that was definitely the direction that all Chapters should head in.

I for one had a great time, and I was honored to be able with other Brothers from all over the nation, pipe in the colors for both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. It’s something I look forward to each and every time the FOOLS get together. Next years convention will be in Dallas Texas….but the big news of the whole convention was the announcement of the site of the 2010 Convention…….Fairbanks, Alaska. Now that is going to be a road trip.

Now, I need to speak on strictly local stuff. We need to get our membership rolls straightened out. There are a lot of names on our roster of members that we never see or hear from. One thing we have lacked over the years is having regular meetings of our entire membership. For 2011, we are going to set up two dates, one in the early spring, and another in the fall for just that purpose. We will include some training for that meeting also, but we need to have the membership show up in numbers so that the Chapter can operate more efficiently. Right now, we have a lot of the same people doing too much work. We need to get a lot more of you all involved in the operation of the Chapter. So keep your eyes on this site for the dates, and we will also e-mail out the dates to all that we have good e-mails for. From that end, please confirm with Mike Sanna that he has your e-mail. Just send him a quick message to him (his e-mail address is in the officers section) to let him know you plan to continue your membership with the Jersey FOOLS.

Also for 2011, we are going to start collecting dues to remain in our Chapter. This will be accomplished during the first half of the year at our membership meeting, training events, or you will be able to do this online, once we get it set up. The collection of yearly dues has become a necessity to enable the Chapter to continue to be able to offer you the best training available.

Until next month…….Stay low…and keep moving in!

And Stay Safe!

Art Bloomer, President

Jersey FOOLS