Why We Speak…The Firefighters We Get To Meet!

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Recently, Captain Wines and I had the opportunity to speak at the Capital Region FOOLS Training Seminar. The seminar was their first annual and was held at the Fuller Road Fire Department in Albany, NY. Captain Wines wrote about it here.

The Capital Region FOOLS haven’t been around too long. They are one of the newer Chapters of the Fraternal Order Of Leatherheads Society. However, they are doing big things. So big in fact, they were bestowed the 2013 Chris Blackwell Award for being the Most Active Chapter. That is awesome.

1381969_440303012753348_1634632938_nWillie and I drove the 9-10 hours up to Albany (ok, he drove and I slept) and went out to dinner with some of the members. You can learn a lot about firefighters by breaking bread and having a few beers with them. We soon learned about each firefighter and their departments as most of them come from areas all over the Capital Region.

On Saturday, we spoke…

When groups get us to speak they typically tell us to talk about “What we talk about”. They have an idea of what we speak about and we add and subtract each time we speak. This time, we would be speaking about Captain Wines dealing with PTSD for the first time.

The other things we spoke about were improving morale, motivating firefighters, and social media. Much of that we have a decent basis we speak about and add to it each time we speak.

Captain Wines and I spoke about his journey after his Brothers Death. I won’t go into detail, but it was moving. He had them in tears.

Later in the day, we switched gears and spoke about more up-beat topics and really connected with the audience. Willie and I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome. The comments and feedback were positive and well received.

By all accounts, We Nailed it.

I say that not because we doubted ourselves, but because we have a lot to live up to. We want to continue moving forward and honing our skills in speaking. The single hardest part of us speaking is that there are two of us. We have to feed off of each other. We have finally gotten to the point where we segue back and forth instead of cutting each other off.

The best part of us speaking around the Nation is that we get to meet so many Firefighters from all different types of departments.

If you would like to have us speak at your fire department, check out more information here.

Thanks for having us Capital Region FOOLS!

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