Education Committee
- Committee Members
- Committee Mission
- Committee Reports
- Committee Minutes
- Other Information
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Committee Chair |
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Dale Specken, Chair – Hopkins FD |
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The mission of the Education Committee is to enhance the Minnesota State Fire Chiefs Association’s membership by providing high quality and current educational workshops at the annual conference and promoting additional educational opportunities.
Education Committee 2012 – Dale Specken
The mission of the "Education Committee" is to enhance the Minnesota State Fire Chiefs Association's (MSFCA) membership by providing high quality and current educational workshops at the annual conference and by promoting additional educational opportunities.
We are excited to be in Duluth for the 2012 MSFCA Conference!
In 2012 The Education Committee expanded its scope to look at all aspects of education. We are in the process of forming a speaker's bureau so that if a Chief is looking at ideas for drills, training sessions, symposiums or a class you can go to website and find a list of instructors and curriculum that may help you.
The Education Committee meets just three times annually, the rest of the work required to successfully present an educational opportunity for fire chiefs is completed electronically throughout the year by our various topic sub-committees.
Education Committee Goals:
1. Understand that every chief is important to the MSFCA, therefore we must listen to and consider the needs of the state as a whole when establishing the various educational opportunities.
2. Determine what the timely topics currently are and then locate the most highly regarded experts to present them to the membership.
3. Recognize that it is vital to keep the conference affordable for all chief officers and therefore work with-in the allotted budget.
4. Broaden vision of committee to include oversight and assistance to all MSFCA conferences, symposiums, or educational venues. Examples include the Fire Officer School scheduled for February 11/12, 2013 in Alexandria and/or Public Education Committee's discussion regarding a possible conference.
5. Consider reaching out and forming partnerships with League of Cities, Township Associations, County Association to offer educational opportunities to their members regarding MSFCA and challenges involved with running a fire department.
6. Work with other groups, associations, and entities to develop a statewide education and training calendar that can be posted online.
The Education Committee is by design very flexible, and welcoming. Every year some committee members retire, or leave the committee for greener pastures; however, due to the structure in place we are able to blend new members into the system very easily. Let this fact be an offer for you to join our group.
2012 Education Committee Members
Dale Specken, Chair – Hopkins FD
Judy Thill, Vice Chair – Inver Grove Heights FD
Rob Pearson – Maple Grove FD
Nyle Zikmund – SBM FD
Jim Hansen – SBM FD
Connie Forster – SBM FD
Ulie Seal – Bloomington FD
Tim Farmer – Coon Rapids FD (Retired)
Doug Thies – Red Rock FD
Scott Carriveau – Maple Lake FD
Kevin McGinty – State Fire Marshals Office
Mike Craig – Hutchinson FD
Lee Gatlin – Brooklyn Center FD
David Brosnahan – Roseville FD
Rich Gasaway – Gasaway Consulting Group, LLC
John Olson – Waconia FD / CERT
The MSFCA is your association, if you want change, get involved. We did!
Education Committee Report 2012
Education Committee Report 2011
Education Committee Report 2010
Education Committee Report 2009
Education Committee Report 2010
MINNESOTA STATE FIRE CHIEF’S ASSOCIATION
Education Committee
January 31, 2013
Those in attendance: Dale Specken, Scott Carriveau, Jim Hansen, David Brosnahan, Lee Gatlin, Rich Gasaway, Rob Pearson, Nyle Zikmund, Tim Farmer, Doug Thies, Mike Craig, Ulie Seal, Connie Forster, Chip Lohmiller, Rich Gasaway, Bruce Roed, Judy Thill and Executive Director Tom Brace.
Motion by Scott Carriveau to approve minutes from previous meeting and seconded by Rob Pearson. Passed
Executive Director Update - Tom Brace
- Thanked everyone for good work. Good conference from a financial standpoint. Asked what can we do to make things better.
- 1099’s going out to all of last year’s speakers (> $600).
- Urged all committee members with speakers – whatever amount you agree to, make sure to have speaker bill us and send an actual invoice. Will help with audit. We can make the invoice and they put on their letter head and/or sign it, if needed.
- If speaker says needs a room – need to follow through with Tom. Committee member needs to know how many nights and any changes. Also – let Tom know what time speaker may show so he doesn’t give up a room.
- Question was asked about who should be arranging flights. Per Tom, encourage speaker to make arrangements 21 days ahead to get best rates. If they pay early for flight – send invoice to Tom so he can pay that air fare ahead of time. Committee member can assist in making arrangements, not Tom.
Chair Update
- Dale thanked everyone for their hard and good work on this committee
- Introduced new members - Chip Loemiller has joined. Mike Dobesh joined for the EMS section. Fire Marshal’s office representative is Bruce Roed.
- Dale went over recap from 2012.
- People liked scanning.
- Largest amount of money made and largest attendance.
- Some issues: Still no way to track people doing two classes at one time who might have switched. Had some issues early on with data that went in ahead of time. Will be working on that for next conference.
- Will need to decide what fields and what we want on card.
- Identisys member had family emergency so they were short.
- Had some issues with vendors getting their info in early to Identisys because they did not have names of employees who were there – so there was a lot of last minute entering.
- Had some issues with certificates and doing evaluation before getting certificate so no evaluations for last year’s conference.
- Suggestion to have some training on scanners for a few committee members – just have a core group.
- Had to turn some people away from rooms because some who were not registered for that class got there early so they got in. But some who did register and showed up close to start time, did not get in. Suggestion to have scanner beep if they weren’t registered for that class.
- Need to make sure that when we repeat a class subject, that we offer the same class, not a different speaker and subject.
- Suggestion was to have a basic list of standard equipment for every room. Then, if someone needs something extra they ask for that.
- Suggestion that we should have a go-team for things like - if we need 20 more chairs, etc. Dale said Board members who want to get more involved can help in this area.
- It has been good to have someone in charge of conference committee and have both committees working together throughout the year to keep lines open.
- Budget: Chiefs Board met recently – authorized computer and software update at executive director’s office. Nyle updated on recent changes approved by Board which can help our conference - hiring a marketing person/firm and try and get an increase in membership to potentially double attendance at conference. Concern was expressed by committee members that if attendance doubles, will we be able to handle that number at each of our venues. Not a lot for this next conference but coming down the road.
- If Education Committee members have any ideas on how to market our conference and our committee, let Dale know. One suggestion was offered for chiefs magazine - as we book instructors, maybe do an article in magazine on what they are teaching and why, to give attendees more information. Also, use social media and putting on the web site. Suggestion to have speaker name bigger and committee members names smaller. Get committee members names away from presentation box in magazine so no one confuses speaker with committee members. Also in regards to the boards Tim Farmer makes – get committee members names off of those. Facebook page just for conference.
- Budget is $13,000. Nyle talked about SimsUshare – vendor is looking for someone to help market it. Vendor will discount it and chiefs will get a piece of profit. It is an app for $32 where you can use your own pictures for training simulations. Looking for someone to develop a curriculum users guide. We could sell that and get 100% profits as it would be sold with this app. Let Dale know if know of anyone who might be interested. Nyle has a couple people he knows of that might be interested in helping.
Correspondence
- Dale will continue sending out correspondence as it comes in.
Old Business
- Tom talked about the food for breaks. It appears there has been enough recently.
- Gift for attendees and speakers have not yet been decided.
New Business
- 2013 Conference: October 17, 18, 19 in Rochester. Board will probably be in Double Tree.
- Smallest physical venue for display space. Suggestion was made as to what would it cost to put a big tent outside. Tom will look into.
- Go ahead and start getting speakers. Suggestion to send out info to all committee when looking at speakers in case some have heard them before.
- If you need a wind shirt, let Dale know.
- Dale working with Mark Hoveland on officer school. Almost double of last year.
- Deadline for article for magazine is end of May.
Meeting adjourned.
Respectfully submitted
Judy Thill
Next meeting is May 15 at 10:00 AM.
Kelly Inn, St. Paul
No other information at this time.