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ARARAT Fire Brigade is on the hunt for a new generation of firefighters to be the future protectors of the community.<\/p>\nARARAT Fire Brigade is on the hunt for a new generation of firefighters to be the future protectors of the community.<\/p>\n
Boys and girls aged between 11 and 15 are being encouraged to join the CFA Junior Development Program, which pre-prepares participants for firefighting duties.<\/p>\n
The program is run across 160 brigades in Victoria and teaches kids important skills covering a number of CFA roles.<\/p>\n
Importantly, it also helps build self-esteem and self -confidence and assists participants to develop new skills and social relationships.<\/p>\n
CFA volunteer Rob Keith caught up with the Ararat Advocate during training on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been running the juniors program in Ararat for decades and is clearly proud of the young participants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re the next generation of fire fighters. Tonight, we have eight here which is a good start but we\u2019ve also lost a few through COVID,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of our current CFA members started off as juniors and worked their way up through the ranks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had juniors go on from here and gone into the brigade as senior members, some have become station officers and a couple of them are even ROs (regional officers),\u201d Rob said.<\/p>\n
Junior members do not respond to emergencies, however, the Junior Development Program works to build the skills of junior members in key areas including an understanding of volunteering, emergency response skills, teamwork and familiarisation of hazard types.<\/p>\n
Josh Stacpoole started as a junior 16 years ago and has been a volunteer firefighter all his adult life.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s now part of the junior program in Ararat and is encouraging younger members of the community to get involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a kid, I didn\u2019t want to play footy or tennis or anything like that, my interest was in trucks, fire trucks and it just made sense to come down and get involved,\u201d Josh said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I was too old to run with the juniors it just made sense to go and play with the fire trucks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Josh said starting as a junior with the Ararat brigade had been a rewarding experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an hour and a half one night a week. Quite often we go away on demos where we head away to another town on a Saturday or Sunday into a different town and compete against other junior brigades. It\u2019s a bit of fun,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone here is equal, it\u2019s a bit of fun and its really easy to pick up. It might seem a bit complicated and a bit scary but you work with your team,\u201d Josh said.<\/p>\n
Rob Keith said as members get older, it\u2019s great to have younger people involved with the CFA.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been involved just a bit over 62 years, and it\u2019s great to get these young ones coming on. Some of us are getting a bit long in the tooth for it but we\u2019re still here to support them,\u201d Rob said.<\/p>\n
Anyone wanting to get involved can contact Michelle Turnham on 0428 628 395.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ARARAT Fire Brigade is on the hunt for a new generation of firefighters to be the future protectors of the community. Boys and girls aged between 11 and 15 are being encouraged to join the CFA Junior Development Program, which pre-prepares participants for firefighting duties. The program is run across 160 brigades in Victoria and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_1481-1.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-5M","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}