News about Richard Spackmann or the Greenfield Fire District is posted in this category.
Wednesday, September 10
Gear Delivery Schedule - UPDATED!
The gear delivery schedule has been changed due to the rescheduling of the last fit test:
Tuesday, September 2nd: Greenfield Center firehouse 7 pm
Tuesday, September 16th: Porter Corners firehouse 7 pm
Tuesday, September 23rd: Middle Grove firehouse 7 pm
Tuesday, September 30th: Maple Avenue firehouse 7 pm
Remember that if you can't make your particular firehouse evening, simply contact myself or our purchasing agent and make arraignments to make one of the other delivery nights.
This update will be posted in each of the firehouse's district bulletin board and talked about tonight at our commissioner's meeting (at Porter Corners firehouse).
As usual, there are many initiatives and activities being worked on in the Greenfield Fire District. Here's an update, email me with any questions.
I am very pleased that Commissioner Bishop has offered to step up and head the investigation on new software to record calls, work details and calculate LOSAP points. Apparently he discovered the FireTracker software during a conference on Long Island.
I have posted on this site many times about how strongly I feel about optimizing how we work as a district - and the reason for that is to alleviate the time requirements on our dedicated volunteers. Software can be a great tool to do just that!
One of the key benefits of this software is that it is web-based, which is now a possibility now that we are getting internet installed in each location. This means that we don't need any special server installations to store the data - this company will take care of all this on our behalf.
I am concerned however on the "backing up" of this data - and getting access to this data for our own copies. But I'm sure we can address this with further investigation...
We set a tentative goal at our last Commissioner's meeting for Commissioner Bishop to report out on this software investigation in April.
Internet Technology Installation: the next location to have internet installed will be at the Middle Grove firehouse - tentatively scheduled for Wednesday the 27th of this month. Then we will install into the last location - Porter Corners firehouse. The Time Warner wait for installation is the overhead of this initiative, it can take anywhere from 2 weeks to over a month to get an installation time from Time Warner.
After the internet installation, Tech-II will install and configure the network and then we'll connect the access system to the internet for remote administration. I was originally hoping to have all of this done by the end of 2007 - but with the Time Warner overhead, that obviously didn't happen. Still, I don't see any reason why these initiatives definately can't be accomplished this year. More to follow on this progress...
Emergency Generator Installation at the Middle Grove firehouse: the RFP will be received and opened at our February workshop on Thursday, February 28th at the Greenfield Center firehouse. See our website for additional information.
Work is proceeding on the installation of the digital overhead projector at the Porter Corners firehouse. I am very happy about this, these projectors are invaluable training tools - next year one will be installed at the Middle Grove firehouse. The Board of Fire Commissioners has also approved the work to upgrade the exhaust hood at the Porter Corners commercial kitchen - so that work will be proceeding shortly - special thanks to Commissioner Waite for taking care of this.
One final note, for those who have been attending the meetings and workshops, you will have noticed that they have been very lengthy and busy. Because of this I have to enforce the necessity to stick to the agenda - otherwise we won't be able to get the meetings concluded at an appropriate time - our last workshop lasted until 10:15pm. If you wish to discuss something with the Board, it is necessary that you contact me and ask to be placed on the agenda.
More to follow...in the meantime, email me with questions!
Announcing the Inaugural Edition of the GFD Newsletter
As posted on greenfieldfd.org, the Greenfield Fire District (GFD) will be mailing out its first ever newsletter to the residents of the fire district community.
As an introductory and trial initiative, the Board of Fire Commissioners is looking to the community to help guide the initiative - please let us know if you found the newsletter worthwhile - for example, if you would prefer to receive it next year, how often the district should send a newsletter out, or if you found the meeting information beneficial. The communications committee originally believed that it would be ideal to send out a biannual newsletter - one in spring and another in fall - biannually being a sort of "sweet spot" in financial cost and benefit to the residents. I personally hope that this will be the case for next year, but as a trial newsletter, we are leaving it up to the community to determine whether or not the newsletter initiative should continue next year.
The goal of the newsletter is to simply inform our community of events going on in the GFD: things like important meetings, events, general news and business of the GFD, and also to showcase what a wonderful service our volunteers provide in service our great community.
The newsletter initiative is a very big endeavor as we are preparing over 5000 newsletters for delivery. One would think that sending out something in the mail would be relatively simple, but the unique nature of our fire district community makes it quite challenging.
We researched many different avenues of distributing the newsletter, but many of them proved cost prohibitive, or just weren't possible because it would not reach the majority of residents for one reason or another. For example, the Town of Greenfield has, I believe seven zip codes - Milton, Galway, Providence, Corinth, Porter Corners, Greenfield Center and Middle Grove. So we couldn't just mail out newsletters to just the "Greenfield Center" zip code, because obviously it wouldn't get out to any of the other residents in the town. Similarly, we couldn't just mail the newsletter to residents in Galway - in hoping to get residents who live on the outskirts of the Middle Grove section, because the newsletter would go to ALL residents of Galway, thus increasing printing/mailing costs and sending the newsletter to people who don't even live in the GFD. And that's not even considering the difficulty of just trying to mail to the portion of the Town of Wilton which lies in the GFD - and that presents its own unique challenges.
At the end of the day, we found it much easier to simply create our own mailing address database. We started with the property owners (people who pay tax) in the Greenfield Fire District in both the Town of Greenfield and the Town of Wilton - and I'd like to thank both the Town of Greenfield and Wilton personnel who helped out generating this list for us. We are then adding locations such as the major trailer parks: Brookview Mobile Home Park, Pyramid Pines, Loughberry, etc. and apartment complexes such as Prestwick Chase and Mansford Apartments.
I want to go on record saying that I know (as does the Board of Fire Commissioners) this is not a perfect solution, but as I explained above, there really isn't such a thing as a perfect mailing solution - which is why we decided to generate a custom address database - so we can add to it as we go forward with the initiative. If you want to be added to the mailing, or you know someone who did not receive the mailing, simply contact the district via the website, or call the district office and leave a message @ 893-0723.
Also, the newsletter (and all newsletters) will be available for download on our website as well, so even if you don't get the newsletter in the mail, you can still view it online in a digital format.
I am very interested in hearing comments and suggestions in how to improve the newsletter and make it even better!
Greenfield Fire District Receives another Grant from Senator Hugh Farley, Completes the First Round of Emergency Generator Installations
GREENFIELD CENTER, NY - the Greenfield Fire District is seeing the first stage of a new initiative come to fruition. The district began an initiative in the Spring of 2006 to install an emergency generator in each of its four firehouses. These generators will provide power to the facilities during lengthy periods without electricity.
"We've had one lengthy period without electricity each of the past two winters," commented Commissioner Richard M. Spackmann. "We had one record windstorm in February of 2006 which left the majority of the Town of Greenfield without power for nearly four days and we had a significant ice storm this winter causing loss of power for over a day. Our fire companies ran around the clock during both emergencies so it's important to keep our facilities operational."
Chairman Donald Kugler has been heading a grant initiative with the Office of State Senator Hugh Farley over the past two years which has drawn $42,500 in grant money earmarked for the emergency generator initiative. But this grant initiative isn't only for emergency generators to power the firehouses, it also outlines the purchase of smaller portable generators which can be used at houses.
"During power outages, our firefighters went door to door making sure that residents were safe and they left messages if residents weren't home. One of the things we did find during these outages was that there are a lot of residents on medical devices that require electricity. Things like oxygen machines, ventilators, etc."
Part of the grant initiative includes the purchase of small portable emergency generators that can power these devices.
"We'll store these small generators throughout the fire district at our firehouses and we can bring them to people in need during these power outages," commented Chairman Kugler.
Commissioner Thomas Robarge has been overseeing the installation of the new generator at the Greenfield Center fire station. "The Greenfield Center generator will be operational by the middle of July," added Commissioner Robarge. "We have been so pleased with Senator Farley's support over the past two years - it's that support that has made this initiative a reality."
Because of the grant money, Kugler states that the Board of Fire Commissioners is looking into installing a second generator this year at either the Middle Grove or Porter Corners facilities. "We originally budgeted to install one generator at year at one of our four facilities."
Picture requests and questions concerning this press release can be forwarded to Commissioner Thomas Robarge via the contact information above or Chairman Donald Kugler.
Visit us Online
Learn more about the Greenfield Fire District at our new website: www.GreenfieldFD.org
About the Greenfield Fire District
The Greenfield Fire District encompasses all of the Town of Greenfield and the southeastern part of the Town of Wilton including the Exit 15 commercial corridor.
The Greenfield Fire District is composed of four sister fire companies: Greenfield Center, Porter Corners, Middle Grove and Maple Avenue. It is the largest fire district in Saratoga County and is the busiest volunteer fire district in the county running over 1100 calls annually.
Please note that my old email will continue to work for some time as a precaution while everyone updates their contact information. Of course, the contact information has been updated on this site.
On another note, I'm working with both Town Clerks of the Town of Wilton and Greenfield to update their sites with the links to the new site.
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Wednesday, September 10
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