As another year comes to a close, many of us are finalizing our list of New Year’s resolutions that we will attempt to keep throughout the year. While this may not always happen, it is useful as a process of reflection and goal setting that helps us determine where we have been and where we want to go. 

If our personal resolutions help us accomplish goals in the year to come, maybe we should make them for our department as well. While resolutions will vary, here are what I consider the top 7 New Year’s resolutions to help your department become a professional volunteer department.

7. Improve your department’s image. This starts with your physical image, including making sure the trucks are clean, your building looks nice and your members are equipped and dressed appropriately. It then continues to how the public at large perceives your department. While we should not judge a book by its cover, all too often that is how your departments are judged. Professionalism starts with looking the part before you can act the part.

6. Determine what state, federal and local requirements your department SHOULD meet. As a professional volunteer department, we need to strive to meet all applicable minimum requirements for training and response. It is not acceptable to just ignore regulations or alter them to suit your needs because you are a volunteer department. The calls are the same whether the responder is paid or not, so we should be held to the same standards. 

5.  Develop a plan to meet the requirements, standards and regulations that you identified. The goal should not be to meet every requirement next week, but there needs to be a plan of action and a timeline. This plan should have milestones and identify who is responsible for executing the plan. Every department should have protocols, SOGs, SOPs, or some type of guidelines for response, and the same goes for running a department. Be creative!

4. Review your SOPs, SOGs or protocols to ensure they are up to date and meet your applicable requirements. Since your department already reviewed the regulations in No. 6, it makes sense to ensure that all of our policies and procedures are in line with what would be expected from a professional volunteer department.

3. Apply for at least one grant. Since you have identified your department’s weaknesses and ways to address the problem, you have already determined which areas need funding. With a problem and solution in mind, it is much easier to find funding. Your problems should always drive your funding needs rather than available funds driving how you address your problems.

2. Recruit and retain 10% more members than you lose in 2007. If you department is making the effort to become a professional volunteer department, people will want to join the team. When the public sees the positive improvements in your department, they will want to be a part of it. 

1. Thank everyone. This includes your members, the public and your officers. A pat on the shoulder goes a long way and we need to remember that. Also, don’t forget to thank your own family for all the sacrifices they have made so that you can be a professional volunteer.

This is only the start of becoming a professional volunteer department and I know it is possible if we all work together. To that end, I will be focusing my columns for the next year on tools to help you make progress. No department is going to be perfect overnight - or ever - but we can make progress by committing to improve each and every day.