President's Information Release regarding zones
The AFTOA has been in place for one year and has been focused on establishing the foundation to ensure we have a proactive and relevant organization to properly represent and support training officers throughout Alberta. Early on in our formation there were many discussions on how to establish and form this group to adequately operate, function, and maintain the proper direction in the future, based on past lessons of previous groups.
Our mandate has been formed from our initial inception to ensure we include all publicly funded departments that include municipal, provincial and federal fire training officers; this includes our military and First Nations organizations, as they also deliver training to firefighters under a public operated and funded model to serve the citizens of Alberta. In the initial concept of the association, this was missed and we quickly adjusted and corrected it to be inclusive of those groups, and reflected this change in our mission statement early in 2018.
Another key step in forming the association was to develop manageable zones that are unique to Alberta. Our zones were broken into divisions which were developed with input from regional training groups. While we did not receive feedback from all training groups, we have amended our bylaws to ensure divisional lines within the zones are flexible and adjustable by the representatives to meet the ever changing needs as the zone sees fit. Our zone map that was published was developed based on setting out an easy to follow, single page format. This map currently only lists the counties, municipal districts, special areas, national parks, etc., and not the specific city, town, village, hamlet, First Nation lands, or federal DND bases. We ask that each department would reference the applicable larger area that they would fall under. We understand that this may not be ideal, but we are working to have a more interactive map that better reflects where your department may reside and who is registered. If you have any questions we ask you to first contact your zone or divisional representative so that they can help answer questions to the best of their ability, or forward them to the executive board.
The association executive and zone representatives, also held a strategic planning session on November 17th, and will have the results of that session released on our website shortly to outline our plan and priorities for 2019, and what you as our members can anticipate from the AFTOA moving forward.
On behalf of the association executive, we want to thank you for your support this far in the early stages of this association being formed, and look forward to a productive and exciting year ahead.
Click HERE for a PDF of the President’s Information Release.