2018 convention reports - cambriavolfireassn.com · motion by nick wuckovich of conemaugh to accept...

VOLUNTEER FIREMEN'S ASSOCIATION

of

CAMBRIA COUNTY & VICINITY

97th ANNUAL CONVENTION

HOSTED BY GALLITZIN VOL. FIRE CO.

2018 CONVENTION REPORTS

96th Annual Convention Meeting Minutes

Fire School Committee Report

Fire School Site Committee Report

Certification Committee Report

Historical Committee Report

Digitizing Committee Report

2017-2018 Treasurer's Report

Volunteer Firemen's Association of

Cambria County & Vicinity

The Meeting of the Volunteer Firemen's Association of Cambria County and Vicinity was hosted on

August 4, 2017 in Portage at the Portage Volunteer Fire Co. #1. This was the 96th Annual Convention

Meeting. President Edward Hudak Presiding.

Members rose for the pledge of allegiance.

Minutes from the previous meeting were read and with no errors or corrections they were call to be stand

approved as read by President Hudak.

Communications: A card was received from the Daisytown Ladies Auxiliary with an amount of $350.00

to go to the county fire school.

Reading the Bills:

General Fund:

Portage Vol. Fire Co. $ 1,500.00 Convention Host Town

VFA of CC &V $ 2,200.00 Death Fund Transfer

VFA of CC & V $ 2,750.00 Fire School Transfer

Edward Hudak $ 150 .00 President Fee

John C. Gromley $ 750. 00 Secretary Fee

Paul Kundrod $ 750. 00 Treasurer Fee

Delegate to the State $ 250. 00 Delegate Expenses

Portage Vol. Fire Co. $ 570.00 Convention Meal Expenses

Precision Business Solutions $ 38.39 Web Site Updates

Paul Kundrod $ 94.09 Stationary & Supplies Expenses

Stineman Awards $ 123.76 Engraving, Plaques

Damin Printing $ 155.00 Flyer's, Cards, Meeting Posters

Servinsky Jewelers $ 95.00 Award Plaques

U.S. Post Office in ST. Michael $ 52.00 Annual Box Rental

Fire School Fund

Ronald Slovikosky $1,032.00 Site work, piping, etc.

Penelec $ 174.44 Site Electric – July

Long Barn Inc. $ 70.70 Hardware for site

Lowe's Charge $ 343.72 Water, paint, misc. supplies

Kaza Fire Equip Co. $ 74.25 Fire Ext repairs

Damin Printing $ 126.00 Flyer's

Steve Verbosky $ 72.30 misc. window and tire repair

Jeff Gromley $1,500.00 Fire School Registration @ $2.00/registration

Chernisky 5K/10K Race & Walk

David Mapes $ 135. 00 Race Timer

Specialty Promotions $1,401.00 Shirt Order

Damin Printing $ 126. 00 Signs for Race

Death Fund

Shane Filus $ 275.00 Benefit for Michael Filus Station “71”

Total Expenses: $14,714.00

Motion by Mark Coleman of Beaverdale, 2nd By George Popson of Patton Motion carried.

Treasures Report:

Treasurer Paul Kundrod submitted his report and a copy is on file with the Secretary. Motion by Nick

Wuckovich of Conemaugh to accept the treasures report 2nd by Darrin Smith of ST. Michael. Motion

carried.

Committee Reports:

Law & Legislation:

Steve Unger of Conemaugh reported that the budget is very much up in the air and there has not been

much progress in the last few months. Steve has ask that members please get a copy of the PA. Firemen

magazine and read up on the law and legislation, he reports that there is a lot of helpful advice in this

booklet.

Fire School Training:

Joe Adams of Cresson reported that his full report was in printed form in the convention report.

Fire School Site:

John Hawksworth of Dauntless reported on the Brick Project. John introduced Samuel Lane the young

gentleman that is working towards his Eagle Scout award with the Boy Scouts of America by doing this

project for our fire school site. Mr. Lane told the members present a little about himself and what his

wishes are with the project to get it started, work on it and finish up the project to be able to receive the

Eagle Scout Award. John Hawksworth of Dauntless made a motion to purchase a brick for the Nine (9)

original site directors and the original secretary and treasurer of the fire school 2nd by Joe Adams of

Cresson. Motion was carried.

Web Site:

Please check the web site out for upcoming classes and events.

Certification:

William Cornell of West Hills Regional Reported that Eric Miller of Johnstown and his full report was in

the convention report.

County Convention:

No report due to no convention town at this time.

Historical Committee:

Nick Wuckovich reported that 59 companies have submitted something and that there are 13 companies

that have not. They have meet with some ladies auxiliary groups and they do not seem to be interested in

submitting anything, but if they do they will be accepted. The committee has set a date of December 1,

2017 for an ending submitting date. They have not come up with a cost for the book as of this time due

to not knowing how many pages they are dealing with. The committee is hoping to sell these historical

books for a profit with the proceeds going to the fire school fund. Nick has ask that the incoming

president add president Hudak to this committee since he is the one that started this committee. There

was a question from the floor for the committee from Jim Mitasky of Nicktown if the fire departments

could add to their submitted forms. Nick had answered with a yes as long as it is in by December 1,

2017.

911 EMA:

No report was given at this convention meeting

Resolutions:

Chaplin Drew Walters of Jackson Township read resolutions for Members Eugene Hagens of Westover

Station “45” and Michael Filus of Gallitzin Station “71” All members stood in one minute of silence for

their departed members.

Fire Advisory Board:

June meeting was canceled Next meeting is to be held in September.

Delegates Report:

John Bem of Hastings reported that State President Richard Grove had plan to attend our convention but

was unable to due to personal reasons. He was ask by President Grove to let the Cambria County

Membership know that the state has an open charter and anyone can join for $8.00 a year with a death

benefit of $500. 00 from day one of membership. Also that the state association awards a $5,000.00

dollar recruitment and retention grant to the first 15 fire companies that apply with their plan in place.

John had also discussed the scholarship awards that are given out by the state association, central district,

and western firemen's associations. John reported that the State Firemen's Convention will be held in

Penn Hills, PA, Western Firemen's Convention will be held in Monessen, PA. And the Central District

Firemen's Convention will be held in Hughsville, PA. There also will be Penn State football tickets on

sale for first responders at a better rate with the date to be announced.

Roll Call of Officers:

President, Edward Hudak, 1st Vice President, JD Burns, 2nd Vice President, Christopher Cox, Treasurer,

Paul Kundrod, Assistant Treasurer, Eric Miller, Secretary, John C. Gromley and Assistant Secretary,

Jeffrey Gromley were all Present.

Roll Call of Companies:

26 Total Companies Present, Ashville, Beaverdale, Cherry Tree, City of Johnstown, Clymer, Colver,

Conemaugh, Cover Hill, Cresson, Dauntless, Dunlo, Gallitzin, Hastings, Jackson Township, Lilly,

Nanty Glo, Nicktown, Oakland-Lorain, Patton, Portage, Richland Township, Spangler, St. Michael,

Summerhill, West Hills Regional , and West Taylor Twp.

Old and Unfinished Business:

John Hawksworth of Dauntless presented maps and spoke in regards of meeting with the Norcam Group

to start the process of going around the outside of the fire school site with a walking trail that will

hopefully attach the boroughs of Carroltown and Patton in the future.

Richard Brown, Jr. of Nanty Glo spoke about a recent fire that occurred in the Nanty Glo area that the

fire company had no radio service with their own units as well as incoming units. Larry Penatzer of

EMA mentioned to go to talk around when this happens. Richard mentioned that they had done that and

it did not work either. Eric Miller of Johnstown had mentioned that as of that date only to of the Cambria

County fire companies have submitted letters about this and they need more cooperation in regards to

this issue to help get the commissioners to get involved with this issue. Richard Brown Jr. made a motion

to have the association write a letter in regards to this situation asking the commissioners to get involved

2nd by Jim Nagel of Gallitzin. President Hudak has ask Mr. Brown to get with the Secretary to form the

letter Motion was Carried.

New Business:

Motion by William Cornell of West Hills Regional to move forward with the United Games for another

year for a total of $120.00 Dollars and review this fund raiser at next convention meeting, 2Nd by Mark

Coleman of Beaverdale, Motion Carried.

Jeremy Shuniak, Chief of the Portage Volunteer Fire Company, has mentioned that the eye on the battle

of the barrel set up needs repaired by the next time it is used it is very bad.

At this time President Edward Hudak Moved for a recess until 2 p.m.

Afternoon Session: President Edward Hudak called the afternoon business session back to Order at 2:10 p.m.

At this Time Association Officers and County Commissioner presented Valor Awards to Mr. Matthew

Lamb and Joe Sefcik, Sr., Then Association Officers and Survivors Mr. Kevin Smays and Mr. Mark

Baloga respectfully presented Life Saver Awards first one's going to a group of four. Mr. Jake Madison,

Mr. Josh Madison, Mr. Brian Kudlawiec, Mr. Cody McCoy for the lifesaving efforts of Kevin Smays. A

second group award going to nine individuals. Mr. Ethan Hendrickson, Mr. John Jordan, Ms. Laura

Penatzer, Mr. Hary Smith, Mr. Kirk Moss, Mr. Justin McKnight, Mr. Gene Krupa, Mr Kerry Plows, Jr.

and Ms. Jennette Baloga, These awards were presented for the lifesaving efforts of Mark Baloga.

Commissioner Tom Chernisky presented the Fire School Site Committee with a check for a total of

$3,821.42 from the 5K/ 10K Race and Walk

Presidents Award: The President Award will be presented to an individual that has done a outstanding job for the

association or fire school of the association. This award will be picked by the acting President, and his or

her 1st and 2nd Vice Presidents. With this being the first year the recipient that was awarded the “First

Presidents Award” was Vernon Fulton of Richland Township for his long dedicated hours of service to

the county fire school and meeting participation.

Ladies Auxiliary Secretary Marian “Buttons” Slebodnick presented the Fire School Site Committee with

a check for a total of $3,000.00 from the Ladies Auxiliary.

Tellers Report was Given:

2nd Vice President – Darrin Smith of ST. Michael

Treasure – Paul Kondrod of St. Michael

Assist Treasure – Eric Miller of City of Johnstown

Secretary – John C. Gromley of Clymer

Assist Secretary – Jeffrey Gromley of Clymer

Delegate to the State and Central District – Paul Sklodowski of Lilly

Fire School Site Directors

1.) Frank Hribar of Dunlo

2.) Roger Bock of Ferndale

3.) Joe Bock of Ferndale

Fire Advisory Board – Mark Croft of Jackson Township

Convention Town Host 2017 – St. Michael w/ 17

Motion by George Popson of Patton to accept the tellers report and destroy the ballots 2nd by Mike Krug

of Cresson Motion Carried.

Past President Tom Bracken of Nanty Glo conducted the swearing in of the Officers present for the Year

2017 - 2018

President J.D. Burns Presented Now Past President Edward Hudak with his pin and gold card.

Good of the Association:

Eric Miller of Johnstown has mentioned that he will be looking into asking the membership to add bonus

points for things such as fire school and 5k race towards the Grand Champion at the annual convention.

Also he believes we need to review how the steering committee is to be working and the way we are

dispersing money to the upcoming convention towns. He was just making the membership aware that he

and a group of members will be bringing back their ideas to an upcoming meeting.

President J.D. Burns called for a rising vote of thanks for the Host Company, Portage Volunteer Fire

Company for hosting the annual convention.

Next Meeting will be hosted by the Dunlo Volunteer Fire Co. on Friday September 28, 2017.

Motion by Joe Adams of Cresson to adjourn at 3:17 pm. 2nd by Jeremy Glass of Cresson; Motion

Carried.

Respectfully Submitted By Association Secretary,

John C. Gromley

Fire School Training

Training this year was outstanding, we added an additional Essentials Program in Clymer, Indiana

County. Total enrollment for the 5 Essentials of Firefighting programs was 107 students.

The 3-weekend County Fire School program was successful with enrollment of 725 students. A special

thanks to Buck’s County Community College, specifically Matt Hatrak and team: Pam Worton and

Melanie Jackson-Panichelle, that were present at all three weekends providing support. The annual

weekend training is one of two county training program left in the commonwealth.

A special thank you to the men and women behind the scenes, that did various tasks to ensure the

program was a success. This year the EMS stand-by were provided by various ambulance services in the

county. The fire departments that provided various equipment for both the Essentials of Firefighting

and the County Fire School weekend programs. Without this support, we would not have been able to

be provide the excellent top notch training.

Chris Trexler, Cresson Fire Dept. provided information and assisted in applying for a grant from

Wyo Tech. This grant is designed to assist organizations with training programs offered in various

disciplines. With the assistance of Paul Kunrod, Bill Cornell, John Hawksworth and J.D. Burns, a list of

the various applications were completed, we were one of the finalist and received a check for $10,000.

Respectfully,

Joseph Adams, Chairman Fire School Training

2018 Site Committee Report This past year has been a busy year at the Site. We have had many burns at the Site due to the

Basic Classes that were held within the county, along with all the Cert tests.

The following is a list of things that have taken place at the site:

1. The Altoona Fire Department Donated 1500 feet of attack line hose and 10 Nozzles

2. The Altoona Fire Department used the site for their recruit class

3. We purchased a Skid Loader at auction

4. We received another engine from the Read Twp. Fire Department

5. Akron Brass donated varies Nozzles

6. We received a RIT simulator from the Williamsburg Fire Department

7. We received road millings from Penn Dot to be used for the roads. We are waiting on a

contractor to spread the millings and work on the roads (hope before the end of the

year)

8. We had a Boy Scout Sam Lane do an Eagle Scout project, Selling Bricks to build a wall at

our flag pole, to date his wall has netted a profit around $5000.

We hope to finish a second wall with bricks

9. We have been working the Northern Cambria Committee to have them construct a Rails

to Trails on our railroad right-away in the near future

10. The Site has also been used by the County SWAT team

11. The has been used by many County Companies for pump testing, Arial training and

other types of training

12. Bucks Community College donated, 4 Hard tubes and 2 strainers

13. We received a Cert Site Sign from the State Fire academy that still needs installed along

with our County logo sign.

14. The site has been maintained throughout the year by a great group of guys

Submitted by:

John Hawksworth, Chairman

Site Director


CAMBRIA COUNTY & VICINITY P.O. Box 244, St. Michael, Pennsylvania 15951

Certification Field Test Site #25

Serving Emergency Responders in Cambria, Indiana, Somerset, Clearfield and Blair Counties

Dear Association:

2017-2018 was a little busier than our previous year for the Certification Committee and

staff. We conducted nine (9) tests over the past fiscal year from July 1, 2017 – June 30, 2018,

for which we tested 122 candidates. The break down in each discipline is as follows:

98 Fire Fighter I (last candidate # 1391)

20 Fire Fighter II (last candidate # 407)

4 Haz-Mat Awareness (last candidate # 212)

0 Haz-Mat Operations (last candidate # 154)

0 Pumper Driver Operator (last candidate # 010)

On November 16, 2017; committee members Bill Cornell and Eric Miller attended the

mandatory Test Site Certification meeting in Lewistown. Bill Cornell & Eric Miller will

serve on the NFPA 1001 Committee (FF-I & FF-II) for which Bill Cornell is the Chairman.

Between July & November 2017; Bill Cornell participated in many conference calls with the

NFPA 1001 Committee reviewing the FF-1 & FF-2 Skill Sheets with the current NFPA 1001

Standards and many changes were made. The revised FF-1 & FF-2 skill sheets will probably

take effect in late 2018 or early 2019 after the PSFA goes through its re-accreditation with

the Pro-Board and IFSAC in 2018.

An evaluator’s workshop was conducted on Saturday March 10, 2018 at Dauntless Fire

Station. Twenty-three (23) evaluators participated in the annual workshop. The PA State Fire

Academy conducted a live webinar.

The following tests are scheduled for the remainder of the year:

1. Firefighter II October 6, 2018 Open Test

2. Firefighter I October 12 & 13, 2018 Open Test

The 2018 Test Site Coordinators and Pro-Board meetings will be held sometime in

November 2018 in Lewistown. The financial report was submitted to the Audit Committee.

Respectfully submitted, July 24, 2018

Eric J. Miller William G. Cornell

Site Coordinator Deputy Site Coordinator



Certification Field Test Site #25


CERTIFICATION COMMITTEE

2017-2018 YEAR END REPORT

One year stats from July 1, 2017 - June 30, 2018:

122 Candidates Tested out in Cambria County

FF-I (6 tests conducted, 98 Candidates total)

Date Who # Candidates

07-29-2017 Closed (Houstontown VFC, Fulton County) 10

09-23-2017 Closed (Lindsey VFC, Jefferson County) 6

10-14-2017 OPEN Test 19

10-29-2017 Closed (Huntingdon Regional FD, Huntingdon County) 12

06-16-2018 OPEN Test 30

06-23-2018 Closed (Excelsior VFC, Belwood PA, Blair County) 21

FF-II (2 test conducted, 20 Candidates)


10-17-2017 Closed (Hope VFC) 6

06-09-2018 OPEN Test 14

HMA (1 tests conducted, 4 Candidates)


04-11-2018 Open Test 4

HMO (0 test conducted, 0 Candidates)

PDO (0 test conducted, 0 Candidates)

Evaluator Workshop: was conducted March 10, 2018, Twenty-three (23) Evaluators were

in attendance.




Historical Committee Report update as of July 11, 2018

Gentlemen,

I wanted to provide everybody with an update as of today. Paul provided me with what

he had received in the mail. So far we have sold 121 books, not counting the 25 that we

elected to purchase for the libraries and historical archives at the last county meeting. At

this point counting those, there would be 146 total. Should there be a last minute influx

and time permitting we can provide updated figures but at least everybody has an idea of

the current activity.

Attached is an excel sheet with all of the patrons that elected to do so. Just a note there

are three sheets, the first is individual patrons, the second is the fire companies, and the

third are businesses. Ed and Darrin will be at the convention to see if we can get some

more patrons as well as if anybody wants last minute book orders. Paul is going to be at

the Past President’s banquet to see if any of the Past President’s men or women want to

be patrons or should anybody need to order books.

Along these lines if you know of anybody who may want to be a patron or buy a book,

please pass the word along. Mainly I am thinking about older fellows or ladies as well as

deceased members who may not have had known about this project. We have certainly

did our best to get the word out but I know there are going to be some who will not know

of the project despite our best efforts.

I am going to send John Gromley a written report for the convention which will be a

summary that can be placed in the committee reports.

We have received several forms from folks out of town via the Pa Firemen. We got

orders from Arizona, Wisconsin, Ohio and different areas of Pennsylvania. Just so

everybody knows there was a glitch with the Pa Firemen. We were supposed to have

advertisement in for April and June. We did have it in for April and instead of June, it

was in May’s edition. I had called Stephanie from Pa Firemen and questioned it. She

checked into it and realized the mistake was on her end and apologized to us. She said

since it was their mistake they would put an ad in for the end of July and not charge us

for that or the second run in May.

Lastly, I once again would like to thank all of you for both the support and help that you

provided me as chairman of this committee. I think we did our best to at least provide a

baseline of history with the departments that sent us their histories. Hopefully the folks

that ordered the books will enjoy the information provided.

Nick




2018 Report on Digitizing Minutes of Cambria County Volunteer Fire Association

At the Cambria County meeting in January of 2018 there was discussion how to go about

digitizing all the paper minutes to include from the start of the organization up to and including

present time. Information became known to the association that the Cambria County Library had

a grant to digitize historical documents. They would do this project at no cost other than a cost of

a jump drive to populate the documents.

This project took several months to complete. Not only were the documents scanned but also

were edited to make sure everything was in the best format to be used. There was also a decision

made not to include various correspondence that would prove to be embarrassing to member fire

companies and the association over disputes. To this end many of these documents were sanitized

meaning not to be included in the digitized version. They are indeed in the original paper

documents. We did include the meeting proceedings, death resolutions, and financial reports, and

some letters such as convention town requests and related letters. We are happy to report that the

minutes have been digitized.

However, in the process there were a few issues that were identified that impacted the

completeness of this project. First, the minutes were complete from 1922 until and including June

2008. Starting with July 2008 and to 2014 there were no minutes for those years. We were able to

find two months of 2014 minutes and included those. Starting with 2015 until June 2018, we

were able to have all of those minutes completed. We had exhausted all possibilities that was

available for us to find any of the missing minutes but weren’t able to produce the missing

minutes at this point in the writing this report.

In addition, there was a practice starting in 1950 until 1989 where the convention minutes were

not included in the normal collection of minutes. The reason for this was there were booklets that

were printed which included convention minutes that would be distributed to the delegates after

the convention. This was the practice that was done by the association in those years. We were

successful in obtaining the majority of the convention minutes thanks to the Nanty Glo Fire

Company which had a collection of many them and past Secretary of the Association, Steve

Unger provided some. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get all of them and at this point these

are the convention minutes which are missing: 1967, 1977, 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1989. If

anybody would happen to have any convention books from those years, please contact us and we

will be more than delighted to digitize those as well. We can scan those and get the books back to

anybody who would be willing to provide those.

Moving forward, we would like to make several minor recommendations. First, if there is a

change of secretaries of the association or a period of not more than three years to continue to

scan and digitize the minutes so there is no chance of losing or having minutes lost. Second,

while digitizing the minutes we noticed there were many sign-up sheets for the meetings as well

as the death resolutions that didn’t have the meeting dates or the location of the meeting listed on

those. The problem would be if these ever became accidently misplaced, nobody would be able

to figure out which months they belonged. So, our recommendation would be to have those items

dated and the meeting location listed to avoid this possibility.




Secretary Gromley has been provided with a jump drive which includes the digitized minutes and

all of the paper minutes have been returned to this officer in the same condition as it was

received.

I would like to thank Secretary John Gromley who was very helpful in this project with providing

us the support we need to complete this project. I would also like to thank all of the executive

officers and members of the association with trusting us with these valuable historical documents

to complete the digitizing project. Lastly, a special thanks to the Cambria County Library and

Joyce Homan who were instrumental in allowing us to successfully complete this project.

Respectfully,

Nick Wuckovich Jr.

American Eagle Evaluator Shirts $ 1,020.00 11/27/17 3202

2018 convention reports - cambriavolfireassn.com · motion by nick wuckovich of conemaugh to accept...

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