Learn to SCORRE

I remember attending a conference keynote that was being delivered by a prominent author of a widely read fire investigation textbook.  I looked forward to it, as this was to be a person with much experience and interesting fire scene stories.  However, I found myself fighting sleep and wondering why he wasn't getting to the meat and potatoes of his presentation.

We've all suffered through fire department presentations, classes, conferences, and in-service training, delivered ineffectively.  This is unacceptable.  The fire service naturally lends itself to interesting content that people want to hear.  Why do we deliver so poorly?

This should not be.  Here is a great resource to make all your presentations effective.

For more than 30 years, Ken Davis, author of Secrets of Dynamic Communications: Prepare with Focus, Deliver with Clarity, Speak with Power, has been teaching people the art and science of public speaking through his SCORRE Conferences.  In, Secrets of Dynamic Communications, Davis shares the SCORRE process, and educates the reader on how to deliver powerful and memorable presentations. The book is divided into 3 parts:

1. The Preparation - outlines the SCORRE process
2. The Presentation - teaches effective speech delivery skills
3. The Application - how to use the SCORRE process to achieve great results

Each sections is tied in closely to the SCORRE elements:

S - Subject
C - Central Theme
O - Objective
R - Rationale
R - Resources
E - Evaluation

Davis provides a clear model outline process for the actual presentation, and how to present within given time frames. This is one of the most clear and concise titles on public speaking that I have read.  It offers great content and presentation techniques.  With only 144 pages, this book can easily be read in a single afternoon, literally improving your presentation skills overnight.  Whether you are a chief, company officer, inspector, life safety educator, or one that desires to be a better communicator, Secrets of Dynamic Communications is a must read. 





Related posts:

• 6 Ways to Get People to Your Presentation
• Be a Presentation God
• 3 Skills to Unlearn for More Powerful Presentations

Army Firefighting: A Historical Perspective

Army Fire Fighting: A Historical Perspective  by, Leroy Allen Ward, captures the previously undocumented aspect of the army fire service history. What started as research to assist a former World War II army firefighter in gathering data for his website http://www.firefighters.mil-fire.net grew into a desire to capture the fragmented history of the Army soldier/firefighter into a book devoted to the army’s military occupational specialty, “21M Firefighter”.

Until now, writers have given army firefighting little more than a brief quote in a much larger book or article. This book covers the origins of the MOS beginning with the Civil War and continues through the War on Terrorism. It includes not only the training, vehicles and equipment used throughout the years, but also dates and locations of deployments for firefighting platoons and detachments, unit rosters of World War I and II and in collaboration with Ted Heinbuch, webmaster of www.firetrucks-atwar.com and James Davis, webmaster of www.firefighters.mil-fire.net and author of, Fire Fighters in Fatigues, Army Fire Fighting includes a comprehensive list of Line of Duty Death (LODD) of soldier/firefighters. 

The purpose of this book is to present a concise history of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers military occupational specialty 21M, Firefighter. With this object in mind, it addresses several audiences.

• First are the young soldiers who may be unfamiliar with the historical underpinnings of their MOS. For them, the evolution of the MOS' past reveals insights into its future and provides them with knowledge and pride of the past.
• The second audience is the scholarly community of historians. For these professionals, the work serves as a tool for further analysis of this small unknown MOS within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
• The third audience consists of those who served in the MOS or its precursors, as well as other members of the firefighting industry and the public at large. For this group, the book endeavors to detail the history of this low-density MOS which represents a small section of the Corps of Engineers.

This book belongs to those firefighters, past, present and future. Above all it belongs to those American soldier/firefighters who have given their all.

The book, Army Fire Fighting: A Historical Perspective , is available in Hard or Soft Cover from AuthorHouse. Or you can order online from your favorite bookseller by using the following ISBN numbers:

978-1-4685-2369-0 (HC ISBN)

978-1-4685-2370-6 (SC ISBN)

978-1-4685-2368-3 (ebook ISBN)

I invite anyone with pictures or information on army firefighting they would like to share, please contact the author at allen.ward@armyfirefighter.com

Fire Monks

 

 

Fire is simply fire. It has no sense of morality, has no persona, does not wish to do good or bad, is neither deliberately enemy nor friend. - Douglas Gatenbein

 

 

In June of 2008 two thousand wildfires were burning througout the state of California.  Tassajara, the oldest Zen Buddhist monastery in the United States, found itself surrounded and its existence threatened by these fires.

 

Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire, is the story of this fire and the the 5 monks who stayed to defend this community.  Tassajara is a place where people can come and focus on attaining the Zen mind and enlightenment.  Every year people come from all over and stay on site, there is staff year round at this location. 

 

In June 2008 as the California wildfires drew closer and closer to the Tassajara community, a mandatory evacuation was ordered.  All the guests were evacuated, and all the monks were told to leave.  As they were all leaving, 5 turned back. The US Forest Service and Cal Fire had decided not to stay and defend Tassajara, 5 monks could not let this place be destroyed.  The outcome, 5 untrained people with a passion successfuly defend this community from total destruction.

 

I do not typically read a lot of fire based stories and books.  However, I have been doing more research lately for a project I am working on related to heroism.  While looking up information I came across this story and had to purchase this book.  The author, Colleen Morton Busch, gives a vivd account of the Tassajara community, the events and preparation leading up to the fire, and the firefight itself.  She aptly outlines 4 lessons taken from this fire:

1. the importance of preparation
2. rediscovering our relationship with wildfire
3. finding a way through instead of a way out (and being one's own authority)
4. the effort and courage it takes to just pay attention

 

These 5 untrained (in firefighting skills) monks, fully embody the 8 points of the firefighters cross.  The points of loyalty, piety, frankness, bravery, honor, contempt of death, assistance to the weak, and respect for their faith.  This book should serve, especially for us in the fire service, as a call to return to these points, a call to once again, be a hero.