Looking for recommendations for 100th Anniversary Celebration

[amy8677]

My volunteer department will be celebrating their 100th Anniversary in Nov. 2004. We are looking for an affordable, entertaining, and interesting guest speaker with some connection to the fire service. We are located in the greater St. Louis, MO area. Any suggestions...also if you have any neat ideas from programs your departments have held those would be appreciated. Thanks! Take care and God bless! ~Stay Safe~ Amy F.

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

I would contact Dr. Harry Carter, Battalion Chief (Ret.) Newark, NJ FD. If anybody fits your bill, it's him. I am not 100% sure of the affordable part, but he is affable, entertaining and a true fire service professional. Try him at http://www.harrycarter.com./ He's also on here.

[captstanm1]

How about Dennis Rubin the newly appointed Fire Chief of Atlanta. He hails from Chesterfield County Virginia and has a great deal of experience in the Fire Service and is a well known and respected speaker. Chesterfield County was/is a combination Department and his work with the Training Program of the Virginia Department of Fire Programs makes him an excellent choice.

[lmrchief2]

We just had our 51st anniversary. We also had a reunion with all past members that could attend. We sent out invitations to all past members and their families. 100 is a long time but if you go back as far as you can and invite the families of all members who were on the department and show them they are still family is a nice touch. We had some children who had fathers that were founding members come to our celebration open house. It was nice and they really appreciated it when we just said thank-you to the founding members. Nothing sad to bring down the festivities but just a thank-you.

We really had to dig to get names and addresses but it was fun. We also had a dedication of our new station that we moved into in January (which is why we did not do 50 years). The whole area had invites sent out by the village and townships, those that were not fire related enjoyed talking to those of us where and even the families of the founding fathers of our department.

We did as we set out not to make it a political thing but a nice dedication and reunion.