HEAT Board meeting Minutes.
April 15, 2014
Meeting took place at the Overland Park Fire training center on the first day of the Spring HEAT Conference.
Board Members present: Bill Hills, Past President; Steve Stewart, Vice President; Boyd Powers, Treasurer; Terry Eaton, Director; Mark Stinson, President; John Alden, Josh Wood.
Item 1: Discussion of the October 2014 conference, all agreed we need to try and set a date to meet Byron Long in Jefferson City to evaluate the location and determine the available tools and building that we could use. Discussion on the cost of this training and the potential increase was concern for some and the need to proceed with caution was agreed by all. Being able to view the locations and setups available in Jeff City will give us a better idea of what type of training we can utilize. Boyd reported the cost of the hotels are costly if we use their rooms for training, it was also mentioned that the way we came out ok at the Lake Ozark hotel was the fact that they did not charge us for the training rooms. Mark Stinson said he would contact Byron to set up a possible date for a couple of the board members to go to Jeff city to review.
Item 2: Discussion of the April current training, all felt it went well, the use of Motorcraft training was good, Factory Motor parts allowing their own people to come which was fine because Factory Motor Parts paid for those to attend, but with those individuals not going through the normal registration process it was hard to keep track of. Overall the Motorcraft training was well received and brought in large classes. It was mentioned that the Spartan trainers were exceptional as usual and several expressed the need to have them return if it can be arranged.
Minor discussion took place about the training needed for the October training and much of that would be determined by the facilities and availability of equipment and vehicles to use for the training. Some classes mentioned that were needed were Ford interceptor training, Pierce aerial, and Pierce electrical, maybe a pump class again and Whelen wants to return, and all agreed we need to have them back.
Item 3: Discussion of the EVT of the year Award, Bill advised that it would be best to allow more time for nominations and all agreed. Discussion took place regarding the fact that Board Members cannot nominate and we may need to make some changes to that but work to keep the integrity of the award in place. John Alden mentioned that maybe the question were not structured in a way that technicians were at ease at filling it out, he agreed to take a look at the questions and return to the board with some recommendations. Also John requested to take the EVT award to his Chief to distribute to other departments in the area this may help with interest all agreed that would be a good plan.
Item 4: Webpage update, John Alden discussed the need to look into the future at the cost of the webhosting and to make plans for that all felt that would not be a problem. John presented the cost of the current update to the board and it was approved to pay, he also discussed ways to keep interest in the webpage with adding certain interactive functions and the Board was in favor of looking into that but will need to know the full cost of those features.
Item 5: The board discussed the newly vacated Directors Position and a motion was made with a second for the board to pursue filling this position as soon as possible. An announcement on the person voted to fill this position will be made as soon as a replacement can be found.
At approximately 6:00pm the board voted to adjourn the meeting. Voted and approved.
Mark Stinson, HEAT President