This year's FirePRO conference is nearly here
Hear first-hand accounts of dealing with intense public interest in the devastating Clutha bar crash that saw 10 people, including three police colleagues, killed and the huge communications challenges East Sussex faced when a pier fire destroyed 150 years of history.
These and other inspiring and interesting workshops and presentations to keep fire and rescue communications practitioners at the top of their game are on the agenda for this year’s FirePRO conference.
Other items confirmed include London Fire Brigade sharing valuable insights into one of their successful social media campaigns, award-winning research firm ESRO sharing their expertise on the value of insight and a session on integrating communications to include digital strategies
FirePRO’s committee will also be sharing the outcomes of some of its work from this year, including a workshop on the Death in Service Toolkit that is in development.
The FirePRO conference takes place on Wednesday 26 November and Thursday 27 November 2014 at Eastwood Hall Hotel near Nottingham.
You can find a final agenda on the FirePRO discussion forum here.
The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) has also just announced that conference delegates can log their attendance at the event on its Continuing Professional Development system, which will aid members' development towards accredited and chartered status. It has also introduced a special offer for FirePRO members wishing to join CIPR. Membership fees (normally £55) will be waived to anyone who joins before 5 December 2014- just use the special offcer code FIRECOM14 when signing up via the CIPR website.
Unconference success
Top tips for campaigns, sharing advice on how to make sure comms is in the right place and ideas for dealing with internal communications challenges all formed part of the first FirePRO northern unconference.
The development day was held in September and saw fire and rescue communications professionals from around the country meet at South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service headquarters in Sheffield to take part in activities.
More than 20 delegates attended and included a fantastic mix of colleagues who are relatively new in the role through to more senior colleagues from various services and meant the workshops included tactical advice and examples as well as some strategic insights and sessions.
Organiser and FirePRO committee member Michelle Atkinson, who is Communications Manager at Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, said: “The response to the unconference was amazing and really surprised me – especially as I’ve not actually been involved in one before. It was a really enjoyable and useful day.
“There was a great mix of people there with different backgrounds, some new to the FRS and some who have been in for a while. But the great thing was everyone just rolled their sleeves up to make it a really worthwhile day.
“One practical outcome was one of the attendees agreeing to circulate quizzes on the portal we could all use on social media, linked to the forthcoming EastEnders arson plot.
“It also gave the impetus for one of the FirePRO conference items – to examine the range of campaigns now taking place. As always it was great for networking and comforting to know that many of us were experiencing the same issues and we really got some benefit out of the day.”
An unconference is a development event where the agenda is decided on the day by the participants to ensure the themes and workshops are current and relevant to people’s work and colleagues can suggest any area of work to run a workshop on.
The rules of the FirePRO unconference were that, after discussing the problem or brainstorming an area of communications together, the groups had to focus on sharing ideas and examples of best practice to help each other move projects on and find solutions.
Areas covered at the unconference included: road safety campaigns and making sure packages work, making communications strategic, internal communications, communications after the strike, improving campaigns, creating a new Service communications strategy and how fire comms can work with popular media to make the most of opportunities like the EastEnders arson plot.
A southern FirePRO event is yet to be rearranged as their development day was cancelled due to industrial action and the national conference is due to take place on 26 and 27 November. More information can be found via the details on the portal.
