Kilmore Fire Brigade volunteer Simon Roylance knew at a young age he wanted to be a firefighter. He originally joined Wallan brigade as a Junior member at the age of 11 and hopes his story will encourage other young people to join CFA.
Simon’s CFA journey is detailed in one of eight personal stories told in CFA’s latest Digital Story Telling workshop series.
In his video, Simon talks about a person who was a great influence on his life and love of CFA – a person with more than 20 years’ experience as a CFA firefighter.
“I knew the best way to become the best firefighter I could was to follow this person,” Simon said.
After he was finally able to transition to a senior firefighter at age 16, Simon progressed to the position of Brigade Officer. His passion led to a career with CFA as a Vegetation Officer, which primarily involves planning and educating people about planned burning and he is now working towards becoming a career firefighter.
Simon would like to see more young people join CFA.
“I shared my story in the hope we could encourage younger community members to head down to their local station and consider joining. You don’t know where it could take you in the future. CFA provides opportunities that many organisations just can’t offer,” Simon said.
“I have travelled around Australia for emergency response duties, as well as rural running competitions and forums. I have made many lifelong friends and have been able to attend many nationally-accredited courses in fire and emergency management and response.”
Simon said he believed one of the most important skills a young person can learn from CFA was leadership.
“We have some great leaders and mentors statewide who spend a lot of time teaching our Junior members. We also have some great courses which take our members out of their comfort zones and it’s a real joy to see them when they achieve something they thought was not possible.”
Simon added that young people could join CFA in a support role if they did not want to fight fires or attend emergencies on the front-line.
“Support team members assist with many functions throughout our organisation and during an emergency provide important support such as logistics, catering, transport and incident control. Every bit helps.”
Learn more about becoming a junior volunteer.
Author: CFA News