As promised last month this article is going to set the town on fire! Not literally of course. We have had so much going on it has felt like our butts have l been on fire.
Change is constant. It affects our Brigade and those who serve in it. We are all volunteers and sacrifice a lot of personal time to give back to the community.
It is a huge commitment. We love nothing more than jumping on the trucks to support our community, but we do have to balance our jobs, commitments and families.
We have a changing of the guard in not only one, but two of the most influential positions.
Our past Deputy Fire Chief, Brett Townsend has made the move to train as a career firefighter.
We thank him for his service and wish him well.
Lisa-Marie Ireland is stepping down from Chief Fire Officer to become Senior Station Officer. Lisa thank you for taking on this role and leading the brigade through challenging times.
We are incredibly fortunate to have appointed two people to fulfil these roles.
Craig Nicholson will be our new DCFO. Craig brings with him incredible depth and wealth of knowledge, skills and experience having served with the Wainuiomata Volunteer Brigade for over 16 years. Craig has also served with the Royal New Zealand Navy and currently works as a Mortgage Broker. He is calm and reflective, moving through the ranks to become a Station Officer and recently an Executive Officer for Fire and Emergency. His leadership and operational experience will be an incredible asset to our brigade. Thank you Craig for stepping up to become our new Deputy Fire Chief.
Our new Chief Fire Officer is John Crighton, the man with more nicknames than anyone, from JC, Navy John, Johnny and now he can add Chief. John has served with the Royal New Zealand Navy and has operational experience in people and team leadership, management and governance. John has experience in strategic HR, strategy management and project management working with communities and in gender diversity and inclusion. John joined the brigade in 2022 and has moved through rank and role swiftly to become a Senior Fire Fighter and Medical First Responder and now Chief. John, we thank you for taking on not only this rank and role of responsibility for our brigade.
With John and Craig at the helm it’s an incredibly exciting time for our brigade. We celebrate 120 years this year and serving our community remains our sole focus. We value and respect the legacy that has gone before us and we are dedicated and committed to improving the service that we provide for you, our community. We thank and acknowledge the commitment of all our team for their unwavering dedication to drop everything when the call comes.
