| AFSA By-Laws | To download a copy of the current AFSA ByLaws as an Adobe Acrobat Reader file (.pdf) please follow this link.
(Revised 04/07/10.)
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| Travel Information |  | |
| $$$ Savings |  | |
| Newsletter Information |
| We need content for the AFSA VA Chapter Newsletter.
If your company or organization has a Fire Sprinkler Industry related news release or article, please contact George Wagner
Content may be submitted as ".PDF", ".RTF", ".TXT" or ".DOC".
Please, no Microsoft Publisher or Microsoft Works files.
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| Your Website Statistics | Who's looking at us? How many? How often? When?
Following any of these links will allow you to download an Adobe Acrobat Reader document (.pdf) of the Year 2010 or the Month listed.
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| Fire Sprinklers Save Lives |  | |
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News: Training Seminar Recap
Tuesday, August 31 @ 05:12:55 PDT by howard (9 reads) |  On August 26, 2010 the AFSA Virginia Chapter held a Training Seminar presented by Bruce Carter of North American Fire Sales.
The Seminar title was “Sell to Win”
We were pleased to have had 38 Sprinkler Contractor and Vendors from Virginia and North Carolina attend this informative Seminar
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News: Eagle Scout candidate and AFSA-VA Chapter join forces to protect families
Wednesday, June 30 @ 03:25:45 PDT by howard (46 reads) | | We all know smoke detectors are a great
safety item when installed and operating properly. However when smoke
detectors are not in working condition due to bad batteries or
missing all together, the results can be quite tragic. Recent studies
across the country have shown smoke detector failures over a 10 year
time frame can be as high as 65%. This failure may be due to poor
maintenance, removal of smoke detector or detector not in working
order.
Life Boy Scout De’Ron Pinkston of
Troop 487 in Richmond Va., realized this fact after having seen on
the news several times in quick succession the damages and loss of
life that occurred from homes with missing or non working smoke
detectors. In his own county 8 persons had died within a 6 month
period in which detectors were missing or no longer in working order.
So when it came time to complete a project for his Eagle Scout rank,
he chose to do something about this in his neighborhood. De’Ron
contacted his local fire department, Henrico County Division of Fire
and was placed in contact with Lt. Will Shumate of the Fire Marshal’s
office. Will contacted Bill Jones of FirePro, an AFSA Virginia
Chapter member who had experience in dealing with Boy Scouts and
whose own son achieved Eagle Scout to help plan the project. Will
and Bill met with De’Ron to go over his plan of action and how he
proposed to accomplish his goal of making his neighborhood safer.
Part of De’Ron’s project included making a fire safety flier to
hand out to those in his neighborhood even if they chose not to have
a smoke detector installed. De’Ron also solicited information from
other localities on fires and found in many cases homes having fires
did not have working smoke detectors in 55 – 80% of the cases
matching the national average.
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Contests: This Years Essay Contest Winners Announced
Friday, April 30 @ 05:26:05 PDT by howard (160 reads) | |
American Fire Sprinkler Association’s (AFSA)
Virginia Chapter Announces the Winners of the 2009-2010 Essay Contest
Ron Reynolds
AFSA Virginia Chapter Essay Chairman
Each year, the AFSA Virginia Chapter awards scholarships to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place essay writers in our statewide contest. First place receives $1,500, second place $750, and third place $500. The Virginia Chapter also offers three Honorable Mention prizes of $100 each.
Only open to high school seniors, the purpose of the contest is to help educate people about fire sprinklers and how they save lives and property, and to help students continue their education. The essays must be from 700 to 1000 words, and include a bibliography. Essays are judged on accuracy, content, punctuation, and with an emphasis on creativity. Judges come from Chapter members in the sprinkler industry, fire and building code officials, and others.
Contestants in the contest this year were asked to “write a creative, interesting and convincing essay on the history of automatic sprinklers.” We received over 120 entries and as usual, they were very well written. The high quality of the essays makes it very difficult for the judges to pick the contest winners. After much deliberation using the skills of 12 different judges, the winners were picked, and here they are:
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First Place
$1500
Christina Lee
Potomac Falls HS
Sterling, VA.
Christina wrote an essay from the prospective of a fire sprinkler, protecting a residence that was very interesting and creatively done.
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Second Place
$750
Leah Coates
Washington and Lee HS
Colonial Beach, VA.
Leah’s essay was written about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, and what the might have happened had sprinklers been present.
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Third Place
$500
Caitlin Tignor
Essex HS
White Stone, VA.
Caitlin’s essay described the contribution of Philip Pratt, the first person to patent an automatic sprinkler, at an imaginary gathering of people who had survived fires because of automatic sprinklers.
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| Read the essay |
Read the essay |
Read the essay |
Christina Lee’s essay will be entered in a contest for an additional $1000 from the AFSA National organization.
$100 Honorable Mentions go to:
- Samuel Roderick of Broadway High School, in Broadway, VA.
- Regan Mukai, home-schooled, from Alexandria, VA.
- Megan Wiles, of Courtland High School, from Spotsylvania, VA.
For the first time ever, AFSA National will have a “2nd Chance” contest open to all graduating seniors where all can enter a contest and have a chance to win $1000. Go to http://www.afsascholarship.org/ for more details. This contest is open to all of those who entered the contest as well as those who did not. There is no requirement to write an essay for the 2nd Chance contest.
AFSA-Virginia thanks the many high school seniors who entered the contest this year for sending in their essays. It is always very tough to pick the best out of so many very good essays.
The Virginia Chapter congratulates all participants. Although not everyone can win a monetary prize, we believe that everyone who entered can come away a winner in the valuable knowledge they gain of what automatic fire sprinklers can do to save lives and property.
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News: April 6th Meeting
Monday, April 12 @ 04:37:48 PDT by howard (112 reads) |
| Mike Meehan, AFSA Chairman, receiving an award from Jerry Pruden of the Old Dominion Professional Fire Fighters Burn Foundation for the continued support of the Burn Foundation by the Virginia AFSA Chapter. |
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R.C. Moore of Tabb Brockenbrough & Ragland making a presentation to the meeting on Insurance Terminology for the Fire Sprinkler Industry. |
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News: Central Virginia Burn Camp
Monday, February 22 @ 07:15:39 PST by howard (149 reads) | Know of a child who has been hurt in a fire or been scalded? Remember the scars and damage that was done to them? Now think to when they get to return to school, or when they go shopping? To a movie? The stares they get or the questioning looks from their peers or strangers who wonder – what happened to him or her?
There is a group of firefighters, nurses, therapists and other volunteers who work each year to provide kids like this a chance to be with other kids like themselves in a fun environment. The kids each year show up to Charlottesville Va for the Central Virginia Burn Camp where kids who have varying degrees of burns come and share a camp experience without the questioning looks, the avoiding eye contact, etc that happen to them outside this event.
Their burns range from full body to barely noticeable. They occurred accidentally or in some cases through child abuse. Some are missing hair, eyebrows, and other parts of their body. Many still suffer though pain and / or are still undergoing medical procedures, therapy, etc.
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News: VSC Fire & Security changes with the times
Tuesday, February 16 @ 09:52:14 PST by howard (237 reads) | VSC Fire & Security changes with the
times
MARK GORMUS/TIMES-DISPATCH
Martin Giles is chairman of VSC
Fire & Security whose roots date to 1958. Over the years, Giles expanded the businesses' geographical footprint from Maryland to Florida and bought other companies. The various companies operated under their individual names.
But that changed last year when Giles changed the name of his companies to VSC Fire & Security.
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News: A Message from George Wagner
Tuesday, October 20 @ 03:50:52 PDT by howard (224 reads) | Ladies and Gentlemen,
I wanted to report to you that the AFSA National Convention in San Diego was a huge success in spite of the economy!!!
While attendance was slightly off the Trade show was basically sold out. The Trade show was very good. The Apprenticeship competition was excellent. The Seminars were all full and were excellent. Friday night at the Midway was very interesting as you gained a perspective of how big an Aircraft carrier really is. Saturday night at Sea World was fun.
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The 2010 Convention is back to the East Coast in Providence Rhode Island and I encourage everyone to try to attend.
These are well planned and every educational events.
Let me know if you have any questions.
George Wagner
George Wagner
Executive Director
American Fire Sprinkler Association - Virginia Chapter
4558 Sandy Valley Road
Mechanicsville, Virginia 23111
Home--804-779-3921
Cell--804-514-3154
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Contests: 2009 Golf Touney Results
Tuesday, September 22 @ 03:42:01 PDT by howard (201 reads) | ted to report to you on the success of the 2009 AFSA Virginia Golf Tournament
While we did not fill all the slots we can very close to doing so and we were able to give $20,000.00 to the Central Virginia Burn Camp and $20,000.00 to the Old Dominion Professional fire Fighters/MCV-VCU Burn Center.
I have attached two pictures of the awards as you may want to share with them your employees.
We will have a write up with these pictures for the AFSA Sprinkler AGE magazine in the near future
I would like to thank all of our members both Contractor and Vendors for their generosity.
We had a great day, no 100 degree heat, no hurricane and we dodged the rain!!!
We hope everyone had a great time!!!
The AFSA Golf Committee and volunteers did a great job and if you get a change please thank them.
Special thanks needs to go to VSC, Eagle Fire, East Coast Fire and Fire Pro for working together on the Golf committee to make this a successful event.
Let’s do it again in 2010.
George Wagner
George Wagner
Executive Director
American Fire Sprinkler Association
Virginia Chapter
4558 Sandy Valley Road
Mechanicsville, Virginia 23111
Home--804-779-3921
Cell--804-514-3154
wagnerg@mindspring.com
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News: 2009 appointments to the Fire Service Board
Tuesday, August 18 @ 09:50:00 PDT by howard (254 reads) | Kaye Brown of Isle of Wight, vice mayor of the Town of Smithfield;
Kenneth J. Brown* of Goochland County, Goochland Fire-Rescue Department Chief;
Elaine B. Gall of Montgomery County, university building official at the University of Virginia;
William B. Kyger, Jr.* of Rockingham County, chairman of the board of supervisors in Rockingham County;
Felix Sarfo-Kantanka Jr. of Henrico County, assistant vice president of state government relations at McGuire Woods Consulting;
Joe R. Wilson of Fredericksburg, CEO and president of PermaTreat Pest Control.
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News: The Cost of Fire in the Commonwealth
Saturday, June 13 @ 04:23:50 PDT by howard (183 reads) | Virginia's 2008 fire season statistics
619,559 Incidents called in (fire, EMS, car wreck, entrapment, hazmat, etc.)
Average response time from receiving call to arriving was 6.9 minutes
- 5% were fires or 30,972 fires
- $325 million lost in fires
June had the most fires while March had the fewest fires
- Cooking was 31% of the fires
- Only 28% had a actual smoke detector working
- (This goes along with the study conducted recently and published that showed detectors installed 10 years ago are failing to operate, had no batteries, were no longer installed, or for other reasons did not work anymore to the rate of 68%)
- A fire occurred every 17.9 minutes in the Commonwealth
- A casualty occurred every 15.8 hours
Fire loss broke down to:
$890,428 per day
$37,101 per hour
$618 per minute
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| Welcome to the AFSA Virginia Chapter Website | |
If you are a member of the Virginia Chapter of AFSA and would like to participate in the content of this site. We need stories and articles about the work that you do in your community.
If you have sprinkler related items of interest, employment opportunities or press releases, please contact George Wagner.
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| Meeting Dates for 2010 |
- Sep 14
- Sep 15 — Golf Tourney
- Nov 9
Watch for the details for each meeting as the meeting time approaches.
Meeting information will be posted in the center column of this page and will be available for download as it becomes available.
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| Mission Statement |  | |
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