VFBV Board Members
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Gary Lyttle AFSM P: (03) 5344 8406 VFBV President Gary Lyttle is a farmer and businessman who lives at Cardigan, west of Ballarat. Trained as a fire investigator, Gary was Lieutenant of the Miners Rest Brigade for 20 years and has served in a variety of CFA and VFBV roles at local, regional and state level. CFA service is a family tradition, Gary’s father was a volunteer and his son and daughter are members of the Cardigan Fire Brigade. Gary Lyttle wants the VFBV to cement its position as a strong, unified voice for volunteers, especially in these times in which the Bushfires Royal Commission, industrial issues and boundary changes are important issues. He sees the modern CFA volunteer as a highly professional firefighter, especially since the arrival of minimum skills requirements.
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Hans van Hamond AFSM P: (03) 5339 2436 VFBV’s Deputy President Hans van Hamond joined the Creswick brigade in 1967, at a time when fire was challenging the state of Victoria the way it would again in 1983 and 2009. He later transferred to the Wendouree brigade, where he has served as Secretary, Captain and later Treasurer. He has worked at Group level, and served on the committee of the Ballarat Urban Fire Brigade’s Championships, and as State President of the VUFBA. As a teacher with TAFE and the University of Ballarat, Hans has taught fire technology for more than a decade. In a long career as a CFA volunteer, he says his most satisfying moment was seeing his three sons succeed as members of a State Championship winning team in the early 2000s. Hans van Hamond says VFBV’s most vital role is as the voice of volunteers, recognised by government, the CFA Board and the volunteers themselves.
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Tom Brodie AFSM P: Tom Brodie has great confidence in the volunteers themselves, saying that the arrival of minimum skills requirements visibly raised their level of training and their ability to attack fire. Tom was a member of the Longwood Water Trust and the Nagambie/Euroa Water Board, where he served as President and received his 25 year certificate for his service to the community. A Councillor with the Shire of Goulburn from 1977-94, Tom served two terms as Shire President. He has also been Chairman of the Longwood Community Centre Committee of Management since its inception. A member of the steering committee of the Rural Financial Counselling Service, he has also served one year on the board of Rural Financial Counselling Service – Victoria North Central
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Nev Jones AFSM P:
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Ian Nash P: A retired garage proprietor from Skipton, near Ballarat, Ian Nash has been a CFA volunteer since 1961. He joined the CFA on the advice of his father, who was Captain of the Skipton brigade before him and had already taken him along as an unofficial volunteer a number of times. Since then, Ian’s wife and their son and daughter have become volunteers too. An accredited Fire Investigator, Ian was a member of the team that handled the grim task of undertaking forensic work in the Marysville area in the days after Black Saturday. As a member of the VFBV Board, he believes too many people fail to see the professionalism, the technical knowledge and the years of experience that are there behind the word “volunteer”, and that VFBV must educate them at every opportunity. Asked about the modern crop of volunteers, Ian says they are much the same as those of earlier generations, a mixed bag of all types of personalities and levels of capability, and just as worthy of good representation in a time of change and great challenges on the fireground and in the way fire fighting is managed.
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Mick Taylor AFSM P: Mick Taylor lives in suburban Mornington, where he has been a local CFA volunteer since 1957. A member of the VUFBA executive for 23 years, Mick became a foundation member of the VFBV and has been on the board ever since. Now working as an FEM contractor for the CFA, he was a self employed builder for many years. It was Mick’s fitness that got him into the CFA – the local Captain saw him running competitively and said “It’s time you started running for the brigade”. Three years later he was an officer and 20 years later he was still a competitive runner. Mick was Mornington’s Captain for seven years, and has served on various committees and at regional level for 40 years. He says “the CFA is such a family organisation that once it gets hold of you, it won’t let go.” Mick Taylor sees the VFBV’s role as ensuring the volunteers are well recognised, well looked after and well organised to deal with the challenges of the future.
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Quentin Turner AFSM P: A desire to serve the community motivated Quentin Turner to become a CFA volunteer during the 1960s, and volunteerism continues to be a strong theme in the way he sees the future of fire fighting in Victoria. A former Commissioner for Industrial Relations with the Employee Relations Commission, he became the inaugural Chairman of the VFBV, and feels that its formation and representation of all CFA volunteers have made for some of his most satisfying work as a volunteer. On other fronts, he has served as Captain of the Creswick brigade for 24 years, a member of the Region 15 Council and a member of the CFA Board. He believes a vital role for the VFBV is in supporting the recognition of volunteers and the concept of volunteerism itself, in the face of campaigns from those who see the emergency services as an opportunity for industrial campaigning, and those who see the growing professionalism of CFA brigades as a sign that their work should be handed over to full time staff.
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Bruce Vine P: (03) 5754 4046 As a secondary teacher, VFBV Board Member Bruce Vine suspects it was his skill with paperwork that was behind the Tawonga Brigade’s decision to make him brigade secretary at his first meeting. And the brigade chose well - since then, he has been a volunteer at Tawonga for 35 years, serving as Group Officer at the Kiewa Group in Region 24 and an accredited Fire Investigator. Involved in combating the major campaign fires of recent years, Bruce had the experience of seeing the 2002/3 fires all around his rural home, and the flames eventually burning to within 150 metres of the house. Bruce Vine sees the VFBV’s role as representing the interests of the volunteers fairly and to the best of everyone’s ability, ensuring that the CFA is recognised as an organisation of professional skills and standards manned by volunteers and supported by full time staff.
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Rob Waterson AFSM P: VFBV Board Member Rob Waterson is a third generation volunteer, his father and grandfather having served on the Long Gully Brigade at Bendigo. Rob has lived at Cohuna all of his life, working as a motor mechanic, then a service manager, before taking up a full time role as a CFA Instructor. Having joined up to run competitively for his local brigade in 1966, Rob eventually became Captain and was a Deputy Group Officer, running leadership training and the introduction of Class A foam to local brigades. Rob says the VFBV’s urban and rural predecessors achieved quite a lot, and it is up to the merged organisation to be an even stronger force in ensuring volunteers are consulted and supported by government and the CFA.
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Peter White AFSM P: Having joined the CFA for the competitions as a sports mad teenager, Peter White now says VFBV needs to kick some serious goals for the volunteers. And the fields of endeavour are more challenging than ever - with issues like Enterprise Bargaining Agreements and the need to retain volunteers among a younger generation who seek faster advancement and are less likely to commit to the role for life. A plumber by trade, he is Captain and a Life member of the Casterton brigade, a life member of the CFA, with 45 years of service and the day he received his AFSM as his proudest moment. And among the strategic issues for VFBV, he sees one that is as much symbolic as functional, the need to make uniforms available to all CFA volunteers who want them.
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