Weekly Scrap - Firemanship Special

Corley: Corley Moore Firehouse Vigilance. It is A weekly scrap special. This is the firemanship special. This is Cody Testrel. This is so much hype since he announced just one week ago That this was going on. There are so many comments, Cody already flying in. Let's go. Let's go. What up, Steve? Hope all is well Absolutely awesome. Let's go. Digital ladies are president and ready. What up, Cody? Bring it. Hey, okay, there's too many to read. They're just flying by. Everybody, I'm just gonna get everybody up to speed because everybody's been to scraps before. They know usually I introduce the the the this is my notes for this scrap right here Cody prepared me well. He said, hey, I want to go live and I want to talk about this firemanship conference that is coming back. And I'm pumped. I'm so excited. I couldn't be more excited. I'm in South Carolina. So this Kyle Romagus is here. But he's not on his own monitor. He's on the phone. He's on the phone, ready to grab your questions that you put, whether you're at YouTube or Facebook, Kyle's watching. He's ready to grab your questions and throw them up here for Cody to answer. So with all that being said, I'm excited. I'm hyped. No more me talking. Cody, my man, welcome back to the scrap and the firemanship special

Cody Trestrel: Brother, great to be here. Great to see you again. It's only been a couple of weeks, but it's been a couple of weeks too long since I saw you there in Ohio. Absolutely. Thanks for doing this, man, and having me on. I'm super excited to be here and just share with everybody what's going on, where we're at. It's even hard to contain myself. So couldn't think of a better person and a better place to go to try to get some information out there and I will still say we are very much in our emphasis stages of planning and preparing this But man, God spoke to me and put this on my heart in Andrea's and said, the time is now. We need to do this thing. And so we've got some things in the work already in the works already. And we're ready to roll, man, and and and just do this big time. Corley: Love it, man. I love it. Now, yes I never got to attend the original firemanships. This was before I realized, especially at the Pacific Northwest. But talk to everybody out there that was is like me. They missed the first go around and all they've heard is the legend the myth of how amazing it was. Just kind of where it where it started and give kind of the background of it.

Cody Trestrel: Yeah, sure. Man, it's special. It still holds a very special place in my heart, Dandry's heart, and a lot of people that have attended. we were So blessed to have people from all over the country support us. And it was an incredible run. It was an incredibly challenging run. And it helped me grow, helped me get to where I'm at today, the resolve that I have, the some of the convictions and the values that I'm willing to stand for. We're born from that and I think help prepare me for where we're at. But yeah, it was an incredible run. And it it really started with the idea of just trying to bring training up to our neck of the woods in the Pacific Northwest that didn't have a ton of exposure to outside training and probably like most conferences and regional conferences. I really just wanted to bring that exposure to our neck of the woods. There was no grandiose idea of pulling in people from around the country. I thought about, you know, I had connections with friends and people out there from the training world. with teaching through Brothers in Battle and sharing and I wanted to bring some of them to us in the Pacific Northwest. And you know, I thought that it was going to be primarily just you know kind of focused on that group. and when I when I set out to do it, it kind of it was actually an ultimatum from my wife Andrea. And for several years prior to that We were running a charity volleyball tournament in the area for an incredible veterans group called Team Rubicon. that does incredible stuff, repurposing our vets. And I'm incredibly passionate about our veterans and grateful for them. and their service and they repurposed their vets and put them to work and for disaster relief and it was an awesome organization. I had a good buddy that I got hired with in Portland at the time who had become a part of them. I became aware of what they were doing. And I wanted to do something to raise awareness for them. And I guess bring a family environment to our metro area. And so Andre and I decided to create a raise for Rubicon, which was a volleyball tournament in the summertime, barbecue, auction, raffle and get Basically departments from all over the metro area to register volleyball teams, bring out their families, the kids And basically come spend the day playing volleyball in the tournament while we're raising money and funds for this incredible organization Well, we ran that for several years.

Cody Trestrel: It was an awesome run. We had a ton of support, ton of help, had a blast doing it. And then I had that crazy idea of doing something training-wise and doing a conference type thing. There was nothing like it really going on in our area at the time. And I had approached Andrea about doing it and she was like, -uh, absolutely not. And I'm like, pretty persistent, you know, with her. And It it really came down to too many irons in the fire. And she says, well, you're gonna have to pick or choose, you know, what you want to do. You know, and at that time we were fully running with brothers in battle, you know, and raising two girls, everything else going on in life. So we decided to make the decision then to kind of stop running race for Rubicon and transfer over and put our energy into firemanship conf And it was you know born out of a desire to bring firemanship to our area and right on It it's as simple as that. And and I, you know, things can be controversial, political. There's a lot of politics surrounding that name, that word I believe it to be literal. You know, I read it in the dictionary, the definition of firemanship, and it's the skill, practice, and trade of firefighting and I fully believe that what we do takes skill, takes a tremendous amount of practice, and it is a trade, right? And so I I I just wanted to embody that in our region. And leading into it, what's interesting is as I was trying to think about how to How to put on a conference like that having never done it. A lot of people don't realize. I had actually never attended a conference period ever. Never ever see Firehouse Hot, you know, there are a couple other regional conferences going on around the country, not like what we see today for sure. but I'd never attended any conference whatsoever. That was the same with Brothers in Battle when I started. I had never attended an outside training class before ever. So it really was just it came from the heart, man. That's all I could say. It's like I I is is I wanted to make an impact at the time. I wanted to do something that was different than the I'm gonna say this loosely and I don't mean it a bad way, but like the generic kind of hotel conference room feel, you know, a couple class I I wanted Then also I wanted something a movement.

Cody Trestrel: I wanted to embody the spirit of firemanship and what it was about. So it really was born out of that, man, and we just started building it and year one was small it was I don't think we had too many people from around the country attend it was mostly local And man, I'll tell you what, after year one, it just exploded and blew up. And we weren't even trying to do anything. We just couldn't even handle it and keep up with what was going on man and then it just built and it became that that conference that everybody was ready to go on registration morning you know wherever they were at you know Guys were up in the mountains doing wildland firefighting, you know, and on duty and having their spouses register for them and do things. And it became that conference that if you weren't there. It was selling out. You know, we did cap it. and it created that hype and that environment that you had to be there ready to go if you wanted to get in and be a part of it. that you were gonna have to be there registration wise and make it make it happen, you know. I think towards the end You know, we are running in total training about a thousand firefighters from all over the country, between the lecture venue and then all the hot classes. And we ended up I think our last year we had 13 different hot sites. and multiple classes at each one of those hot sites as well. So it it was it it was It was a lot. Let's just just ask Andrew. It was it was a lot and everybody else that helped participate and make that happen. And you know, that's where I'll just segue into. We were only able to do that because it was so blessed to just have a red shirt army man a cadre of volunteers from around the cold country and locally just a ton of people Robbie Hendricks, Shane Thomas, Jamie, so many people and and local groups that It was a small army to really make it happen. You know, I couldn't do that myself. Andrew couldn't do that ourselves.

Corley: And I know, and I know you want to I again you give out kudos to everybody involved and how successful it was and everything like that. But I also Don't want to bury the lead of the hype surrounding the fact that it is now back. I'm gonna do quick housekeeping and explain to everybody. This is not a scrap. This has no number on it. This is the scrap special just to announce firemanship even the even the the sponsors down below they're not sponsoring this i i i put up there people i love And then first in Ryan McCormick. That's the reason they're down there. They're not, this is not a sponsored episode. That's why I didn't even mention sponsors and stuff. This is just to hype the announcement. And so yeah, I want to do that, say that, and then move into you decided it's coming back. Cody Trestrel: Yeah, so it's coming back. And so what we haven't, so they keep you know, we it was it was crazy and I would say this. Talking to people around the country, getting to travel and teach like we do and share and learn. It's really special whenever people come up to me and say, man, what a special thing that was. I got to attend in 2017 or 2019 or this or I made it every year or this. And what's amazing is most people can only describe it as a feeling, the environment, something there. Like it's hard to explain unless you were there. almost to experience that vibe, that family feeling and that culture there. And man, that's what we're we're after again. And so, you know, COVID hit with everything. you know, and everybody else around the country and we shut it down. So we actually haven't had firemanship conference the last three years. There's a behind the scenes. we could get into some stuff later if we really want to. I'm pretty open now and now that I'm no longer an employee with the city of Portland, I could speak about some things a little bit further in detail. But ultimately, there was a lot of things we were dealing with the last couple issues as well. and legal stuff and politics and and that type of stuff. So we tried to run it, COVID hit. We shut down for two years. The last year we tried to get it back up again.

Cody Trestrel: We were actually getting ready to roll, put money down. For the venue for hotels. We were getting ready to roll out in a week and basically our venue came back and made the declaration that they weren't gonna accept the contract stuff that we sign and they were gonna force us to ensure that all attendees were vaccinated with things which obviously was a huge red flag for me and was like absolutely not going to happen. So obviously we're a couple years from that time now, but hotels and businesses, things weren't set up dealing with that stuff yet. And we just want Willing to go down that road. and so we backed out of doing the last conference and still dealing with some of that financially to be honest with you but that led to now you know and we we are here in the beautiful free state of Montana and loving it and we've been trying to figure out what life looks like for us getting settled into it And I've a lot of people have been asking over the last couple of years, you know, when are you bringing it back? When are you bringing it back? And I knew that We were gonna bring it back probably at some point. I didn't know what it was gonna look like. I could tell you that it wasn't gonna happen in the city of Portland. that's for sure. as grateful as I am for it in the environment it created, but it's it's just man, it's in the hornet's nest there and it's not the place to be now. So, you know, we were It's been in our minds and we've had a lot of people on us and Jeff Bryant who I'm sure you know teaches with us and do a lot of stuff with he's been that proverbial thorn in my ass, you know, that 10 pounds of pressure. And it's not even 10 pounds of pressure 100% of the time, it's like it's he's been like 31 pounds of pressure 131% of the time. Bring it back, bring it back. Let's do this. Let's do this. Let's do this. Let's do this. And I've been like, yeah, yeah, I know. I And I'm still trying to figure out life what that looks like now. And as we were talking about where to bring it back, which, you know, is Again, it's a huge undertaking, took a small army, but I had a ton of resources, contacts, logistics, all of that stuff in Portland area was like, where do we go to do that?

Cody Trestrel: You know, I don't, and I'm not physically there, you know, was a huge mental block for me to get over like how do we actually bring this thing back? And right then, you know, it the last six months it's been on the mind a lot more. And a couple of events kind of happened recently. And Cor coupled with being in church one morning just a few weeks ago, and I felt like God was like Do it now, and this is how you're gonna do it. And it was like, whoa. And I told Andre that I had this feeling, this thoughts coming into my mind. I felt God was just saying, this is the time, and this is what it's gonna look like And I was like, wow. And it just kind of tied in together. And I think because, brother, my heart has been just on fire an extremely I would say Ex extremely blessed to do what we do. I feel that what we do is so special. and We had a buddy, Brian Abbott, that teaches for us with Brothers in Battle. He recently has been on a couple podcasts with Fit to Fight Fire, John Sparrow And Grant Schwabby and the Journeyman talking about his story. And if you have any of your listeners out here tonight haven't listened to him, go back and find those. But Brian couple years ago went through a a mental health crisis, if you will, and was struggling. Severely to the point to where Brian is extremely passionate about firemanship, family, loves this job, loves people, and he found himself literally hanging at the end of the rope off of one of the door props that he fabricates and builds for training. And he was out in his garage, his family was home, and Brian was literally one night hanging from the rope. Oh well. And Brian heard an audible voice and this is I'm I'm Brian shares this with you, so I feel comfortable sharing this. And this has lit a fire in me. He heard a voice tell him to stand up. Stand up. And he will tell you it was unequivocally God telling him, stand up. You've got fighting you still. Stand up. You are not done. And he stood up. He was a mess. he messaged his wife who was inside sleeping, and Kelly came out.

Cody Trestrel: and there he was, piled up on the floor, and he was blacking out. And so Brian personally, you know, and knowing them and going through that with them and their family, that's lit a fire under me. And Traveling around like we do around the country and so fortunate to participate in in great training all over the place. It's a very common theme. Now, the name that we're hearing attached to it is moral injury, you know, and I'll be honest, I don't know technically what that is, or to get into the mental health side of things. we've always been passionate about it with what we do with firemanship conference and there's been a portion dedicated with that. But I know now and as much as we travel and see It's the same story all over the place. There are so many brothers and sisters hurting all over the place. Absolutely. It's like something has got to give. And it hit me a little while back and it's It's hard to say this, but I truly believe in my heart of hearts that the American fire service today, not everywhere, But in general, the American fire service today is literally killing us. The fire service is Killing us. I'm extremely frustrated with it. I'm pissed. I'm angry. I'm passionate about it and I want to do something about it. And I mean that because I've seen it enough traveling and hearing our brothers and sisters constantly constantly telling me how they're fighting other firefighters on shift to just be able to stretch a line Take a hydrant. Be into the job, if you will. They're getting beat down. They're getting beat down by their administrations and their organizations Much of this fire service today is anything but a trade to a lot of places. They're trying to dumb it down. They're trying to white collar it. They're trying to make it a sterile office environment And I think quite frankly, our brothers and sisters are struggling because when they set out to do this, they set out to do something bigger than themselves, something special, something mission focused. And now into however many years they have, they realize the narrative being put out there is anything but that. You're actually getting beat down for being into the job, for being mission focused. It's all about you. It's all about me.

Cody Trestrel: It is no longer selfless service and sacrifice. And that identity, that core, I I think. Is that moral injury is compounding to the core is the proverbial nail in the coffin for us. Yes, we see tragic things, but we also see amazing things. We have our sleep deprivation, our eating habits, all of these things that contribute to this stuff that affects our bodies and our minds. We know that. But I know I can sit here and tell you that I believe in my heart of hearts that The culture of the fire service right now as a whole, it is the nail in the coffin. It is literally killing us, our firefighters. And we have to do something about it. so that's on my mind as I travel and I listen and I talk to firefighters from young firefighters to firefighters that have been on five, 10, 15, 20, 25 years. You know, and it's it's it's a common theme everywhere we go. Do them, you know, and it's like, what do we do about it? Well then a couple of weeks ago, as stupid as it seems, I put up a generic Facebook and Instagram post. that I'm gonna read real quick. It was really generic. And it said all it said was before hiring more people. Leaders need to figure out why people keep leaving in the first place and get to the root of it. It was a generic post that I just took off of social media and posted it. Corley That post has been shared from my stuff 500 times. Five more than any other tactic nugget

Corley: Quote anything. Cody Trestrel: We're brother, I'm dead serious. Like what the five hundred times That's a problem. Why? That struck a vein. And that struck that vein in me. And it made me say, look at us as a fire service. What is going on? And quite frankly, I'm sick of it. And I'm ready to do something about it. And I feel like God is now giving me this place, the convictions, the values. I'm not being handcuffed by a city or an organization. And I am telling you, I'm telling the American Fire Service from the firefighters to the chief levels out there, we are coming for you. And if you do not get on board, I said this the other day to a friend. I think a lot of chiefs nowadays are chiefing themselves right out of a job. If they don't get with the program, there's no way No way that they're going to be able to sustain information coming faster than ever before to our fire service. Regional training conferences, hot classes. More than ever before, available all over the country every weekend. Every weekend. Information, social media, and good stuff. Yes, of course there's negative, but I'm talking the amazing stuff and our culture and our mission mindset. and no stepping into it and i'll be honest man that they're they're gonna have to get on board because there is no studies i've said it before before on the last scrap. There's no stats, there's no studies, there is no science. There is nothing keeping us from doing our job and our mission first mindset. than us, the cowards that are amongst our rank and file, and we've given up much of that control all over from our publications, our training, all kinds of stuff And man, I'll just tell you what, I'm I'm sick of it. I think the fire service is literally killing us. it's killing them. I think that's why we're at a 25% increase in civilian fire deaths over the last decade while fires are down Not all of it, but I think it's a piece of the puzzle that we gotta own. Yes. So this is my why. This was the fuel for this. And it finally hit a point. And I felt like a couple weeks ago in church, God was like, go. It's time to go now. It's time to do this and bring it back.

Cody Trestrel: So I want to completely eradicate. the cowards out of our fire service to make it nearly impossible for them to exist if they aren't mission focused. Then it's gonna be a struggle to exist. I want to come at them that hard, that big. so how do we do it You know, and right, right. And that to me, that's firemanship. I still believe in it. The literal turn term as translated in the dictionary and it points back to that and I'll say it comes back to this too. I just want to Clarify, Brothers in Battle, our mission statement and our mission hasn't changed over the years. Our mission has been, and it was for firemanship conference, the same as our Brothers in Battle mission, is to provide the best training possible for firefighters. Focusing on a them first mindset through faith, family, and firemanship, the skill, practice, and trade of firefighting. And we're going to do this with giving hearts for great causes. This is what we have been doing for years. And now I'm willing to even come even harder, unapologetically focused on our mission. And I want to change the culture of the fire service. I want us to stand up for us, for our neighbor Right? That's that the great commandment, thou shalt love thy neighbor, and all other things come underneath it, right? We love God. Love our neighbors and to me that is them. Them has never been just isolated to the civilian we serve. Them is us. Them is our family. them as community right and so I just want to do something that can truly make an impact I want firemanship like when we started The original FCPDX, I want to do something now that's completely different than is being done out there in most places. And this isn't a knock Because I look I'm asked all the time and I'm sure you are too, is it too much training? Are there too many conferences? Are there too many of this? And I've always said No, the people will tell us, the students will tell us when it's too much. Otherwise, there's never enough training. How could we say it's too much training If people are saying that and it's coming from instructors and cadre and training groups, that's ego and pride. That's selfishness. There's not enough training out there, right?

Cody Trestrel: And it's always been that when you travel and we do these things That we're going to get firefighters regionally to that environment that didn't have the funds, the resources, the time to go travel nationally to something different. So if you've got a regional conference, even multiples going on in the same state, good to allow firefighters from that region to get exposed to and participate in that training, right? And so I don't think there could ever be enough training. Corley, I'm not and I want to do something different in the context of where my heart is at, like starting the last one. I had never attended anything before. I just did what came from the heart. I didn't want to take I and I don't want to because I'm still trying to figure this out. I don't want firemanship to be reborn. And just be what Firemanship Conference Portland was, or to be what any other conference is going on around the country. I want it to be its own thing, completely different. I'm still trying to. Get the vision for it and the mind space for what that exactly is and looks like with a lot of it. But I want it that that feel that is talked about with firemanship conference Portland I don't want it to just be about the speaker and a two-hour presentation and a four-hour lecture or this hot class It's so much more than that. I want the movement. I want to embody that feeling, the spirit, the fighting spirit. The love for our neighbors, our brothers, our sisters, stand up, our mission. Like, and I want to push this mission first mindset. And spread the poison literally to infect the entirety of the fire service with that mindset.

Corley: I love it You got everybody fired up right now. I can't even, I don't even we passed a hundred comments so long ago, and I can't even begin to touch on the comments in YouTube and Facebook and everywhere, brother. Goosebumps for real. You can never train too much for a job that can kill you. From Gillespie. Oh man, there's so much. yeah. They're talking about all of it. All of it, brother Please, if you have specific questions for Cody, throw them in there. Kyle is waiting. I mean there's there's tons of chatter. Cody Trestrel: Yeah, yeah. Corley: tons of chatter coming Cody Trestrel: Yeah, so so I would say this too and I'll I'll just dr address a couple quick little things. I I get I get that some people might be offended by some of this. I'm not set out to try to offend anybody. We want to do our thing, let others do theirs, but This is like firemanship conference Portland was all were welcome you just simply had to want to be there, right? we want this available To everybody. This in my mind, How how do we do something that the brothers and sisters that are doing a great job back at their departments and getting beat down for wanting to learn and learn. How do we get them exposed, you know, to this, to where we know one, two of us. Goes back to our departments, our shift, our department, the compounding factor, I mean, to affect change can be absolutely incredible. And so like how do we get How do we truly affect change? And what came to mind was this can no longer be exclusive, and exclusive in the context of Setting small numbers like which I believe in because there are you events that focus on a small number of firefighters with focus detail training. one-on-one time with with instructors and that's all great, right? But I feel like to truly create something big, a true movement of it, we have to literally spread like a poison and we have to collect all of those that could not normally attend a conference, didn't have the means, the time, the travel distance, some of that stuff. We had to be able we have to be able to capture them. It has to be inclusive for them. It has to be inclusive for anybody that wants to be there and not shut out.

Cody Trestrel: Shut out. So that comes with the biggest announcement of what we're trying to do here, I would say, is a departure from What I know we could do, which is Coralie, we could put on firemanship conference right now, and I could put a price tag on it right now And I would I'm pretty positive we would sell it out. And we can make a boatload of money. And in our nature, like we do, giving hearts in great causes, we will pour it out like we've always done. And I'm pretty positive we could do that successfully. But I want to do something radically different in the fact that I want to put on firemanship and a full week of training. at no cost to somebody, a completely free conference available to anybody and everybody if they want to be there. and it's wild because I'm not even sure exactly what that looks like. But I feel like God told me that morning, he says, I'll take care of the finances. You make this available to everybody. So how do we capture it? Yes, we can't cover hotels and travel, but we can help ease the burden. And when you start talking about a five, six, seven, eight, nine hundred dollar registration fee plus all the other stuff Man, there's a lot of brothers and sisters out there struggling just to make ends meet at home, let alone getting the ability to get to participate in something like this. So That's when I put in the text that I want to do something completely different, something special in this scale. I can't think of a better cause, a better benefit to pour into Than us pouring it into each other, our brothers and sisters from around the country to mold this mindset and push it out. So I'm not looking to like before firemanship conference supported rescue.

Corley: Come on. Jeffrey Bryant mentioned, I didn't mean to break your flow. Sorry, go. Cody Trestrel: Yeah. You know, we supported Sons of the Flag primarily, plus a whole bunch of other organizations with firemanship conference down to even meals, homeless shelters, and all kinds of stuff and brothers and sisters in need financially and legally with stuff like we would Money here, whatever we could help with, we did. and I just I can't think of a better cause while I believe in still doing stuff for burn victims, you know. And all these other incredible organizations and resources, in my mind right now, Corley, I can't think of a better cause for the American Fire Service to pour into. than ourselves, which is ultimately pouring it into them, right? If we are able to do that, the best version of ourselves at at home, in our communities, our families, on our jobs, like we are able to Better serve them and they are the direct result of you know and benefiting from from that. So my goal is to put on this event completely free to those that need it. I envision something. We're still trying to figure this out. Crowdsourcing, funding, donors, sponsors, still us. Yes, like any benefit. We I mean doing firemanship conference, team ArubaCon, bro. I learned real quick, it takes money to make money. And anybody knows that, even running nonprofits and all kinds of things, it takes money to make money. Absolutely. And this this isn't cheap. And firemanship conference was not cheap. you know it takes money to to to do this and so we are going to try to creatively figure out ways to crowdsource and fund this and whether it's you know If students can pay a recommended fee for that conference and you have the financial means to do so, awesome. Do it If you can only pay a hundred bucks, do it. If you can only pay 50 bucks, do it. If you can't pay anything, it's still available to you. If you can give more to it If we can get our, you know, even people that can't attend a conference to buy into this and pour into our culture and this mindset, this mission first mindset. That is how I believe we make it available to anybody that wants to try to be there. so that's that's the big departure we're still trying to figure out.

Cody Trestrel: that's checking our ego, that's checking our our wallets It's not about money. We never started doing firemanship conference or any of that. It was never about the bottom line of the money. It was to put on the great training first for great causes. And like I said, our mission statement, it's not changing. It's the same thing. We just want to do it on a completely different scale from what is being done out there. and make it available to people. And again, I know, Corley, that we could put a price tag on it and we could crush this money-wise. Oh, yeah. And do everything that we need to do and then some. My faith is my God is an awesome God. And I believe that our brothers and sisters across the fire service. Oh it's gonna be I believe they will see the benefits of this as well. And choose to stand up next to our neighbors, next to each other, and and do this for us. So that's kind of the big one, Corley, is we want everybody. Yeah. Yeah. And I still understand There's still a financial means to get there and all that stuff. But hopefully this can help. And shoot, you know, I'm still open to ideas. And if we have the funds to do that stuff to help facilitate brothers and sisters getting there and doing things, we'll always try to figure out creative ways to do stuff like that. But that's the main one is we're gonna set out to do this conference. I guess for those that that that couldn't normally You know, get there, didn't have the means to be there. We want them to be there so that they can go back to their departments and effect change. We're also going to be able to with the venue, we've got an amazing venue in Aurora. The Paramount Theater is an incredible venue. It's a lot larger capacity than the crystal ballroom where we were at in Portland. I'm not gonna look to put a cap on numbers as far as, you know 150 registrants of the first 200 or the first 500. we're working through the layout and the logistics with the facility. but it's roughly a 1900 a person capacity venue, beautiful theater. And I would love nothing more than to have a couple thousand firefighters from around the country in attendance.

Cody Trestrel: And Pack this thing out and really be able to go out and spread like wildfire across the country. We are going to look to do hands-on classes too, and we're going to look to do kind of the same model with firemanship conference that we ran in Portland as far as three days of lectures, two days of hands-on. But hands-on, we're working through the sites right now. I'll be honest with you, I don't have one lecture or one class. laid out or picked out yet. We're gonna build it. I'm still trying to figure out how I want to do that, what it looks like a little bit. but We've got a tremendous amount of support from the region over there. Jeff Bryant's done a tremendous amount of work in that area. Brothers in Battle has been in that area three or four times over the last five years or so doing classes with different organizations and hot sites. And so we're anticipating being able to have multiple hot sites again in the region to allow for a decent number of hot classes. But 100% we're not gonna be able to everybody that's at a lecture, you know, fill a hot seat spot. I think it's gonna be reduced numbers for that. so we're still working through some of that. Sure. I can follow you a little bit of my lecture idea, which I'll just share with you again because I I I I I just I want to do something I love teasers. I love teasers. The crowd loves teasers. So yeah, share us share us your brain. I'm thinking about doing something that's truly like fire nuggets, like and impactful, and something that brings in Brothers and sisters from all over with different mindsets, tactics, tips, if you will, and things. And instead of the hour and 45-minute presentation or a four hour and this a couple of speakers a day man if we've got somebody that's got a 30-minute nugget and props and things on stage and do drags and stretch this and throw this or maybe a live feed outside from a site to do and just have multiple present you know multiple Presentations, if you will, throughout the day, littered with just nuggets and quick tips and stuff that I think will be incredibly impactful and that will allow us as a fire service to tangibly take things real quick this technique this specific tactic this and take it and turn and burn with it and put it to use so I envision Just a ton of speakers throughout the three days with lots of little nuggets instead of a couple focused presentations.

Cody Trestrel: Yeah. So pretty excited about that. and then let's see trying to think as far as details with that like I said this is really early in the Emphasis stages. A lot of this is the same thing. Corley: One of the biggest questions is, and I know you may not have the answer yet, but when are you thinking about registration opening? Perfect. Cody Trestrel: That was the last actual hard thing I could give you and we have set the registration date for Cyber Monday Cyber Monday, right after Thanksgiving. Everybody's getting online already, buying up stuff, spending money, donating stuff. Donating stuff, Christmas presents, all of that stuff, Cyber Monday, which is November 27th at 10 a. m. Pacific time. We will open registration. There will be Christmas Day right there. What? Corley: That's Christmas Day right there. Cody Trestrel: Yeah. There will be, so you know There will have to be a cap on it due to the venue, but it's significantly more than what we were able to do at the Crystal Ballroom. And you know the again the goal would be to pack that place with a couple thousand firefighters and between that and and the hot classes. Corley: So let me have one No, no, I want to interrupt you and interrupt you real quick and ask you some quick questions, which is first of all, firedepartmentfurniture. com, fire stationfurniture. com, sorry, they've already said they'll be a sponsor, so I wanted to make sure you got that message They're absolutely that's your first sponsor that you that outside source probably. You probably have already been in the cotongs. But I wanted to mention that the other thing is other people that want to help, that want to be a part of this, that want to be a part of making free to give to what is the is there a place setting up to to make that happen to get in touch

Cody Trestrel: We will set, we will be working on setting up that a link just like anything else that allow, you know, Donations to take place. We will be setting up a website to go to. Okay. Information on there, all that stuff with a link. For people to yes go to and donate to anybody, even if you can't attend to family members, anybody wants to donate to this cause we'll be able to donate to that We will have the registration open specifically on the 27th to collect those numbers. And But again there won't n there won't be any type of I guess a value Required of you at that time. We are, and I do anticipate again the reality of it is it costs money to do this. So we will put up Probably this is what the recommended you know prices. This is normally what lecture would be. This is what a hot class would be. Here's there Do what you can and or pay it forward, you know? Right. And that's truly what we're believing in. And we want it to completely be open. Non-bias. I don't care. We're not looking for reasons of why you can't afford or how. We're not looking to collect you know, and actually give scholarships and pick and choose who gets to come because we did that with firemanship conference. We gave out scholarships every year and it was submitted and you know and and we did that i don't want to do that like i said i just want i want it available to anybody That wants to be there, no questions asked. Period end of story, you know? And so, but yes, so we will work on Between now and the 27th of November, we got a lot of work to do to get website up. We'll be releasing as we get speakers, as we dial in hot classes as we're doing these things. We'll be slow rolling that stuff out with the link to donate and The goal to just crush this, Corley. And I'm telling you, I'm dead serious. I want to pack this place out. And I want several thousand firefighters leaving Aurora, Illinois. To go back to their organizations and just it's so funny because over the last decade I still find myself saying spread the poison, spread the poison.

Corley: We need to spread the poison t-shirts already so we can start. Cody Trestrel: Yeah. And it just I just feel like that. It still always comes back to that. I want him going back and just spreading the poison and again it and and make it make it damn near impossible. And I think We can over a couple years make it impossible for those amongst us that Are not here for the right reasons to make it very uncomfortable for them. And I'm okay with that. Yes, that is my goal. You know, and to steal from, I know Chief Thompson has been on, you know, your scrap multiple times. He's a big mentor of mine, talked with him personally But I share his slide. He gave me permission to share it in all of my presentations. I don't know many fire chiefs out there in the country that are willing to take a stand and basically saying if you're not willing to step up and meet our mission mindset then we will help to work you get you re-employed. Yes. Re-employed. Like come on now. That's I love it. That's what I'm talking about. That level of this is where we're at, you know, and we are coming. and and I believe if we can get firefighters by the thousands attending this. For us to all identify in the same identity. And I talk about this in our classes too. I truly believe for us As a fire service, we have one shared core identity and values and one mission. You know, we're uniquely created with different backgrounds and perspectives and all kinds of things. But man, when it comes down to what we do in our mission, there is only one way. And it is the right way, you know. And so I just think we're at that point The fire service Corley. If if we don't really go after this, we're literally killing ourselves. The fire service as is is killing us. And I'm sorry. I love the message. I should say that. I love the message.

Corley: Yes, dude, thank you so much for letting scrap be the announcement platform for for this announcement. November 20. I may even put it, I'll try to put it in the scrap notes countdown every scrap until this goes live. I think that'll be amazing. because I think it'll sell out that day. I can't wait. And it's gonna be where you can purchase the tickets for how much you want, right? So you can pay it forward Cody Trestrel: Yep, yep. There'll be a pay basically a pay it forward piece on there. Yep. Corley: Or whatever you can or can't own it. Right, right. Oh, I love it. I absolutely I love the mindset behind it. It was some oh I want to ask if you'll come back, we can do another one of these after November twenty-seventh, you know, maybe in the between no between between Thanksgiving and Christmas sometime, you know, after the tickets go on sale, come back and talk about how much it's firmed up and what the plans are for it. Sure, sure. Okay. Like speakers and you know and what you're getting, you know, what anything that's been solidified basically Basically hype it up some more.

Cody Trestrel: Yeah. No, we'll keep doing that for sure. And and as as we have information, you know, I don't want to keep everything and we're not trying to be like, oh, surprise here, you know. We'll we'll try to release information and stuff and I would love to get back on and share with you. I I just Man, I I think we have the opportunity to do something really special here and give back to each other, you know, and us and really build a mission-first mindset, you know. And And yeah, I'm I'm excited for this. And yeah, I I know there's gonna be a lot of people that hopefully want to be a part of it, and I get it again, it may not be for everybody. But if people want to be a part of it, man, I hope they're they're ready to jump in. There are gonna be opportunities, like I said, earlier with a variety of different hot classes. different speakers and presentations to participate. We're going to have to build an army again of volunteers. I mean it was a small army literally to put on between all the logistics support at the hot sites for each hot class, venue during the conference, shuttles, all of this stuff. So we are going to have to build an army as well to to be able to pull this off. But again, I just can't think of a greater cause to champion than than us for them, you know?

Corley: Then us for them. Dude, I love the neighbors. Ma'am, spread the poison. All of it, brother, you have got me fired up in my and everybody, I'm in my hotel room here in South Carolina as I teach the outside the the firehouse vigilance studio. So it's exciting to be able to host Cody and talk about this And everybody, Cody, you have to go to Facebook and you have to go to YouTube and read the comments because there are too many comments to even try to catch up. There is a lot of hype for what you have announced this evening. Cody Trestrel: Sweet. Is there any specific questions? I don't want to eat up everybody's evening, you know, too much. Corley: I think they'll I think they'll listen to you talk for the next two, three hours. I really I'm not speaking. Ramagus bailed on us because he apparently won he wanted to flex on us. He said go into a fire, buddy, gotta go. So yeah, that's the one good reason. One good reason. All right. But if you have questions, I will pull them out. Specif specifically firemanship related questions about the conference. If you have anything, throw them in the chat and I will grab them and I will get them before Cody Bells One thing is we have to code eat next time. You have to move whatever elk you've got your Wi-Fi strapped to, you have to move it next time. We've heard you the entire night. The the sound has been impeccable, so it's been good that way. But you also have been freezing And that's okay, but just to just to let you know. Okay. But the message has been solid. Awesome. Yeah, the truckie said, keep talking. What will the emphasis be? The emphasis will be us for them. Us for them infecting the poison of taking care of our own Taking the fire service back. I think it stand up stand up for your neighbor. Love it. Is there going to be forcible entry under fire? That's Aaron Jackson asking. Just say when, buddy, we'll bring the iron. That's for Mitch Hooner. Can you set up so I can send a sponsor a few guys? Yeah, Todd Edwards is asking. I think the response is going to be amazing. Yeah, the truckie said, keep talking in all caps. I don't know.

Corley: Any any specific questions? I'm waiting. I'm giving it a minute. Heck yes, keep going. Get on that soapbox and roll. I love it from Kobe Wiggington. Right here. Rob was having dinner with the granddaughters. He's here now listening and is all in. Sincerely, Jody. Thank you, Jody. Rob's better half. Glad to have you. Love you guys Love it, man. Not too far. will there be a karaoke bar kidding from coming from Eddie Ivey? Oh, I hope so. Cody Trestrel: That might be one of the nights. That might be ha that might have to be the social one night Corley: The karaoke special. And you can only come if you plan to sing. Yeah. Not just not just watch. Cody Trestrel: Yeah. Corley: Yes, Amanda, there will be a chance to sponsor and and pay for or pay it forward, basically, is the whole model. Cody Trestrel: That's exactly what it is. A pay it forward. And I kind of view this as like a you know, like I said, with lack of better words, like a crowdsourcing, a pay it forward. We're gonna have the ability to to register and pay what you can. And Pay it forward for others, even if you can't go, you know, or share the message, share the word, share the link for other people and family to support this cause and this mission and it's gonna be poured right back into us, you know. what was it gonna say? Love it. Trying to think if I have anything else really specifically.

Corley: Jody Fisher said I had to read that. It's going by so fast now. Jody Fisher said we will not be recreating dirty dancing lifts. And I say, not with that attitude, but we'll see what we can do. Yeah. So many people offering to come and help with hot tracks and things. There's lots of those scrolling by. Good. Love it. Love it. can we do whitetail venison or elk venison exchange for a elk venison exchange? I'm sorry. We're gonna set up a venison and a bourbon exchange, possibly. Cody Trestrel: I like it. That's a great idea Corley: No, 100% on when there is especially swag to pre-buy, like firemanship swag coming back, whether it be shirts. Cody Trestrel: Yeah, you know it. We got come on, we're firefighters. We got all of it. All of it. All of the Totchkeys that we can find. Corley: Spread the poison. I want to spread the poison swag. I want firemanship swag. Cody Trestrel: way we need to put logos on do anything with yeah we're gonna we're gonna get creative and it is gonna take a lot of that type of stuff to help raise money we are anticipating bringing in vendors and donors where that wasn't a big part of firemanship conference portland I didn't want it to be a vendor show specifically and I still so this is where I got to tread lightly This is firemanship. this is focused on the training of that. I also realize that It takes vendors and sponsors and donors to make this happen. So there, this event, we're going to figure out ways to bring in more vendors, sponsors and donors, the ability to be there present, have some time for things to take place that don't take away from the actual firemanship, if you will what is focused on that. And so I think that's a part of it too is we do want to get creative and allow vendors and donors that are supporting us. We want firefighters that have firefighter owned businesses. Like that is them as well and us and taking care of each other and doing and supporting each other. Like I really want to build into this culture of lifting each other up and supporting you know so many talented brothers and sisters doing incredible things out there so if we can find the space and the creative ways to to support them doing that we want to be able to give an opportunity to do that Will I say that it's I'm not envisioning like a separate a big you know FDIC type show for things like that separate, but again at the venues, at the Paramount Theater in the evenings of the socials, out in the hot class stuff, you know, as long as I I've always been very clear even running firemanship conference of what our focus is.

Cody Trestrel: and if we can creatively figure out ways to to benefit both sides, we will 100% do it, but it is 100% about firemanship. So but I think that us create Creatively, creatively. Creatively, creatively can come up with a way to support our vendors and donors. as well as you know so yeah I think there'll be probably a lot of opportunity to do that. Corley: Stephen McCaffrey won't know will Matt Donnie be there and Matt Donnie said Matt Donnie will be there so there you go love it yeah, Jeffrey Bryant Jr. said does a bear shit in the woods. So there's your answer. Will that Donnie be there? I love it. Man, dude! Yeah I don't want to cut you off. Anything else you want to say? I mean I think you're going to be able to do that. Cody Trestrel: We're super excited about this. We want to just start getting the word out. We wanted to save the dates, calendar, no registration stuff, start blocking that up, you know. It's good it's next summer, which sounds crazy. It's a year away, but these things, you know, for us, we know it takes that much planning to to get it done. And so we want it, you know we wanted at least to have that base information out there. so that yeah, hopefully No, share it.

Corley: Share this everywhere. Share this everywhere, share the not not the Share the scrap because all the information you get to get you get to hear Cody talk for an hour. share this share this scrap special on firemanship. get the information out there. What's the actual dates? I don't think we've actually said it live here Cody Trestrel: July 15th through the 19th. Aurora, Illinois, Jeff Bryant's backyard, my man. like I said, he literally has been 31 pounds of pressure 131% of the time. And I'm just gonna shoot share it out there like He really, you know, stepping out and doing this away from someplace where I physically, you know, cannot be all of the time and don't live there and don't have everything like I had at my disposal, you know, in the Portland metro area. it's tremendous amount of love and faith in Jeff man, he's such an awesome family man. He's got an incredible family. He loves this job. He's a man of faith. And I I can't think of anybody better to help come alongside of us and and really kind of help help make this happen, I'm not gonna lie. And he he's the spark plug for sure with this. So I'm incredibly grateful for his help. And like I said, I just I think It's a culmination of a lot of things. He's been fired up. A lot of us have been fired up around the country about this. I just think it's time, man. And I just You know, we're at this place and it's time to time to take it back, man.

Corley: Love it. I love it. November 27th, 10 a. m. Cyber Monday, 10 a. m. Pacific, noon central Tickets are going on sale. If you plan to be there on Cyber Monday, slap an all in in the chat. I don't care where you're watching from, type all in and as many exclamation points as you can handle if you are excited about firemanship. But I I can't think of a better way to close than just saying all in. And Eric, yeah, so many people talking. Cody, thank you so much for Cody Trestrel: Thank you, brother. Again, man, I love what you're doing. You're making an impact, so keep making the push. You know, it takes all of us collectively. And man, you're providing that voice out there right now. And and between you know you teaching and sharing and learning your knowledge and your insight and this incredible platform. So we're grateful for it. Grateful for all the scrappers out there and everybody else And excited to do this, man. Corley: I love it. You should see the all-ins flying by, man. All I stole it from you, but they're flying by. Yes. So I love it, Cody. Everybody, thank you for tuning in. Cody, thank you for for for A just kind of ripping your heart open and sharing it with us because that's amazing what you're what you're attempting to make happen and making happen. And so thank you so much. Audience, thanks for tuning in. I appreciate you all the all-ins going by, man. It gets me fired upright. I'm not going to be able to go to sleep. So thank you. I hope the tone stays silent. Unless it's burning, everybody stays silent