Taken aback (shouldn’t have been) by the visit this evening and with no time to ask the sf team, we stumped up a tenner for the calendar.
Stingy, would you say?
I hope not, cos we got an invitation to the caserne to look at all the machines.
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Most people around here seem to give 10€, but I plan to be more generous this year…
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If I open the door it’s €15, if it’s OH then they get €10. Which is not that I am more generous, but just that I am more terrified of fire and heart attacks.
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Great - thanks all!
I’ve always given 10 but am planning more this year since it’s so many years since I first started doing this, it seems wrong somehow not to give more now! That’s just me though…
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I have always given €20, it is not a lot for a years donation and they risk their lives for us and save quite a few of us as well 
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There is no fixed sum… and some/many folk give nothing at all.
Each year, I look at my balance and decide who will benefit (and by how much) at Christmas.
I give generously to the Pompiers as they are mainly volunteers and I/we have reason to be very, very grateful to them…
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€20 every year was our donation. If you wrote a chèque you got an official receipt there and then too plus I knew most of them personally. Be careful because there are scammers out there who try to sell stuff they have no business doing.
My friend Marie-Paule had reason to be very, very grateful to them and gave €50 or €100 according to her finances of the year. Many of them turned out for her funeral which I thought was a nice mark of respect.
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One of my old local pompiers was given the job of taking the heart of OH to the local airport for a mercy flight to Lyon for a recipient. He only confided this to us a few years down the line and admitted he had cried when he saw the name on the paperwork as he knew OH extremely well.
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They would have a hard time in our village, we know the pompiers.
One always thinks of the donor, and donor family rather than the impact of people transporting the donor organs. So yes, in rural areas that could be rough - despite training to be objective.
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Sadly, that’s all too true…
already had scammers round in our area… “supposedly” selling calendars and/or collecting for a variety of good causes… 
The Gendarmes are hot on their trail… 
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Its not just calendars but other items. I used to get so called “handicappé” at the door selling teatowels, soap etc and with the crutch or stick tucked under an arm. My daughter followed one after a visit, you never saw a man move so quick and straight into a waiting car. Needless to say I never kept any money in the house so could not pay them anyway.
Yes, I never buy from or give anything to someone who calls at the door, with the one exception of the Pompiers, who I recognise. They haven’t been round yet this year, it’s about this time. If I don’t see them by the end of November, I’ll go to the station only 2Km away, next to the shop.
As we have very recently had fibre in the village, we have had several instances of people calling door to door trying to sign people up, which is a scam. We were warned by the maire that could happen as it had happened in surrounding communes, so they got short shrift here.
Last time we had one of those, he had his bank details ready!
When fibre arrived in our village Orange came door to door to sign people up quite legally and officially. With ID cards and a leaflet of explication .
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The same with us here, the village gossip network meant we knew roughly when he was due to visit 
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Orange have set up a mobile office to advise people here. However, they are being a bit disingenuous because they are suggesting that you need to go with Orange, when there are many providers who can supply fibre.
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That is how things should be done…
Sadly, the elderly have been targeted by tricksters, spinning a tale of needing to see where the Fibre will be used in the house… and all sorts of stuff… one chap goes with the Householder while the second person ransacks/grabs stuff…
Most recent around here was last year… and on the edge of our village a couple of residents who had stuff stolen…
In the village itself, we tend to peer more closely at any “little white vans” and folk wandering around… 