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10 Posts
Hi,
I’ve just returned from the Donegal Harvest, where yet again on an event there were stages lost or curtailed due to lack of marshals, I know Rally Ireland is next w/e, but it seems every rally I’ve been at this year (or decade) has been short of marshals, the situation is becoming critical as more and more seems to be expected from those that do show up.
We were on the stage for 13 hours from 6 a.m. to cover setting up, three runs and breaking down and the club gave us 15 Euros (I’m not getting at Donegal MC here btw it’s better than a woolly hat or nothing!) we were cold, wet, miserable and abused by the spectators and residents for just over 1 Euro an hour, you couldn’t get a wee lad to deliver papers for that! In addition by the time we paid accommodation / food / fuel we were more like 100 Euros down on the deal, and you wonder why no-one wants to marshal?
There have been loads of schemes over the years to encourage marshals or persuade or force competitors to do it and not much seems to have worked. So my question is, if through improved terms and conditions we recruited a large team of marshals well licenced and trained in safety and first aid would the club (or actually the competitors) meet their costs on events? We’re not talking about shelling out wads of cash to each marshal, if the club was canny they could strike a sponsorship deal with a local hotel there would only be maybe a 20 – 30 Euro increase in the entry fee. Would the competitors stick this to ensure that all the stages ran, and were manned by well trained individuals rather than a random speccy who’s entire training is ‘let them stand anywhere behind the tape’? We discussed it over dinner last and we reckoned, we could have had double our number of 15 with us, notably younger people, had all the expenses been covered.
We’re not re-inventing the wheel here, some of the deals to encourage marshals are nearly at this level now, is it co-incidence that those events have fewer shortages? The competitor already pays the costs for virtually every other official on the event, so why should we expect the marshal, who has one of the crappiest jobs to volunteer and pay for the privilege?
Let me know what you think
I’ve just returned from the Donegal Harvest, where yet again on an event there were stages lost or curtailed due to lack of marshals, I know Rally Ireland is next w/e, but it seems every rally I’ve been at this year (or decade) has been short of marshals, the situation is becoming critical as more and more seems to be expected from those that do show up.
We were on the stage for 13 hours from 6 a.m. to cover setting up, three runs and breaking down and the club gave us 15 Euros (I’m not getting at Donegal MC here btw it’s better than a woolly hat or nothing!) we were cold, wet, miserable and abused by the spectators and residents for just over 1 Euro an hour, you couldn’t get a wee lad to deliver papers for that! In addition by the time we paid accommodation / food / fuel we were more like 100 Euros down on the deal, and you wonder why no-one wants to marshal?
There have been loads of schemes over the years to encourage marshals or persuade or force competitors to do it and not much seems to have worked. So my question is, if through improved terms and conditions we recruited a large team of marshals well licenced and trained in safety and first aid would the club (or actually the competitors) meet their costs on events? We’re not talking about shelling out wads of cash to each marshal, if the club was canny they could strike a sponsorship deal with a local hotel there would only be maybe a 20 – 30 Euro increase in the entry fee. Would the competitors stick this to ensure that all the stages ran, and were manned by well trained individuals rather than a random speccy who’s entire training is ‘let them stand anywhere behind the tape’? We discussed it over dinner last and we reckoned, we could have had double our number of 15 with us, notably younger people, had all the expenses been covered.
We’re not re-inventing the wheel here, some of the deals to encourage marshals are nearly at this level now, is it co-incidence that those events have fewer shortages? The competitor already pays the costs for virtually every other official on the event, so why should we expect the marshal, who has one of the crappiest jobs to volunteer and pay for the privilege?
Let me know what you think