Da Groj

I like the point that Jeremy brought up in the post event thread about the course workers being in a bad position or wrong position to shag cones. This just popped in my head. What if, for worker assignments we just listed as course worker, not which station until at the event. Before everyone goes to their stations for each run group, the safety steward would have a mini course worker meeting to make sure we had vets and noobs paired together and quickly assign their stations, along with any other quick safety reminders. Now this would take some extra time, but, what if we had a kind volunteer with a truck that could then drop off the station workers (and pick them up?) to their appropriate stations, this would gain this time back and we'd have everyone out there at the same time and ready to go.

It seems that most of our cone chasers are newer members, as us more experienced folk, pick out the positions we'd rather be doing early. This could possibly help speed up an event over all, not to mention make it safer for everyone. Thoughts, or am I over complicating the situation?

Not a bad idea. Would make missing workers a little easier to identify and find replacements for or rearrange people as-needed.

It could cost us maybe 5-10 minutes per run group, but having a vehicle drive the workers to the far end would recoup some of that time.

We should look at the "course worker" info page on the website and see if there's anything that should be added to it. (does anybody ever read that stuff?)

shakedown067 wrote:It seems that most of our cone chasers are newer members, as us more experienced folk, pick out the positions we'd rather be doing early.

Actually, half or less of the cone chasers are newer members -- except in some very rare cases, we've made it habit not to man any worker station with just novices. Frankly, that's one of the reasons for pre-assigning positions...to make sure there's (theoretically) someone who knows what they're doing on each station.

I think the suggestion isn't that we quit looking at where the novices (and especially first-timers) are during the work/run group configuration, just that it doesn't need to go all the way to "position level". As long as there's a fairly even split of novices in each group (less than 30% or so per group, if possible), we can do our little safety briefing, and pair up each novice that is present with an experienced partner right there and then. We used to do it that way.

The only problem with the way it's done now is that if the experienced guy who is assigned to work with the first-timer bails out or is a no-show or whatever, we can potentially end up with a pair of inexperienced workers at a station. That, and we're not taking the time to give them that last-minute safety briefing, which I see as having some value.

My point was that there is a person on each station who ought to know enough to make adjustments...if they're using their head. If more positive control is what it takes to make up for that not happening, so be it. Just so long as it doesn't create more work assignments to fill.

Nah, this is something that should fall to the existing Safety/Course Marshal or the Event Chairman. Not a new duty at all.