Post by manuel6b on Jun 27, 2007 21:51:14 GMT 1
Saturday 23 June 07, I had my baptism into the world of marshalling at the Annahilt circuit. It did mean giving up a large proportion of my Saturday but I felt that volunteering my services to my club would give me a sense of 'giving something back' which, in fact, it did. I told myself, before I left, that we are small club but with a big heart and that we wanted to show the rest of the cycling world what we could do.
Headquarters was set up in Hillsborough and we were given a briefing of where we had to go and what we had to do. (I did leave that briefing with a certain sense of nervousness but excitement as well). Myself and two other (nameless) club members were issued with a position (a busy crossroads), a whistle, some signs and 2 (dubious) radios.
The race got underway at 1pm (sharp) and had reached our position by 1:15. There was some confusion by a small minority of the riders as to which way to go, but we felt that we did our job satisfactorily as had the lead car and the Dromara riders in the bunch. Besides, we got much better as the race progressed. [We all have to start somewhere!]
The race consisted of 7 laps of approximately 20 minutes. The weather held, for us, for 6 out of the 7 laps, and then the heavens opened. We did not despair, and maintained our watch for club and ercountry sport !! Once the riders passed for the last time, we were able to drive to the finish and watch the peleton arrive. Highly rewarding.
But the purpose of this story is about planning and comfort for the marshals. My club colleagues and I had started this conversation on Saturday during the 20 minute breaks we had (and before the rain came) so I wanted to share it with the rest of the club in a hope that any future marsalling that I or anyone else did would be made easier.
Therefore, to the list....
(These are only suggestions and I would welcome all other tips and experience.)
Essential items -
Water proof clothing (coat, trousers and shoes)
Luxuries
Umbrella &/or hat
Chairs (as I am an office worker I was not used to standing for quite so long),
Flask of coffee (and cups of course) to help maintain the concentration
Snacks (for the same reason)
Mobile phone (in case the only word you make out on your radio is "over" in which case you can call Trevor directly)
Stop watch (to time the length of each lap - and let you know when to expect the riders to appear again).
And if you have time, BBQ, table, table cloth, cutlery, wine, wine glasses, fan &/or heater, gazebo etc etc
As I said, feel free to add your own ideas.
NOTE TO ORGANISERS: For the next time, can we get something to fasten the signs to the support frames as ours kept blowing over (eg bungees, zip ties etc)?
As a final word, it was nice to see so many posts who thanked the 'sterling' work of the marshals. Icing on the cake ;D
Headquarters was set up in Hillsborough and we were given a briefing of where we had to go and what we had to do. (I did leave that briefing with a certain sense of nervousness but excitement as well). Myself and two other (nameless) club members were issued with a position (a busy crossroads), a whistle, some signs and 2 (dubious) radios.
The race got underway at 1pm (sharp) and had reached our position by 1:15. There was some confusion by a small minority of the riders as to which way to go, but we felt that we did our job satisfactorily as had the lead car and the Dromara riders in the bunch. Besides, we got much better as the race progressed. [We all have to start somewhere!]
The race consisted of 7 laps of approximately 20 minutes. The weather held, for us, for 6 out of the 7 laps, and then the heavens opened. We did not despair, and maintained our watch for club and er
But the purpose of this story is about planning and comfort for the marshals. My club colleagues and I had started this conversation on Saturday during the 20 minute breaks we had (and before the rain came) so I wanted to share it with the rest of the club in a hope that any future marsalling that I or anyone else did would be made easier.
Therefore, to the list....
(These are only suggestions and I would welcome all other tips and experience.)
Essential items -
Water proof clothing (coat, trousers and shoes)
Luxuries
Umbrella &/or hat
Chairs (as I am an office worker I was not used to standing for quite so long),
Flask of coffee (and cups of course) to help maintain the concentration
Snacks (for the same reason)
Mobile phone (in case the only word you make out on your radio is "over" in which case you can call Trevor directly)
Stop watch (to time the length of each lap - and let you know when to expect the riders to appear again).
And if you have time, BBQ, table, table cloth, cutlery, wine, wine glasses, fan &/or heater, gazebo etc etc
As I said, feel free to add your own ideas.
NOTE TO ORGANISERS: For the next time, can we get something to fasten the signs to the support frames as ours kept blowing over (eg bungees, zip ties etc)?
As a final word, it was nice to see so many posts who thanked the 'sterling' work of the marshals. Icing on the cake ;D
