Serious question

[EvilPumpkin]

Stevie that's easier said than done if you're being singled out for attention.

No-one wants to spend their valuable free time being made to feel bad.

I've always been an advocate of standing up to bullies and I do - but the stress factor is high and you always come to a point where you have to say "is this worth it?"

If the answer is no, then you need to walk away.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally posted by pitpopsie
Hi EP sorry I didnt get back to you earlier! x
I have stopped marshalling completely, shame really as I enjoyed it, it was a job as well as a hobbie, my reason for leaving was due to a very pathetic group of men who obviously didnt like the fact a woman could do the job as well/better than them! I am not usually one to quit due to others but it went on over 3 years and enough was enough. x

Firstly I should say that for whatever reason, it's a shame you've given up.

Secondly, I dislike a number of the people whom I race against (is that "against whom I race?") but I don't stop racing. Then I find that marshall's can bring personalities into their hobby. As an innocent(?) driver, I hope you can sort this out because we all need marshals. B'sides you sound like a reasonable person, (unless you're that woman at Cadwell who keeps shouting at me on the grid).

[wickedwitch]

I'm in the same club as EP, we are friends and I feel that we are both suffering (in different ways) from the uncomfortable atmosphere in our club .

The politics really get to me & the feeling that everyone is trying to prove themselves to be the best marshal there (usually by putting other marshals down) irritates me. Everything get's criticised unjustly (and usually incorrectly) and I just don't want to have to defend myself anymore to people who don't know what they're talking about for doing something that I know to be right.
It just ain't fun no more.

Most of the marshals posts have been re-arranged so that the flaggers are alone and away from the incident marshals, so it just ain't sociable no more either.

All this political stuff has started to seep outside of the club so that drivers, circuit management, organisers etc have jumped on the bandwagon of criticising the marshals club too. I'm sick of defending myself and the other marshals. Sometimes it's impossible to defend the marshals club because so much is indefensible and maybe those criticising the club are correct in their judgement, so I put down my head and say nothing.

I used to be proud to be a marshal. My proudest moments were:
- getting my first grade,
- the first time I was ever thanked by a driver,
- the first time I was given responsiblity on a post,
- being voted marshal of the year,
- the first time I heard a new marshal, who I introduced to marshalling, telling me that they had a great day and couldn't wait to marshal again.

These are the things that made me happiest in marshalling and now it's all turned to dross. Now I often feel like apologising to those people who I introduced to marshalling for involving them in such a horrible, politicaly charged atmosphere - in fact I did apologise to one last Sunday and that apology was both heartfelt and necessary.

I hope that someday I can be enthusiastic about marshalling for my current club again, and that I can again enjoy marshalling but until then I don't know if I can be bothered to attend any event. At this stage I feel miserable, under-fire and quite like distancing myself completely.

IMO Politics kills marshalling.

**sorry for the lenght of this post.

[EvilPumpkin]

Well at the risk of sounding sick making, this needs to be said.

WW for me you will always be marshal of the year. You're always kind and helpful and willing to answer questions and you go out of your way to take care of new marshals.

Most of what I know about flagging, I learned from you and despite everything that's happened I have never once regretted making that phone call back on a rainy January night when I wanted to know when the Introductory training was. You don't need to apologise to anyone. If anything, you're owed an apology.

[DavidBritainUK]

Save politics for the workplace.

When someone tries to get on your back, try to think of them "potty training with a dummy in their mouth". It always makes me smile!

[EvilPumpkin]

LOL

[DavidBritainUK]

Bit like the briefings I give on post...........when I remember......oops

[EvilPumpkin]

ah yes - post briefings. How fondly I remember those.

"Don't get dead"

I always enjoy it when they bring this up at training and get guys to give their IO's briefing - because I've been out on post with most of the guys they choose and they NEVER do it!

[jase]

The best briefing i've ever received was:
"You know what you are doing, There's nothing new to tell you, so stay safe and enjoy yourselves"

[DavidBritainUK]

Originally posted by EvilPumpkin


"Don't get dead"

Emmmm........might try that. Seems easy to remember.

[EvilPumpkin]

Although sometimes they can be scary. My very first bike meet, I asked my IO about a briefing and she thought about it for a second and then said "the last time I gave a briefing, we had a fatality...."

EEP!

[rick vaux]

Very good opinions have been given as to the state of Marshalling these days.
I suppose we can look upon each club as a school.
Within the school, we have a structuring.
We have infants,primary,senior and lets call the next one up the ladder elders.

We then have the leaders.
The staff who dish out the rules and, the punishments.
Then we have the bosses.

The starting point for all marshals is the trainee or infant.
They are usually given the lesser tasks of the day sweeping picking up the bottles etc by the I/O or elders.
Depending on the comunicative skills of the elder,this can encourage or deter the infant from enjoying the day and wanting to come back, or fee ling insignificant with fellow infants primary or senior peers.

After year one of infancy, and you still have the will to marshal, plus ,lets not forget the signatures you received from the teachers or x teachers, so long as you were lucky enough to be entrusted with the task of helping out during an incident by the elders, you then move up the school ladder and become a course marshal or primary.

At this point in your carreer path you will have undoubtedly had the pleasure of marshalling with many other infants and primary pupils, but as yet not come up against many of the elders.
You will have formed opinions regarding the sexual direction of others and to the amount of skill and knowledge required to complete the duties you have been given by your elder.
Also don`t forget that opinions will have also been formed towards you,your teachers will have written in their minds various reports as to your capabilities.

As we move up the ladder to course we may be then tempted to visit other schools for meetings.We then experience new class mates and teachers. The playground is totally different to what you are used to, the sand pits are different for example.More opinions are formed, you may like the new school so much that you want to go there more and more.

After another year of getting wise to the school life, another ten crosses in the register up you move again to incident or senior.
AAAhhhhaa, you are looked upon by fellow seniors and lesser pupils as an old hand now, capable of twirling a flag if need be, knowing how to handle incidents in the playground.

Also upon morning registration with the bosses, you may if thought highly enough of, be given a good spot in the playgound.

We have`nt mentioned the elders for a while.
Well they have reached the point in their schooling where they can either choose to go on to higher education and enroll with the headmasters or stay as they are.

On a more serious note though, i have found that there are clicks at various circuits. I choose to either avoid these groups, or if i have to entertain them, i try and be myself and not get draged along.
I try and let my work do the talking .
If you have had the misfortune of problems arising from others, don`t let them get to you for what ever reason, have the pleasure of thinking they are the loosers the ones that have to be seen in their little groups to gain recognition, we all have come across them from time to time, the Mr Popular.....
Let them get on with it.

You are the person that counts at the end of the day...
Remember that...

[EvilPumpkin]

Good analagy Rick - although if we work on that basis:

What happens when you put the infants in charge of the playground with no supervision and let them run amok?

[rick vaux]

This in theory, should never happen, unless its after school and all the teachers have gone home.
Then its a matter for the MSA to deal with.

Have you experienced this at your playground then ?

[EvilPumpkin]

Damn. Left it too late to edit that one. I did say I didn't want to get into the specifics of my own problem and I have berated others for making snide posts on other websites and now I find myself doing the same thing. It is a measure of my frustration with my own circumstances that I'm posting now without thinking. But that doesn't mean it's ok.

Whatever my own issues are, there are proper ways to express them and I don't think it's right for me to do it here.

Stephen/Marshal, when you get a chance if you can delete that post I would appreciate it. I shouldn't have made it as it draws away from the point of this thread which is supposed to be generalised and this isn't an appropriate forum for me to slag off any marshals' club or their members, regardless of who they are.

Apologies all.

[flaggie1]

Well EP have you ever thought of taking control and creating your own club? Get all your fellow flaggies/firies or whatever you do trackside and doing the thing we love without the hassles?

[EvilPumpkin]

LOL - we have a saying here "start my own (insert club here) with blackjack and hookers"

I really wouldn't consider that to be an option for any club these days based on the information I've been seeing. Certainly not in Ireland or the UK, bearing in mind that it is becoming increasingly hard to recruit and retain marshals for any club.

Starting a new club doesn't address the underlying issues unless you have a very, very clear definition of the problem and agreement from both parties that a separation is workable and will resolve the problem.

I'm not convinced that it would change anything. I believe you'd just end up with 2 smaller clubs, each treating the other with disrespect, and just lose more marshals who can't be bothered dealing with it.

I know from your posts that it worked for you guys - but that was some time ago and from what you've said it appears that there was a very clear dividing line between one club's duties and the other's - so I could see how that could work.

In the majority of cases, I would think that it's not that simple or easy to resolve though

[flaggie1]

Well EP if it is not possible how about changing the club from the inside. Tell me a bit on how the club works and i might be able to offer some suggestions. You can change the commitee (if it's run that way), Make an effort to give the right impression to new members to want them to stay. By the sounds of what you have posted here there is a underlying problem with the culture that the club has at the moment. But it is very hard to change cultures. So create your own. People will follow if they think it is going to be pleasurable. I'm not picking on anyone in particular, but it seems that some people just can't be pleased. We all want to enjoy our days and if it can't be acheived then people will walk away and won't come back. Has this happened to Pitpopsie. Also maybe it's the clubs that run the meets.

[EvilPumpkin]

flaggie all very good points and many thanks for the offer of assistance.

I'm really not prepared to go into more detail on this board, but if you have no objections I can pm you with the details of what's been going on. I would definitely appreciated some objective input on this.

In fairness, the Clubs that run the meets, in general, are ok. There are 1 or 2 people where you kind of go "oh no not them" but hey - that's life! Again, there is a tie in to the rest of the situation which I really can't go into here.

[flaggie1]

EP please feel free to PM me and i'll see if i can help. We have a meet on the weekend and i'd like to ask your original question and see what is said. It might make some interesting reading from your end.

[EvilPumpkin]

Hi flaggie - pm sent - thanks on both counts

[Marshal]

Blimey there's a lot of good stuff here.

I love my marshalling, and cannot envisage anything that would make me give it up. I work with a regular "crew" at one circuit, who are outsanding, and everywhere else I fit in as and where I'm needed, not doing more than 8-10 days at any one circuit. Turn up, marshal, leave, easy way to avoid politics. I truely saddens me that people are leaving marshalling because of other marshals and officials. I hope you manage to find a way back to the naive pleasure I still enjoy.

Take care all


PS EP - have deleted the post as requested

[rick vaux]

Thanks WW,
Woman are usually good at making us men look like Twa*s, try that line of comunication next time you have a problem.

[Stuart Hill]

Nothing could make me stop at the moment. Far too many good days that outweigh the bad ones. That being said, a group of us did take action a few years ago and it seemed to work.

Without going into details, we were annoyed that a certain Hillclimb would not run it's meeting the same way that others did and in accordance with the training we received from the BMMC/MSA. What could we do??? We voted with our feet as we felt our safety was compromised. But the real impact came when about a dozen of us turned-up at the first meeting only to be seen the otherside of the fence as spectators!!! The club were short of marshals and there was about 3 posts worth of very experienced marshals standing a few feet away grinning!! To cut a long story short, within twelve months the system of operation was modified somewhat, (not perfect yet, but getting there), and the result is that we have all returned to a hill we love marshalling but feel safe now.

Whilst I know this approach wouldn't work at all venues it does show that we marshals do have the power to effect change.

But to finish, if any of you circuit marshals ever fancy recharging your batteries by being appreciated by organizing clubs and by drivers, come to a hillclimb meeting. It may not be your prefered discipline but talk about respect!!! You never know till you try.

If you want a feel for it, check out http://www.top12runoff.co.uk

[Bodysnatcher]

Originally posted by Marshal
....I work with a regular "crew" at one circuit, who are outsanding, and everywhere else I fit in....

and how easily do new crew fit into this cozy picture?

I remember a few days where a regular crew were less than welcoming to an outsider.....