4th + 5th July 09.

[Dave Brand]

Originally Posted by bluebeard

only 5? I've got provisional list of 35!

I haven't counted, but mine must be well over 30...I'm sure we'll find something to fill in the gaps!

[paul whitelock]

Goodwood for me

[mini1400]

Snetterton for me!

[Guinness2702]

Originally Posted by NICK ALLISON

Silverstone - World Series by Renault (GP circuit ?)

The BARC form had this down as 3 days, but IIRC, it was only 2 days last year - can anybody confirm which is the case this year?

[RIXGE]

So who is actually responsible for arranging the various meetings on this weekend, i know BARC was mentioned, but who sanctions these dates/meetings ? It would be interesting to have their views.

[Dave Weston]

Not sure, I guess the MSA must have some say?

[Steven Humphrey]

Originally Posted by Guinness2702

The BARC form had this down as 3 days, but IIRC, it was only 2 days last year - can anybody confirm which is the case this year?

BRDC availability form only has this as 2 days, as it was last year

[Fay]

Every year we have the same discussions.

The clubs are offered dates by the circuits and the clubs accept these dates.

I know that the MSA feel that they cannot get involved in stopping clubs running meetings on the same day as another club at a close circuit, as it would be a restriction of trade.

Clubs meet up to discuss other matters and I do find it difficult to understand why they cannot all meet up together and discuss the calendars and all agree on acceptable dates. However, I do not think this will ever happen and therefore we all have to work with the situation as it is.

Things had been improving slightly over the last couple of years with the numbers of marshals rising. However, I think with the current climate we will see a decline in the amount of marshals and the amount of days they are doing and possibly some meetings will be cancelled due to lack of marshals and indeed lack of entries.

I guess Alan and I will still be on about the 70 days mark, but as of yet we have not decided on all the meetings we will be doing.

[Woolley]

It really is shambolic, isn't it, all run on a wing and a prayer, which considering what is at risk is ridiculous.

The governing body won't govern (either meetings or categories), the clubs don't communicate properly and the circuits do their own thing, and all of them just assume we'll turn up in sufficient numbers that no-one dies as a result. Some clubs do go out of their way for us, which is great, and in return we tend to favour them, but that's of limited use when the two most favoured organise meetings 15 miles apart on the same day. It really does beggar belief.

I seem to be struggling to get together lists this year, only received a few forms, some of the places I go to aren't yet on Julian's site (either by club or venue), one club's online availability page says it will be appearing soon... I wish there was a list of meetings by circuit, with details of what's on (just because when we attend a rubbish/stupid timetable meeting later on that 'you knew when you volunteered' - mostly we didn't) so I can tick which ones I want to go to and tell them what duty I want to do. Which will be 'flag' or 'incident', not 'experienced'.

There, that's three rants in one. I hate this part of the season when you're sorting through terrible information trying to organise a year you'll enjoy. Thank goodness for Julian who's efforts provide the single greatest resource available at this time. [Which reminds me, must send the MAC list to him].

[Guinness2702]

Originally Posted by Woolley

I wish there was a list of meetings by circuit, with details of what's on (just because when we attend a rubbish/stupid timetable meeting later on that 'you knew when you volunteered' - mostly we didn't) so I can tick which ones I want to go to and tell them what duty I want to do. Which will be 'flag' or 'incident', not 'experienced'.

In theory, I could write a website/database which would do this sort of thing interactively - e.g. allow a search for events by date, by circuit, by club, etc, and allow clubs to see things like who/how many have volunteered and for what role, but I'd be reluctant to do so because A) there are already several different resources which do this to one degree or another, so it'd probably only add to the confusion, and B) it would rely on clubs entering information on dates and accepting volunteer requests this way.

Maybe if I get really bored some time I'll have a go as an experiment.

[HairyDJ]

I found Fay's spreadsheet from http://www.marshals.org.uk/events.htm invaluable last year - a bit of colour added to pick out non Sat / Sun, plus favoured clubs and circuits made it pretty easy to highlight clashes and chances to try out new clubs or circuits too. It must be a serious chore to type in 650 odd lines of data, so the least I can do is use it lots

[Col_Rugby]

Totally agree with you Dave. I used Fay's spreadsheet myself last year to plan quite a bit of the season. Unfortunately due to being moved to another contract at work I now have to work 2 1/2 weekends out of every 5 so I will be out less this year as I can't justify using too much annual leave to go marshaling.
The WSR was down as a 3 day meeting last year but at fairly short notice we got told that we weren't needed on the Friday as this was going to be a test day & covered by Silverstone track staff. So for us yes it was a 2 day meeting & as has been posted it's 2 days on the BRDCMC forms as well.
Hopefully the campsite for WSR will not be "invaded" by the cleaning staff who go to bed at 1am & get up at 4am & insist on letting everyone on the campsite know they're awake!!!!!!
I think Fay is right that there might be meeting in danger of being cancelled due to lack of marshals and/or entries. Money is getting tighter by the week for everyone.

Col

[Mike Kelly 1]

Originally Posted by C9/89

Still no sign of the rest of "our" dates but I do know why!

Please enlighten us!

[fazza]

Originally Posted by C9/89

Me too! Thats 5 dates sorted! Still no sign of the rest of "our" dates but I do know why!

come on spill the beans.........oh maybe a bad choise of words considering the state of your guts at the weekend...

[Stuart Hill]

Originally Posted by Woolley

I wish there was a list of meetings by circuit, with details of what's on

Julian's site (with major imput from Fay ) does cover this but leads to a more basic problem which is........

very few of the organising club's own web-sites actually state just what classes are racing, let alone some idea of time-table. Surely the whole idea of having a web site in the first place is to promote yourselves and let the general public (and us marshals) know just what to expect. With everything that's going-on at the moment (clashes,credit crunch,family responsibilities etc) surely the clubs should be filling their own web-sites with allsorts of content to attract punters and marshals alike?

For example and this is NOT a dig at any club/driver etc at all..... I wouldn't cross the road to watch Legends around Donington but I'd drive two hours to watch them at Mallory or Oulton. Radicals etc may well be very quick and impressive but give me 20+ minis or 2CV's at either of those venues and I'd be happy.
If I turn-up at silly-o'clock to sign-on somewhere to find out that the timetable is, shall we say for politeness..... optimistic, and there are some sessions with single digit entrants then the following is going to happen in my mind every time.....

The organising club will be blamed. no ifs, no buts, just them. It may well be unfair but I'm not bothered. If a club can't get enough entrants then it shouldn't run the class. Either way, I won't be back again.

So my availability this year has been sorted by;

Venue: (some are just better than others, no offense)
What's Competing: (don't want to watch/marshal dross)
Who else is going: (are my friends going to be there)
Distance: (never used to be a problem but now...........!!)

and finally........


to paraphrase another marshal on here..........

Will it feel like work???????? If so, then I won't go.

[Grandslammer]

Originally Posted by ChrisA

Personally, I will be at Silverstone for the WSR, which I believe IS on the GP circuit.

Personally,that may well be one meeting missing off my list,did it for the first time last year and really didn't enjoy the experience
.....so,unless the security is vastly improved,I'll be giving this one a miss

[Woolley]

Originally Posted by HairyDJ

I found Fay's spreadsheet from http://www.marshals.org.uk/events.htm invaluable last year

Me too. The trouble is - and it's not Fay's fault at all - there's a lot of stuff I might volunteer for that isn't on it.

What really surprises me (well, it doesn't really, but you get the picture) is that neither the circuits nor the MSA do this. It would seem to be such a simple and logical thing for them to do. Donington ES is probably the closest for what I want, but a) you can't use it for flags and b) it's for Donington which I'm afraid got crossed off my list a long time ago.

[Justin Moran]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly 1

Please enlighten us!

It has to do with a clash of dates in October.

Which the BRSCC are sorting.

[Dave Brand]

Originally Posted by Col_Rugby

Money is getting tighter by the week for everyone.

For some, yes, maybe a lot of people, possibly the majority, but not everyone!

When fuel prices were increasing rapidly a lot of people were saying they couldn't afford to do as many meetings...funny, nobody's now saying that with the big drop in fuel prices they can afford to do more meetings!

Maybe we only enjoy being miserable...

[Piglet]

It is odd that a number of the meetings Nick mentions are BARC meetings but for me that demonstrates that the organising club isn't always the organisation that makes the decision on dates.

Other than clubbies most other series have some other "driver" that sets the dates, in the case of F3/GT the dates are set by the SRO and link in to FIA GT dates as SRO run both. They are also tied to an availability of TV filming resources and TV schedules. FIA GT's also I imagine tie in to European and international schedules (Le Mans, Sebring etc.).

The Goodwood festival date (I would imagine) sits in a historic calendar which will have to cater for dates all around Europe to avoid clashes.

WSR - is European (does it go outside of Europe?) and will be set by the promoters to run a dates that suit them and their TV coverage.

BTCC is tied into TV time AFAIK and this brings it's own problems.

What I'm getting at is that it's easy to shout "they ought to know better" but that belies a lack of understanding about how dates are allocated by promoters, TV companies (filming), TV companies (broadcasters) and where they fit amonst other European and Worldwide series. UK orgnaising clubs don't want clashes, they aren't stupid and most of them have been in the game a long time - they know the problems that clashes bring but they often don't get many choices.

I can't imagine that BARC are able to go back to the WSR organisers and say "actually we don't want that date can we have another one" without risking the organisers finding someone else and perhaps somewhere else to organise it.

[Guinness2702]

Originally Posted by Dave Brand

funny, nobody's now saying that with the big drop in fuel prices they can afford to do more meetings!

Maybe we only enjoy being miserable...

Was gonna say something along those lines, actually, but the price increases didn't really reduce the number of events for me. - especially as I would have only spent the money on Taxis into town and beer if I wasn't marshaling.

And for those counting events, I've signed up for 50 days so far this year, including training, and assuming I am invited to do the GP. The only reason I did less than this last year is that I didn't start marshaling until the end of April

[JIMGOD]

Originally Posted by Guinness2702

Was gonna say something along those lines, actually, but the price increases didn't really reduce the number of events for me. - especially as I would have only spent the money on Taxis into town and beer if I wasn't marshaling.

And for those counting events, I've signed up for 50 days so far this year, including training, and assuming I am invited to do the GP. The only reason I did less than this last year is that I didn't start marshaling until the end of April

Be about due for another glove then mate

[Dave Brand]

Originally Posted by C9/89

Still no sign of the rest of "our" dates but I do know why!

The volunteering form is now out - just got mine!

[Mike Kelly 1]

Originally Posted by Dave Brand

The volunteering form is now out - just got mine!

As soon as I get mine I can sort out Toms and my days for the year. May be doing similar to last years 52 days (SWMBO dependant!). Tom did around 20 days as well but managed to get a higher percentage of incidents per meeting (including 3 fires, 3 rolled cars and 1 rolled truck)

Any way back to the thread. I'll either be at Angelsey or Brands.

[Guinness2702]

Originally Posted by JIMGOD

Be about due for another glove then mate

Nah, if you remember, you redeemed yourself by giving me a pair, in the correct meaning of the word (and no, that's not some in between the lines reference to Lucy Pinder)