Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuart H
The flip side of the coin people is:
How would you define a safe number of people on post?
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This is what I was getting at with my 50,000 -v- 30,000 marshalling days per season. My memory tells me that everyone used to be happy with an Observer plus Assistant/Trainee Observer per post, plus two flags and a "spare" or trainee flag at each post. For GP's there was almost always two observers and three/four flags per post, to allow relief time.
The most important aspect of all this was that this is how I got my training as a flag marshal and then Observer. How many times in the past ten years or so have we had the luxury of on-post training?
ES would similarly take a few trainees on post, for training purposes.
This was considered safe then, what is considered safe now? Is it one Observer, one flag - if you are lucky!!
The ES Team at Silverstone, at the height of its fame, would occasionally trim numbers, to save too many on post and, yes, the more popular meetings, like the GP, FF festival, etc would be "rationed". It was always disappointing for those not chosen, as it would be again, if we have to revert to rationing for these more popular meetings. (Important to note that in quite a few of the recent years, the GP only just got enough Observers and Flags!)
However, before we get to the stage of simply limiting numbers, could we not all work together to make sure a few trainee marshals could be allocated to the "over-manned" meetings, for some proper on-post training? All it would take would be a little better communication between all concerned.