Goodwood FOS Marshaling

[PWells]

Hi. I was pointed in the direction of this forum, and it seems a good place to ask:

I was chatting today with someone who has been a marshal at the FOS a few times, and he said it was a good way to see the cars close up in action.
He did mention the downsides of long days, with few breaks, and there are the obvious safety implications.

I was interested in going to this years FOS, but I am now wondering whether it would be worth having a go at marshalling, rather than battling through the crowds.

He reckons that he would be able to get me a job there.

I haven't done anything like this before, and don't have any sort of training (apart from very basic first aid). Will I need to?

What type of thing would I end up doing?
Would I have to be there the whole weekend?
Do you get paid?

I will have a further chat with this person, but I would like other opinions aswell.
Any advice will be welcome.

Thanks, Peter.

[Nighthawk]

You good at standing around all day ?
You dont have to be there all weekend (it helps if you can)
Paid what's that..? No we are all volunteers We do this out of love of the sport.
And we enjoy a good weekend

[Stephen Green]

Hi Peter and a warm welcome to Ten-Tenths.

If you are interested in becoming a marshal then I can point you in the right direction. To begin, try looking at the British Motorsport Marshals Club (BMMC) website www.marshals.co.uk where you will find lots of information on getting started.

With regard to the Festival of Speed, the event is organised by the British Automobile Racing Club (BARC) and you would need to volunteer through them. It is worth pointing out that the FOS is a very high profile event and as such, as a trainee marshal you would probably not be accepted this year and so if that is your sole reason for becoming a marshal it would be a bit of a wasted effort.

In general marshals are volunteers and so there is no pay involved. Some clubs do offer incentives to help pay for club membership, and others may give their marshals a small donation to help with the cost of breakfast etc.

Generally our days are quite long, say 8.00am to 6.30/7.00pm with a break for lunch (drivers willing).

Take a look at the website and then if you need more information please send me a Private Message.

Good luck,

Stephen.

[Stephen Green]

I meant to add that training is given to all marshals, much of it done 'in situe' but there are organised training days which normally take place early in the year, before the national racing calendar begins.

You also asked what sort of thing would you be doing? Well that depends very much on you. The website will explain the various jobs that marshals do and so I would urge you to look through that first and then ask if you have further questions.

[PWells]

Thanks very much for the replies.
I don't think I would be able to take it up as a regular thing at the moment, I am still at Uni for half the year, and I don't have ttransport at the moment either, so getting to events might be difficult.

I will definately consider it for the future though.

[CookieMonster]

Don't let the fact that you are at Uni put you off doing marshalling, I've been a marshal for 2 year now, and both of those years have been while at Uni. You don't have to do marshalling regularly, you can choose to do it as little or as often as you want, it just means that it takes you longer to go through the grades if you can only make it once in a while (you need to get to a certain level to do the higher profile things like Grands Prix).
I can see where the lack of transport would be a problem, but again, been there. I've been lucky enough to have met a very generous marshal who gives me lifts to meetings, but there are ways of doing it by public transport. I have heard of one very dedicated marshal who travels to meetings by bus and bike! If you check out the marshalspost website http://www.marshalspost.com, there's info about the circuits, and on http://www.btccpages.com there's often advice on getting to circuits by public transport.
Hope you're able to join us!