Important thread on SS

Sofa King Wrote:
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> I worked a rally once.
>
> It's not an experience that I care to repeat.

dOOOOD, THAT'S ARFULLY FUCKIN VAGUE.

What did you do?
When and where.
What put you off?
What would whoever have to do to have you re-consider?
(Presuming of course that you EVENTUALLY can take time off from all the Ba-Boom ba-boom ba-boom you have been spending all your time doing---You CAN wear that poor piece of gristle out and the poor woman needs time for it to heal.)
>
>
> Kevin Hawkinson
> Seattle, WA
> 83 Volvo 240 Gp5 (in progress)
> 35-ish

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Sofa King Wrote:
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> I worked a rally once.
>
> It's not an experience that I care to repeat.
>
>
> Kevin Hawkinson
> Seattle, WA
> 83 Volvo 240 Gp5 (in progress)
> 35-ish


Hmmmph. The first rally I ever went to I signed up to work, without much of a clue of what I was getting into. I showed up and my assignment was to follow John Buffum and do what he tells you to do. Which was quite the adventure in my XR4 at Maine Winter.

I've also had some sketchy deals, where I was the only person at an ATC, and all the competitors showed up before the 0 car. It worked itself out (other workers arrived, a steward arrived, eventually the 0 car arrived, no worries), but there were a few minutes of panic.

I look at it this way, if nobody works, nobody rallies, so since I like the sport and can't afford to compete, and none of my close friends are running or need low-rent service crew, I guess I'll work.

---

Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

Back in the early 90's when the REDHOOK Ale Rally Rabbit (aka the JKALOPE) ran, and Robert really was "the Service Nazi", we took tons of swag (hats, t-shirts, pins, posters,etc.) from our sponsor to the events and handed some out before the event and had some awarded after the event to workers only. We often ran a windshield banner that said "THANK YOU WORKERS", we gave out pens to the control workers with our team name (Blackhole Racing) on them, we Thanked everyone we saw at the start, at every control and at the finish, when we were lucky enough to place and recieve that very nice hunk of wood we stood up front and Thanked every one again.

And BEER, don't forget we brought the BEER!

When we couldn't run an event we worked it. Cristy reminded me that we were FF workers for 4 YEARS before we built a rallycar! Workers today might become competitors in the future! She said we had a training day down in Olympia that had all the controls set up in a parking lot and a rallycar went around and round while we "practiced" doing the tasks for each control. They handed out a worker manual that had all the control set ups, number of people it took for each, what signage and placement, sample paperwork and a whole ton of other useful info. As we recall it was from the Olympus World Rally organizers. Someone needs to create something similar and be able to have them on hand for each control so they can train "on the fly" for walk-up volunteer workers.
Talking to ALL the car clubs wouldn't hurt, we were MG car club folks when we heard about working Olympus.

So to recap, networking, marketing, training, lots of swag, free food, lots of THANK YOUs and BEER!

Diamond Jim
Former Black Sheep Rally Marshall, Flying Finsh
Rally Lite Class 1500cc VW ( beat some 2ltr cars!!,Thx JVL!!)

---

Diamond Jim
Co-Driver in the Double Zero course opening car
Charter Member of O.U.C.H.
Organized Union of Cat Herders

that would be cool to do

but who would set it up, get the people there for it and make it happen?

which is what it seems it all kind of comes down to, how do we get volunteers to volunteer to gather and train new volunteers

After reading all this I would think the organizers whould be a little more focused on the problem.

---

Diamond Jim
Co-Driver in the Double Zero course opening car
Charter Member of O.U.C.H.
Organized Union of Cat Herders

Jim Breazeale Wrote:
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> After reading all this I would think the
> organizers whould be a little more focused on the
> problem.


I think the organizers are focused on the problem, I think for years they've been begging for help. I can't tell you how many times I've heard them ask for people to get more involved behind the scenes. Most of them are already so overwhelmed with the other aspects, they can only do so much and they already put out so much time already.

12xalt Wrote:
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> Racinkid13 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Im all for helping out now that Im back in
> touch.
> > I even have a "sweep capable" rig if needed.
> >
> > - Max -
> > 01 Taco
> > 84 Burb
> > 83 GTI
>
>
> Please sign up and help out. I think there's a
> group of sweep that's been together for a while,
> not sure if they need more, but if they don't,
> please consider working out on the stages.


here? http://rally-america.com/index.php

Racinkid13 Wrote:
>
> here?
>
>
>
> - Max -
> 01 Taco
> 84 Burb
> 83 GTI


here http://www.oregontrailrally.com/volunteers.html

they have a form to either print and mail/fax/email back to them, right now they don't have one to just fillout online and hit submit

12xalt Wrote:
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> Racinkid13 Wrote:
> >
> > here?
> >
> >
> >
> > - Max -
> > 01 Taco
> > 84 Burb
> > 83 GTI
>
>
> here
>
> they have a form to either print and
> mail/fax/email back to them, right now they don't
> have one to just fillout online and hit submit
>
>



does someone post a link on either sight to sign up in advance for the rallies?

do you mean here and special stage for Oregon Trail and Olympus (and others)?

I know there are usually threads talking about them, but no, I'm really not sure if an actual thread "Oregon Trail Rally, volunteer/spectate/etc" is posted, I know I do it at some of the other sites where I go. Although one of them is so big that it gets lost in the mix about 10 minutes after I post

I don't know much about the Northwest, other than running Oregon Trails 2004 and showing up at a stage start location only to find that no workers had showed up. Ok, so we transit this. Worker shortage? Something else? I don't know and no one ever elaborated.

I have worked as well as entered dozens of rallys in the East and worker shortages are the norm.

I will ditto Fiasco's comments about showing up to run a start or finish control only to find that you don't have enough people to do a good job (on a customer service level) or even safe job operating the control.

People generally want to be involved and help out. Most people like to be thanked, appreciated, blah, blah, blah. And, no one wants to be yelled at. Most of all, no one wants to be the one working in the Stage finish control car, when the drunk rednecks go screaming through in their F-350 with the snow plow on the front, opposite rally traffic, when the first 7 cars (the fast guys) have already started the stage, because we didn't have another person to man the road closure. !!!!!!!!!!!!! That's the sketchy stuff.


It takes a lot of workers and some common sense.

---

Ted Mendham
www.rensport.net

12xalt Wrote:
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> do you mean here and special stage for Oregon
> Trail and Olympus (and others)?
>
> I know there are usually threads talking about
> them, but no, I'm really not sure if an actual
> thread "Oregon Trail Rally,
> volunteer/spectate/etc" is posted, I know I do it
> at some of the other sites where I go. Although
> one of them is so big that it gets lost in the mix
> about 10 minutes after I post


i was just curious if links to registering were posted at some point. this and SS are the only sites im on. im on so many 4x4 sites i cant keep track of em all.

Racinkid13 Wrote:
>
> i was just curious if links to registering were
> posted at some point. this and SS are the only
> sites im on. im on so many 4x4 sites i cant keep
> track of em all.
>
> - Max -
> 01 Taco
> 84 Burb
> 83 GTI

I really don't think so. I know in the pacific northwest forum that there is a sticky with a list of all the events this year in the NW, but not a specific individual announcement thread. I will bring it up and maybe as each one comes up those can start happening.

If I type up an announcement alert for your other sites with links and requests for volunteers and letting them know about spectating, do you think your other boards would be interested, and then you could just copy/paste it there?

And, thank you for continuing to post and ask questions about it even though a bunch of us jumped all over you about when/why/how/etc.

12xalt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I really don't think so. I know in the pacific
> northwest forum that there is a sticky with a list
> of all the events this year in the NW, but not a
> specific individual announcement thread. I will
> bring it up and maybe as each one comes up those
> can start happening.
>
> If I type up an announcement alert for your other
> sites with links and requests for volunteers and
> letting them know about spectating, do you think
> your other boards would be interested, and then
> you could just copy/paste it there?
>
> And, thank you for continuing to post and ask
> questions about it even though a bunch of us
> jumped all over you about when/why/how/etc.
>
>



im pretty sure we can get some of them involved. i know of one that was a spectator at the Olympus.

right on