G'day All,
My local club has a problem and, as usual, I have come to the source of all things dirt bike in the hope someone might have a solution (or options).
As a club, we require (ask) riders to bring a flag marshal to race days. We need about 7 flaggies for the track and we run three rounds per day, rotating the flaggies each round (requiring 21 flaggies in total). Lately, we have been struggling to come up with the required number of flag marshals for the day and some have flagged twice so we can complete the races. We have even had people turn up and race two rounds then take off when their nominated flag marshal is asked to flag.
We are currently considering getting tougher on the requirement (i.e. no flag marshal, no race) or possibly charging riders extra if they don't supply a flag marshal, then paying some enterprising souls to flag for them.
The latter suggestion presents some problems in that many riders would be quite happy to pay the money but we may not be able to come up with the number of flag marshals this would require.
We are a small club and have about 70-80 riders turn up to a race day and you would think it would be easy to come up with 21 flag marshals but after you allow for the fact that most family's provide one flag marshal for 1-3 riders and sometimes riders have legitimate reasons for not bringing a flag marshal, then you take officials, starters, scorers, canteen staff etc. out of the equation, it's surprising how few volunteers you have left.
Does anyone out there suffer from the same problem?
Does anyone have any suggestions of ways to improve the situation? Maybe you've found something that works at your local club or track.
Any help would be appreciated.
My local club has a problem and, as usual, I have come to the source of all things dirt bike in the hope someone might have a solution (or options).
As a club, we require (ask) riders to bring a flag marshal to race days. We need about 7 flaggies for the track and we run three rounds per day, rotating the flaggies each round (requiring 21 flaggies in total). Lately, we have been struggling to come up with the required number of flag marshals for the day and some have flagged twice so we can complete the races. We have even had people turn up and race two rounds then take off when their nominated flag marshal is asked to flag.
We are currently considering getting tougher on the requirement (i.e. no flag marshal, no race) or possibly charging riders extra if they don't supply a flag marshal, then paying some enterprising souls to flag for them.
The latter suggestion presents some problems in that many riders would be quite happy to pay the money but we may not be able to come up with the number of flag marshals this would require.
We are a small club and have about 70-80 riders turn up to a race day and you would think it would be easy to come up with 21 flag marshals but after you allow for the fact that most family's provide one flag marshal for 1-3 riders and sometimes riders have legitimate reasons for not bringing a flag marshal, then you take officials, starters, scorers, canteen staff etc. out of the equation, it's surprising how few volunteers you have left.
Does anyone out there suffer from the same problem?
Does anyone have any suggestions of ways to improve the situation? Maybe you've found something that works at your local club or track.
Any help would be appreciated.