Safety courses compulsary from 2012 for some helpers

[Big Jon]

"Lets have full Welsh and Scottish devolution, and not a penny from the English supporting them."

The course I attended was led by an experienced orienteer who I respect enormously but the content added nothing to my knowledge.
Regarding hunts for lost competitors - how often have these happened in reality? In any situation which I was involved in I would have a quick check made then phone the police and pass the responsibility onto them.

[graeme]

Regarding hunts for lost competitors - how often have these happened in reality? In any situation which I was involved in...

Are you seriously telling us you've passed this "safety" course, and you know neither how often it has happened (i.e. what is the risk) nor what is the best practice response (i.e what is the mitigation)?
Cue some anecdotes from experienced people which will be just as helpful as you'll get at a formal course

[roadrunner]

Regarding hunts for lost competitors - how often have these happened in reality? In any situation which I was involved in I would have a quick check made then phone the police and pass the responsibility onto them.

It certainly happened at a colour-coded event I planned some years ago - some inexperienced juniors on the orange course wandered well off track (they even crossed a road although their course was entirely on one side of it) and despite being pointed in the right direction by other competitors they didn't find their way to the start or the finish by course closing time. A search was organised using helpers who were around and we found them fairly quickly and escorted them back - the main problem we had was that we had no means of telling the other searchers that they'd been found (either we didn't have mobiles or there was no coverage). As for calling the police, I wouldn't expect to do that until after a thorough search had been conducted.

[Paul Frost]

Maybe the course I attended worked well because it was given by a highly experienced orienteer whose opinions I respect?

I would have to agree with this (especially as it was my wife that delivered it), and after we had our EckO session I could not conceive how it could work as an online course. We had many good discussions stimulated by attendees experiences, and these would be lost if individuals were sat in front of a computer on their own with no interaction.

With regards the missing person subject, it's a pity that Jon didn't have the benefit of a mountain rescue leader in his group, as he would be more informed than "just phone the police". We discussed at what point you might phone them and what steps you could take to prevent a search being required in the first place and search methods. I've been lucky enough not to have a missing person at one of my events, but it also means I don't have any experience of what to do.

The big problem is that people have different measures of risk, and things that they don't consider a problem can be big problems for others. I was involved in a discussion about fence crossings (if they need protection or lowering), one planner said he never considers them in his planning as people just climb over them, whilst a shorter/older person commented on how many times they had been stuck/injured whilst trying to cross a barbed wire topped fence.
So listening to people that are not in your peer group might emphasise how much you don't know.

If the training course has a good mix of people who are prepared to listen and contribute it will be useful, but if people just sit there thinking they know it all, and don't participate, they won't get much from it and neither will the other members of the group.

I would recommend attending such a training session, not just because you have to but because you will learn things that will be useful to you.
I recently did my level one coaching certificate, and needed to attend at least a half day first aid course to complete it, but I decided to do a 2 day BASP course, as I thought it would be useful to know more than the minimum required.

We don't often sit and discuss things that went wrong, or could have been done better. At a recent controllers meeting we couldn't agree a method of analysing past events as people were worried that there might be criticism, and that would be bad.

[AlanB]

"Lets have full Welsh and Scottish devolution, and not a penny from the English supporting them."

[PG]

In any situation which I was involved in I would have a quick check made then phone the police and pass the responsibility onto them.

I do trust your tongue was very firmly in your cheek when you wrote this Jon.

I haven't done the course yet, but just in case anyone takes this seriously, let's look at a scenario.

Courses close at 15:00 and there is a missing junior who set off at 12:25 on the Orange Course. He doesn't seem to have come with his parents. He rented an Si-card and no-one answers the phone number on the entry form.

A "quick check" presumably might involve someone running round the orange course.

Everybody who is saying this course is a waste of time presumably knows exactly what they are going to do next. How many of you would make the next step to call the police?

[Paul Frost]

Cue some anecdotes from experienced people which will be just as helpful as you'll get at a formal course

The formal course provided a forum for people to share those anecdotes and discuss, and have someone on hand to ensure that incorrect information isn't passed on from those anecdotes, so isn't that useful ?

[graeme]

Simple: Jon's done the course, Jon's qualified to roll it out to others, Jon's a highly respected orienteer, Jon says call the police. Anyone who'd do anything else selfevidently thinks the course is a waste of time
(If nobody has reported the person missing, and assuming there's no additional clue like a discarded bicycle, I wouldn't call the police until I'd checked units. - maybe one of you trained people call tell us if anyone ever called the police to look for a lost orienteer, and if so what the police reaction was.)

isn't that useful

Of course it's useful. Lots of things are useful: the issue is whether it is essential.

[Clive Coles]

Another change has been slipped in ~ I have just looked at my qualifications on the members bit of the BOF web site. I see I am now a

Organiser Grade C From ~ 01/01/2011 to ~ 01/01/2014

i wasn't last time I looked.

Looks as if folk who have officiated before are being given grandfather rights to cover the next 3 years.

So it seems experience may exempt some of us from attending the course in the immediate future. No doubt in the fullness of time we will find out what is happening.

[martin]

Several years ago there was an event on the moorland by the M62. My son (M10) and my daughter (W8) set out separately on the yellow course. She arrived back in under an hour, but no sign of him. After a while I walked backwards around the course. Still no sign. Several searchers set out to find him. I found him about a mile away in an unused (for this event) section of the map. He had turned left rather than right at a wall junction. He had worked out where he was (the motorway was a big clue), but did not have the skills to find the finish. We arrived back (nearly 4 hours after starting) to find the police had been called. They had already searched along the motorway verge, and were happy to see that all was well. They did not seem to resent being called out in any way. Better safe than sorry.

[Sunlit Forres]

I've worked in RAF Search & Rescue co-ordination for 4 years and I can promise you that you will never, ever, be criticised for informing the police early, especially where children are concerned. There are many factors to consider in search planning, and one of them is the time last seen - the longer you leave it the bigger the potential search area becomes. A child might wander off for a long way before even realising they're lost, and as Martin says, probably won't know how to get back to the finish.

Having the luxury of briefing and commencing a search in daylight in something that SAR professionals will thank you for. Most calls for overdue walkers etc come in the evening, and ground searches in the dark can be very challenging. While airborne night searches can be very effective using infra-red cameras, night vision goggles etc, this is can be very weather dependent. Cloudbase, ambient light levels and precipitation all important factors, so knowing what the weather is likely to do in the near term is something that organisers need to have considered.

My advice to anyone seriously concerned about an overdue competitor is to get on the phone without delay.

[frog]

One handy thing I learned from a talk on SI Robin did for us last week was that SI units store a list of all dibbers that have used them, which means if the course uses SI (and I think it's more likely someone would get lost at an event using SI as they cover larger areas than local events) then if you collect the SI units for that course and read them on a computer you know which control they last visited.
Collecting in all the units takes time but could be done whilst some people are searching the general course area.

[Big Jon]

"With regards the missing person subject, it's a pity that Jon didn't have the benefit of a mountain rescue leader in his group, as he would be more informed than "just phone the police". We discussed at what point you might phone them and what steps you could take to prevent a search being required in the first place and search methods. I've been lucky enough not to have a missing person at one of my events, but it also means I don't have any experience of what to do."

I have looked seriously into rescue plans - for the Deeside Night Cup - and quickly came to the conclusion that if anything serious happened the only sensible approach was to call the police (and let them call out the mountain rescue). Reasons - 1 - competitors after a night event (DNC anyway) are tired. Reason 2 -their head torch batteries are low. Reason 3 - the night is likely to be cold. Reason 4 - the forest is probably extensive. Reason 5 -the planner/organiser is one individual, they cannot go out to the forest as they are coordinating the event.
Therefore the only answer, if we want to avoid more lost & exhausted orienteers in the forest, is to call 999 and get police involvement.
Incidentally this also passes most of the responsibility over to them so the organiser does not need to stress about having to do everything.
The fact is we have had approx 180 night events in the Deeside Night Cup and have not had a major scare in any of them so lets keep the time involved in planning massive theoretical searches to a sensible level!

[Mrs H]

I think I've got a problem! I've already agreed to organise the inaugural Malvern Urban Race on March 10th 2012. This is the day before the nearby Midlands Champs and i have let the nope cartel know about it in the hope it will be part of the league.

I have organised a lot of level D events as well as Co-ordinated SinS and a JK camp site and event centre etc. I have no formal qualifications as an organiser and don't really want to go down that path as it seems to me once your name is on "the list" you get routinely buttonholed for every event going - most of which simply wouldn't interest me.

What should I do? Pull out now, try and get a qualified origaniser to put their name to it and do the work myself, make sure the event is registered at level D? I don't suppose I'm the only person who feels like this but I've checked when the next safety course is round here and it's a long way away and clashes with something else I'd rather do

[Big Jon]

Mrs H - I don't think there is any issue here, the position of organiser is not yet one that has compulsory courses to qualify for it. So go ahead, organise and enjoy the day (as much as possible).