Lanark Highlands Forest Rally - call for workers

[robert_ve3vpl]

As chief control marshal for MCO's LHFR on May 5th, I recently sent out the initial recruitment e-mail to previous years' volunteers. I thought I'd repeat it here so that club members could also see it. It's too easy for our rally announcements to get buried in that Rally forum section.


This short message is just the first alert about the 2012 rally and to give you some basic info about this year's event. It will be held on May 5th and we will again be using Civitan Hall in the Village of Lanark as headquarters, the same location as last year (2011). The web site for the rally is: "www.lhfr.ca", which contains much of what you will need to know.

The competitive portion of the rally will again take place on Lavant Mill Road, but this year's rally will be longer as we will be doing more passes. This will affect stage marshals as it makes for a longer day and an earlier start. Details are not completely final but we expect to be holding the worker meeting about an hour earlier than in previous years, as the rally will begin an hour earlier. Finish time will not be significantly different than previous years (assuming no unexpected delays). One other change is that because of budget constraints, we will probably not be able to provide a box lunch for volunteers. All workers are of course invited to the after rally banquet and awards presentation, including door prizes for volunteers.

All rallies on the Ontario Performance Rally Championship (OPRC) calendar are reviewed by the regional governing body of the sport and competitors are required to submit their comments about events. From the very start, this event has met a very high standard of organization, born out by our healthy competitor entries. We've also been very lucky in attracting dedicated volunteers, without whom there would no sport. I sincerely hope that's because the rally has been a good day's fun for all of you, and we hope to see you back.

The worker registration on the web site is now ready and you can access it on the "Workers" menu and follow the link on that page.

Over the next couple of months, I will periodically send out updates about the rally, including information about the various marshalling jobs that are available.

If you know anyone who has never volunteered at a rally and is curious to know more, please feel free to pass along this information to them. To help newcomers, we produced two short videos about rally marshalling last year , which can be viewed at the links below:

http://vimeo.com/22478150

http://vimeo.com/22479119

Thanks for now, and I will be in touch in the coming weeks.

[robert_ve3vpl]

We are now less than 4 weeks away from the rally, and this is the second e-mail this year to let you know how things are progressing. The Supplementary Regs for the 2012 rally are now final. The preliminary plan called for an 8-stage rally, as I said in my first e-mail, but the final schedule for the event calls for 7 stages. So the planned working day will only be slightly longer than in previous years. We have not set the final time for the worker meeting on the day of the rally, but you should plan on arriving at HQ and registering to sign waivers, receive wrist band, and acquire your worker kit as early as possible on the Saturday morning. In future e-mails, I will be letting you know exact times for the opening of worker registration and the time of the worker meeting. There will be 2 or 3 more e-mails before the event, and you will receive your final assignments in those e-mails.

If there are any HAMs who are prepared to help during recce on Friday evening, please let me know. This consists of monitoring traffic on the stage road for a couple of hours while competitors drive the road to make pace notes. There will also be a recce pass on Saturday morning, and if anyone is available for that, please let me know.

Recruitment is going well, but we are still short of volunteers, both HAM operators and non-radio people. If you haven't signed on yet but were planning to, please do so as soon as it's convenient (to help with our planning) using the worker sign-up form on the web site. If you have difficulty with the form, please let me know as soon as possible, we need to know.

One of our volunteers, Blair Walker, has prepared a check list of useful preparatory items to have with you on the day of the rally, which is available on request, just ask me.

Because of the rally date, May 5, and our very variable so-called "temperate" climate in the Ottawa valley, we could be subject to anything from humid summer heat to Arctic snow. Complaining about weather is as Canadian as back bacon, so I won't drag it out here, but be prepared for anything. During the last week leading up to the rally, be sure to check the weather predictions, if only so you can have a good laugh when they're wrong.

FYI, Durham Radio has again provided a give-away prize for HAM operators working the LHFR, and there will be also be a prize draw for all volunteers for a kayak at the rally banquet donated by another event sponsor ClearWaterDesign.

Thanks again for helping. Compared to other sports, rally seems to require a high percentage of volunteers compared with competitors and as I've said many times before, without volunteers nobody gets to play.

[cjpye]

Volunteer registration is running behind previous years so we are looking for some new help, hence I bumped this to an announcement. If you are available please think about coming out to help!

Chris