Mari L Clements wrote:
> It was a huge event, and Howard said that MANY (maybe half?) of the
> registrants were 1st time Pro Solo-ers. MANY competitors (new and
> experienced) blew off worker and drivers meetings, in some cases
> resulting in mistakes.
Funny you should mention that, I was just going to make one final comment
thanking everyone for what was (for me) a great event. This was my first
Pro, and everyone was very friendly and helpful. I did attend the
"refresher" meeting, and it was a great help. I even screwed up coming off
my first left side run, and didn't remember to immediately loop around. I
came back, within 15 seconds or so, quite apologetic, and the staging folks
were quite courteous, which I greatly appreciate. Overall, very low stress,
particularly considering some of the horror stories I have heard about "first
pros" from some of the locals.
> On Saturday and Sunday both,
> some workers weren't sure how to make the radios work (although they
> thought they did before they went out on course). New radios were run
> out to them, and they got a refresher course in how to use them, but it
> was a glitch. Undoubtedly.
I don't know about Sunday, but I can tell you I was on the corner where this
happened Saturday. I was the first relief worker to arrive, and understood
that I was just shagging cones, and not a corner captain. The corner captain
was due to leave, and when the next newbie showed up, also not expecting to
run the radio, it was dumped in his lap, leaving a grand total of two workers
on corner two. And we felt plenty bad about our mistake already, and were
very careful to instruct our relief on the use of the radio.
And no cones were missed because of it - we were able to hear what was going
on. I think that the people to be upset with are the ones who didn't show up
to work, and since the corner captain was the one missing, I'm led to believe
it was *not* a newbie... But I do apologize for any inconvenience I caused
by my inexperience, and can only say that I tried to do my best.
Steven
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