Royal Victoria Marathon 2007 – Coordinator’s Report

For the ROYAL VICTORIA MARATHON – 2007, 19 WARA members and 16 non-members volunteered. "Thanks to all of you". Also, big thanks to Oak Bay EOC, Langford EOC, PEMO EOC and Saanich EOC for providing their Communications Vans.

Getting Volunteers for the Marathon was challenging but by the Friday before the event, we had filled the slots. There was some movement of radio operators between the checkpoints to cover them all as required.

One of the highest priority tasks that we do is the transportation of tired, sick and injured runners back to the race finish line, where ambulance and first air posts are established. We found we needed another transport vehicle as when the weather turned nasty, we could not handle the load with the two vans in a timely manner. Next year we will plan for three. Thanks Frank Andersen for filling in with your private vehicle.

Patty-anne handled the traffic between the pick-up vans and the first aid people, and coordinated porters to take casualties to the medical tent. We pressed anyone near as porters; we will look into a group to do this next year.

For me (Patty-anne) the day began at an hour that the world should be sleeping. Four o’clock comes early with the shrilling of the alarm clock. Jumping up and taking care of essentials, it was down the road to Saanich EOC with VE7SDJ to pre-trip the Saanich EOC Van. And then off to the site of the Marathon. Parking was tight, but we squeezed in and set up for business. Lucky for us, we were right beside the Volunteer refreshment tent. So the essentials of the day, mainly coffee, doungnuts, muffins and pizza, were close at hand.

All the HAM operators checked in while we were setting up, a few picking up the gear and papers they needed. Most had all the information they needed from the well attended briefing Friday night at the Saanich EOC and by the miracle of e-mail.

We were very fortunate to have Alan Mallett on the main radio this year. He had done a lot of work preparing the Km marks with the check points, so this was better for Alex Clark to communicate to the stage announcer. John Walls was kept busy with the technical problems, cell phone coordination with race officials and police and filling in on all three frequencies when needed.

In all, we handled over 350 calls, so the Comms Van was a very busy place. We still have some intermod problems to work out, but the tactical call signs worked well, and we gave radio checks and callsign identification at 30 minute intervals. We will be making some suggestions for next year to make it even better and smoother. This is a learning curve and is getting bigger every year.

We are missing A LOT of the blue vests. Please check and see if you have them at home and if so, please turn into either the club or Muir’s. For our volunteers, we all had the right size shirts this year, so that was a bonus.

Please remember that the Times Colonist 10 K is coming up in the Spring and they too give WARA  a worthy donation. SEND ME YOUR VOLUNTEER E-MAIL NOW!!! I would like to just address here that being a member of a club has responsibilities. It seems the same people turn out for every event and work party. Volunteers often get a t-shirt, and some food at these events. Is there any other way to reward these individuals?

The Ride for the Disabled was manned by a split of WARA and non-WARA members, 7 of which came from Saanich EOC. We appreciate all our volunteers, but where was WARA? We receive a generous donation from both the 10K and Marathon, so shouldn’t we work for it?

Report respectfully submitted by patty-anne Lea VA7PTY.

Thanks again to our volunteers: