Safety Matters

[wharfeego]

Thanks for reply AI. Clearly the FRA did not handle things in the best possible way last year, we all know that; we also know that some of our exec committee had to spend many unpaid and uncomfortable hours in public and legal settings which they never dreamed they were signing up for. You are not making it any easier for them by constantly bringing up every unguarded or unwise comment from six months ago.

I am not sure how a slight lack of respect, quite possibly in both directions, escalated into the insults and total communication breakdown you have reached now. On the one hand, committee members who are experts at safety in fell races, and on the other hand experts in Corporate Safety and writing Safety Documentation. Both sides had much to contribute to the safety discussion.

It often seems that you simply want heads to roll, because they made a few very public and shocking mistakes last year. Or you want the heads to just fall off by themselves, because you felt insulted. But this is not a business, they are not employees, and I have not in any case heard of any alternatives for the role of Chair (etc), just an offer of help with the safety rules which was somehow made in such a way as to alienate the committee even further.

The running of the FRA can indeed feel a bit like a closed shop, with a seeming lack of accountability both of individual committee members and of the committee as a whole. From what I know, committee members often appear to have a large degree of freedom in their roles rather than being held closely to account. But those who have tried to engage with feedback from the membership or the public have historically found that their every decision is challenged. If there were alternative candidates at the AGM, I can not say who I would vote for, but whatever might happen I am thankful to the current committee for their time and effort through such a challenging period.

Finally, the safety rules:
Many of your criticisms seem to be throwbacks to last summer/autumn. I do not see how you could still think the FRA's safety approach is bound by numerous and excessive rules. There are lots of guidelines and ideas, which an RO can incorporate into their individual race plan or not.

In the safety guidelines, I personally would include something along the lines of

which (first part) I already see as implied in the safety guidelines. This is a world ahead of the "Anni Waltz" approach of flatly denying there is a duty of care away from the start/finish. I wonder what a court would make of that.

Your main outstanding points are then the approach to race planning, and continuous review by a safety officer? As I indicated before, the FRA's system does not seem that dissimilar to me. Maybe some documents need tightening up and some emphasis on the procedural approach added. But the way you talk, it is as if everything should be torn to pieces and a new system written from scratch.

The best post I have read so far on the safety situation, thanks Lissajous.
For me there's far too much extra information (info on top of the already written new rules) being thrown about on this matter.
I feel that it's time to let things calm down and give the FRA Committee a chance, a committee that we should be thanking for all their recent extra work.
I have every confidence in the FRA Committee and am not impressed by some of the criticism that's been aimed at it.
For crissakes we're talking about FELL RUNNING here.