New safety rules

[Don't fear the sweeper]

The recent email from Nick Harris to race organisers in S Lakes and N Lancs inviting them to a briefing on the revised Safety requirements for 2014 contains an error. The attached letter from Madeleine Watson asks people to reply to [email protected]. This should be [email protected], i.e. 'org' not 'co'.

[IainR]

This couldn't be further from the truth in terms of the support the FRA provided to the RO for this year's inquest.

But the wording gives an impression contrary to the FRA's recent acts.

Aye, got to agree with that. I thought they acted well at the time, during and after. I cant see how they could have done much more.

[Lefty]

As I understand it, the issue is that the Rules, in their present form, leave ROs exposed to litigation.
ROs, having signed up to the Rules, would, effectively, have to defend that decision, if the Rules were found wanting.

Only a a minority of people's opinion.

[Stagger]

Ok these are my reasons for not entering our races in the calendar.
1. There is no way we can comply with the current rules..... It could be said that we haven't in all the time we've organised them.....
however I wonder what the case would be against the FRA when it can be proved that they encouraged RO's to enter races knowing that they didn't comply to the said rules
2. After seeing UKA's dealings at the inquest it would be difficult to believe they would ever be on our side if we had an incident.... Added to that that the chairman of the FRA thinks race organisers are fools and idiots.... It don't say a lot for how much support will be forth coming.
3. This made me really mad. When the committee comes out with the statement after putting the new draft rules on the web "I trust it will allow you to subtly bludgeon any recalcitrant RO's I into submission. By the 31st"
4. Again from a committee maybe " we'll be sad to lose your race but we have plenty of other ones" " but they're non compliant too" "few of them are"

Very concerning when a much respected RO has been left so disappointed as to write the above.
Feeling let down by lead bodies is not the way to encourage people to become RO.
We are looking for a RO at our club but after reading most of this thread I don't think it will be me this year.

All the best Wynn, hope it turns round and gets worked out to everyone's satisfaction.

[Witton Park]

Only a a minority of people's opinion.

How do you come to that assessment Lefty? I couldn't based off the evidence.
The people who post on here are very much a minority - just a vocal group who are prepared to put their opinions out there whichever standpoint they take.
Even from the posters though there is clearly concern and without doing a head count of views expressed, I would say that it's pretty even on the forum.

I've had informal advise from a practising injury claim lawyer of significant experience - the terms he used were

I'm afraid Richard that the ROs are technically speaking buggered If they fail to follow these guidelines and something goes wrong. The FRA have done their bit leaving the blame squarely with the RO

So whilst the FRA document is "woolly", failure to adhere to it will leave ROs wide open.

His assertion (as he is also an endurance runner and occasional fell runner) which is one shared by others in what you may call mainstream athletics is that Fell Running has got away with it for some times and the only real way for a RO and the FRA to deal with this is to move to risk assessment.

OK that's informal - but if I were to pay for such advise it would be the same, just framed in professional legal speak and probably with a few disclaimers thrown in :/

[ydt]

....

On a similar note, is the Vegan's Welsh 3000s ran under the WFRA? Because that goes over Crib Goch!

The WFRA did not insure this event.

[Sam Harrison]

The WFRA did not insure this event.

Didn't think so, do you know if they got insurance from elsewhere? Curious about other insurance options there actually are for events like this.

[noel]

I've also decided not to run the Cat and Fiddle down-and-up fell relay next year. This was a small local event, but it became apparent we probably couldn't take the same low-key approach we have in previous years and still be compliant with the regulations. Unlike for some of the other races discussed, the new regulations don't make it impossible for me to organise it in a compliant way. But I'd need to draft in a few extra people and put in some extra planning and preparation time. And it's not worth it for a race that gets about 40 people.

I may relaunch it in the future, but it would probably be a straightforward race, not a relay.

I'm sure there will be literally couples of people disappointed by this decision. I wouldn't have raised it on this thread. But I wanted to point out that as a race organiser, I am thinking about the new regulations and what they might mean were something to go wrong.

I'm putting all my efforts into my other race, which I'm more confident we can organise well enough.

[Sam Harrison]

I've also decided not to run the Cat and Fiddle down-and-up fell relay next year. This was a small local event, but it became apparent we probably couldn't take the same low-key approach we have in previous years and still be compliant with the regulations. Unlike for some of the other races discussed, the new regulations don't make it impossible for me to organise it in a compliant way. But I'd need to draft in a few extra people and put in some extra planning and preparation time. And it's not worth it for a race that gets about 40 people.

I may relaunch it in the future, but it would probably be a straightforward race, not a relay.

I'm sure there will be literally couples of people disappointed by this decision. I wouldn't have raised it on this thread. But I wanted to point out that as a race organiser, I am thinking about the new regulations and what they might mean were something to go wrong.

I'm putting all my efforts into my other race, which I'm more confident we can organise well enough.

Well, count me amongst the couples of people disappointing. I've never ran the race but any race that is cancelled because of these changes is a crying shame and shouldn't be allowed to happen. I don't think it would be over-dramatic to argue that this is the start of the demise of our great sport.

[Lefty]

How do you come to that assessment Lefty? I couldn't based off the evidence.
The people who post on here are very much a minority - just a vocal group who are prepared to put their opinions out there whichever standpoint they take.
Even from the posters though there is clearly concern and without doing a head count of views expressed, I would say that it's pretty even on the forum.

I've had informal advise from a practising injury claim lawyer of significant experience - the terms he used were

I'm afraid Richard that the ROs are technically speaking buggered If they fail to follow these guidelines and something goes wrong. The FRA have done their bit leaving the blame squarely with the RO

So whilst the FRA document is "woolly", failure to adhere to it will leave ROs wide open.

His assertion (as he is also an endurance runner and occasional fell runner) which is one shared by others in what you may call mainstream athletics is that Fell Running has got away with it for some times and the only real way for a RO and the FRA to deal with this is to move to risk assessment.

OK that's informal - but if I were to pay for such advise it would be the same, just framed in professional legal speak and probably with a few disclaimers thrown in :/

Exactly Richard the people who post here are in a tiny minority compared to the total membership and even here there are opposing views expressed. Over the past weeks and days I've spoken to many many fell race organisers some who have been organising fell races for donkeys years and that includes long A s etc. Whilst some have qualms about certain aspects of the rules, as have you, most feel that they can work with them, are happy to and have already registered their races and feel they will be able administer the rules when next their event comes around. It has been suggested somewhere on this thread that many race organisers will not have studied the full implications of accepting the new rules and don't know what they are getting into but this is certainly not the case in the people who I have spoken to. Most RO are pretty savvy and know what they are doing, some have taken their own legal advice. How many races are there in the calendar and how many ( regrettably ) are lost for the time being, so yes on that evidence the dissenting voices here on the forum are in a definite minority.