In the past few years this club has lost many dedicated members and experianced range crew helpers. I listed many at the meeting last night. It used to be easy to run launches with many of these people helping. They have moved on to other endeavours or hobbies like many people do. I need help from WOOSH members this year more than ever before. Not only do we have more members and more rocketeers coming to our launches but we also have an influx of Scout groups and other people who casually fly rockets at the park. The staff at Bong are actively coralling people and sending them to fly rockets with us. It's a safety thing, they know that we maintain control of the events and that we have fire fighting gear. They have also enacted new rules at the park requiring a five day notice for people who want to fly rockets there. That rule is not making these casual rocket flyers happy but they must learn to plan ahead as do all the groups who use Bong recreational area.

When we spoke about this situation at the meeting last night many alternatives were bantered about. We will do two things. (Which had better work)

#1
I am writing this post to inform the membership of the situation. We need help on the range. I need about 5 volunteers to come an hour early to help set up. ( Normally 9am.) I need at least 5 to stick around till the end and help tear it all down and pack it up. In between we need at least 3 people to run the range plus one in registration for the duration of the launch. We decided at the meeting that three 2 hr. shifts are best for these work shifts.

#2
We will be developing a "Golden ticket" to reward those who selflessly serve range duty shifts. You will be required to work two full two hour shifts to be given a GT. The GT gives you a bye from paying your launch fee the following launch event. The volunteer shifts will be recorded in a new book to be kept at the registration area. The book is to be kept by the volunteers themselves with as little impact on the registration volunteer as possible. This record keeping will need to be refined as we figure it out.

I will start a volunteer schedule on this forum which will be updated as you post your responses to it. You will always be able to check the results by simply viewing the first post in the thread. Please volunteer early and often.