BunnyRox
Volunteers need to be more volunteery with tents!!!!
If that means giving them 15 minutes training, make it so! 🤦♀️
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I've been using access camp since 2011 when we could park next to tents if we needed to. The first thing that happened after being directed to your pitch would be three volunteers surrounding your car ASKING if you need help pitching your tent. If you said no, the reply was always to call them if you changed your mind.
Volunteers became hit and miss over the years. Sometimes you'd have to call for help and sometimes they didn't have a clue, but they'd follow instructions.
This year, with the access guide saying no tent help was a massive curve ball.
On site, although I'd been promised assistance by the Access Manager because of a Jun 4th medical issue (noted in info hut) supervisors refused repeatedly. It broke my PA, 4'7" putting up an 8man tent alone. I had to help at times so it broke me going against medical advice on bending in a spine brace.
Then other campers were posting how volunteers put their tents up for them without even asking 🤦♀️🤷♀️
It seemed to depend on time of day, campsite location, if supervisors were near, if volunteers were new or experienced.
During take down Access Manager actually brought one person to take fuel the tent and after this job had started she can't back to say stop because she wasn't trained. We had to wait 90 minutes for someone to finish the job.
2025 this needs fine tuning!!!
If volunteers need training, give them training (the "trained" person told us it was 15 minutes!)
Most access campers bring larger tents for medical reasons and equipment storage. We don't also bring a team of able bodied tent builders. I bring ONE PA, for personal care needs, who can evacuate me in an emergency. That doesn't equate to single handedly building huge tents 🤦♀️🤣
No-one is asking for volunteers to pitch tents in their entirely (although some people had this done) we just need an extra body to help.
That's what they were originally there for. The only reason it changed this year was due to the rule change about not driving into campsite and they thought the volunteers would be too busy carrying stuff to help. Then they changed the rules about driving into camp but not fully changed rules about tent help.
Basically ...
Too many last minute rule changes adding to lots of confusion.