[Lifesaving] St Andrews competition 2013
Time for another lifesaving competition report. Except this time it's a little different - there's not road trip to talk about, because for once we didn't have to travel anywhere! The rest of the BULSCA clubs came to us, for the first ever St Andrews league competition.
Now, this wasn't our first competition ever. Three years ago my friend Chris ran a competition and invited Scottish RLSS clubs. It was a small event, but fairly successful. Then last year I resurrected the idea of hosting a competition, and organised a slightly larger one. I didn't try for a league competition, as I wanted to check whether we could deal with the logistics, but invited the BULSCA clubs up anyway and was pleased when we actually got a really good turnout.
But this year the club's Competitions Officer and Captain went the whole hog, and applied for a league competition. They were awarded it, and managed (despite some grumbling from a few clubs) to get a reasonable turnout. There was some last minute drama surrounding the organisation, and the extra, spinal SERC that the Captain had planned had to be dropped, but in the end it all went very smoothly. I wish Nottingham, who were staying with me, had turned up before 3:30am though. Now I know how the other clubs feel when we turn up in the wee hours of the morning!
Now, two of the club's regular competitors were involved in organising the competition, and another was still out of action with a shoulder injury. I was therefore given no option - I had to compete. However I managed to wrangle myself into captaincy of the B-team; the idea was that the A-team would be people that had competed before, and that we could encourage some of the newer people to compete by assuring them that they'd have a very experienced person in charge. It worked, and I had a team of three rookies, all freshers to the club this year.
We were about half way through the SERC draw, which was good in this instance. There were only 11 teams, so it wasn't a long wait, and it gave me a chance to go over some things in isolation. But it also meant that we could watch some of the other teams, including our own A-team, go through the set SERC so that the freshers could see some different approaches.
The dry SERC was set at a campsite, and took place in a very small classroom. There was one tent set up, and another collapsed next to it. There was also a 'fire' in the middle of the room. Next to the fire was someone with severe burns, an unconscious child, and his panicking father. Inside the standing tent was someone asleep (although I think they had taken some drugs), and under the collapsed tent was another child manikin. Behind the tent was the final casualty, who was having a heart attack. We didn't find him until near the end of the 2 minutes unfortunately, but we dealt with everything else as best we could. It felt like it went fairly well, although the whistle went just as I was telling one of my team what to tell the ambulance on the phone. Afterwards one of the judges said it was like 'the Dave Brown show'!
The wet SERC was an interesting one. We entered to see lots of people in the water, and a person lying on the side. There was a pair of locked swimmers, a non-swimmer, and someone holding an aid at the far end of the pool, and a weak swimmer and asthmatic near our end. On the side were a ball in a bag, and another aid. This is were the team's lack of experience really showed, as although we did end the incident with everyone at the side it took a while to rescue everyone, and one of the team took the aid from the person holding onto it, who promptly turned into a non-swimmer! He didn't even need it, as the non-swimmer he was taking it to had gone unconscious! I got the inhaler from a bag on the side, and even managed to find a radio and call for help. But when the janitor came in to ask what was going on he couldn't write as fast as I could tell him about the casualties, and the incident once again ended before I could properly send for help.
The speed events went ok. In the rope throw we got two people in to the side, and in the medley we were close behind everyone else. The swim-two though was a little slower, and I had the surreal (and unusual experience) of swimming the two half of my leg after everyone else had finished.
Results came before food (delicious Chinese rather than pizza, which was much appreciated) as some of the teams were finding food for themselves in town. Our B-team came 8th in the wet SERC, an impressive 6th in the dry SERC, and last in the swim-tow and medley. Nevertheless, we finished 8th overall, ahead of the A-team who came 10th! A brilliant performance from a team of people with no competition experience other than my own, and one which earned us 9 points for the B-league.
What was more important to me than the result though was the experience that my team had. I was really anxious to make sure that they had fun, and apparently I succeeded. All three of them were absolutely buzzing after the dry SERC, and repeatedly said how much they'd enjoyed the day. Even if they didn't particularly enjoy the speed events, and were exhausted after them, I'm hoping that they'll come to more competitions in the future off the back of this one.
The visitors all seemed to have a great time as well, including the ones who weren't sure about the whole thing to begin with. I think it helped that we were very accommodating, gave them a warm up before speeds at the competition, showed them around town if they had time, and took them out for breakfast on Sunday morning. We even gave them a true St Andrews experience, and invited them to run into the North Sea after the competition. Loads of them did - the nutters.
Now, this wasn't our first competition ever. Three years ago my friend Chris ran a competition and invited Scottish RLSS clubs. It was a small event, but fairly successful. Then last year I resurrected the idea of hosting a competition, and organised a slightly larger one. I didn't try for a league competition, as I wanted to check whether we could deal with the logistics, but invited the BULSCA clubs up anyway and was pleased when we actually got a really good turnout.
Teams in isolation for the competition. Visible are teams from London, Nottingham,
and Bristol. We had a decent turnout considering the distance teams travelled. (Credit: David Brown)
But this year the club's Competitions Officer and Captain went the whole hog, and applied for a league competition. They were awarded it, and managed (despite some grumbling from a few clubs) to get a reasonable turnout. There was some last minute drama surrounding the organisation, and the extra, spinal SERC that the Captain had planned had to be dropped, but in the end it all went very smoothly. I wish Nottingham, who were staying with me, had turned up before 3:30am though. Now I know how the other clubs feel when we turn up in the wee hours of the morning!
Now, two of the club's regular competitors were involved in organising the competition, and another was still out of action with a shoulder injury. I was therefore given no option - I had to compete. However I managed to wrangle myself into captaincy of the B-team; the idea was that the A-team would be people that had competed before, and that we could encourage some of the newer people to compete by assuring them that they'd have a very experienced person in charge. It worked, and I had a team of three rookies, all freshers to the club this year.
Playing UNO in isolation with my team, and some of the A-team (Credit: David Brown)
We were about half way through the SERC draw, which was good in this instance. There were only 11 teams, so it wasn't a long wait, and it gave me a chance to go over some things in isolation. But it also meant that we could watch some of the other teams, including our own A-team, go through the set SERC so that the freshers could see some different approaches.
The dry SERC was set at a campsite, and took place in a very small classroom. There was one tent set up, and another collapsed next to it. There was also a 'fire' in the middle of the room. Next to the fire was someone with severe burns, an unconscious child, and his panicking father. Inside the standing tent was someone asleep (although I think they had taken some drugs), and under the collapsed tent was another child manikin. Behind the tent was the final casualty, who was having a heart attack. We didn't find him until near the end of the 2 minutes unfortunately, but we dealt with everything else as best we could. It felt like it went fairly well, although the whistle went just as I was telling one of my team what to tell the ambulance on the phone. Afterwards one of the judges said it was like 'the Dave Brown show'!
The wet SERC was an interesting one. We entered to see lots of people in the water, and a person lying on the side. There was a pair of locked swimmers, a non-swimmer, and someone holding an aid at the far end of the pool, and a weak swimmer and asthmatic near our end. On the side were a ball in a bag, and another aid. This is were the team's lack of experience really showed, as although we did end the incident with everyone at the side it took a while to rescue everyone, and one of the team took the aid from the person holding onto it, who promptly turned into a non-swimmer! He didn't even need it, as the non-swimmer he was taking it to had gone unconscious! I got the inhaler from a bag on the side, and even managed to find a radio and call for help. But when the janitor came in to ask what was going on he couldn't write as fast as I could tell him about the casualties, and the incident once again ended before I could properly send for help.
Speed events in full flow at the St Leonards pool. (Credit: Hanna Böstrom)
The speed events went ok. In the rope throw we got two people in to the side, and in the medley we were close behind everyone else. The swim-two though was a little slower, and I had the surreal (and unusual experience) of swimming the two half of my leg after everyone else had finished.
Results came before food (delicious Chinese rather than pizza, which was much appreciated) as some of the teams were finding food for themselves in town. Our B-team came 8th in the wet SERC, an impressive 6th in the dry SERC, and last in the swim-tow and medley. Nevertheless, we finished 8th overall, ahead of the A-team who came 10th! A brilliant performance from a team of people with no competition experience other than my own, and one which earned us 9 points for the B-league.
What was more important to me than the result though was the experience that my team had. I was really anxious to make sure that they had fun, and apparently I succeeded. All three of them were absolutely buzzing after the dry SERC, and repeatedly said how much they'd enjoyed the day. Even if they didn't particularly enjoy the speed events, and were exhausted after them, I'm hoping that they'll come to more competitions in the future off the back of this one.
The visitors all seemed to have a great time as well, including the ones who weren't sure about the whole thing to begin with. I think it helped that we were very accommodating, gave them a warm up before speeds at the competition, showed them around town if they had time, and took them out for breakfast on Sunday morning. We even gave them a true St Andrews experience, and invited them to run into the North Sea after the competition. Loads of them did - the nutters.
Crazy lifesavers finding out just how cold the North Sea is in the middle of February! (Credit: Hanna Böstrom)
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