Around 40 MVT members, including our chairman and members of the
CoM were awarded their marshal’s hi-viz vest after a successful safety training
day at tank driving centre Armourgeddon, Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire. Disciplines covered were vehicle marshalling, fire-fighting and
emergency CPR. In addition, Tim Hawkes, Wicksteed at War show director,
outlined plans for this year’s event, to be held at Wicksteed Park, Kettering,
Northants, on June 9-11. The day ended with a harsh lesson on what would happen if a
pedestrian came into contact with a tracked vehicle – it didn’t end well for
the pedestrian, fortunately in this case a balloon-filled dummy! The marshals’ vests, which are valid for the whole of 2017, are kindly
sponsored by Graham Sykes Insurance. Tim Hawkes said: “The safety training day came about as a result
of the MVT CoM wanting to bring about a consistent approach to how we run
events safely and professionally.
“With the update of the Event Guidance document in 2017, it
demonstrated that members having a consistent approach to a few key things
could really improve the safety and professionalism of members in the
Trust. "A secondary benefit of this event was that it brought a number of
area secretaries together that had not met before and allowed them to share ideas
and talk before the season gets under way. “We have now set a standard for our members
in terms of how to marshal vehicles, conduct primary first aid and putting out
fires. The event also served as a great opportunity for area members to
discuss their own events, insurance and safety at events. “The feedback from the members so far has
been promising with some saying they are looking forward to next year. We will
need to think about how we can spread this to more members for next year. “In the future the CoM would like as many of
our members as possible to know how to marshal a large vehicle through a
crowded event safely, plus other key safety issues. “It would be great to get to a point where other clubs and
organisations look to the MVT for support and advice on how to make their
events more safe, and to become the gold standard for how we turn up at events.” He added: “I would particularly like to thank Stuart Garner for
letting us use his site at Armourgeddon, Luke, John and Kevin for their great
work managing the stands and all the other members who made it work well. “Please wear your safety vest with pride this year as often as you
can and tell others what we are doing so that they may wish to get trained next
year.” Pictures by Tim Cross
Tim Hawkes welcomes delegates to the safety training day
Fledgling fire- fighter ready for action
MVT SEM secretary Ian Gardiner demon- strates that using a water extin- guisher to put out a fuel fire is worse than useless . . . later a foam extinguisher was used to great effect
Marshal- ling practice using a Land Rover 110
A new marshal is trained
First aid training . . . putting a casualty into the recovery position
Perform- ing CPR on a dummy
Both adult and child dummies were used
Show director Tim Hawkes outlines plans for Wicksteed at War 2017
The new marshals' vests are orange but Tim's is a fetching shade of pink...
Herman the dummy meets his match under a 432
What could happen if tracked vehicles are not safely marshal- led