Chief Ring Steward (AKA Worker Coordinator)
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Next to the Trial Chair the Chief Ring Steward is a very busy individual. There are two complimentary elements to this job. The first and very imporant element is the pre-trial preparation. Of the two elements pre-trial takes the most effort and work. The other element of course being the day of trial work that a Chief Ring Steward does.
Some Trial Chairs elect to have seperate people do the pre-trial and day of trial coordination. This can work, but there can also be a "disconnect" between the two elements in terms of communication. It is also assumed by the volunteers that the person standing there with the worker schedule the day of the trial is the one who wrote the schedule.
A very excellent strategy is to assign Ring Captains to assist the Chief Ring Steward the day of the trial.
One thought along those lines is to have one person assigned per day per ring. In other words for a two day three ring trial you would have six people assigned each convering one ring for one day. This works out well since the majority of the time the Ring Captains are also trying to exhibit their dog while coordinationg workers for their ring. If possible have the Ring Captains assigned to the ring they are running to minimize the number of conflicts the Ring Captains have.
Speaking of working and exhibiting a dog, it is probably not a good idea to attempt to be a Chief Ring Steward and exhibit your dog day of the trial. The job will keep you busy enough that you might have trouble doing both. Trial Chairs would do well to have your Chief Ring Steward be a member of the club that is hosting the trial or hire a paid Chief Ring Steward to compensate them for not being able to exhibit their dog.
Pre Trial Preparations
Things to keep in mind
- Start putting your worker schedule together as soon as you have enough worker volunteer sheets to do so.
- Communicate early, communicate often, communicate clearly
- If you have access to a web site to post the schedule, do so as early as possible
- Communicate early, communicate often, communicate clearly
- Make sure that any volunteers assigned to early classes know they need to be there early. Otherwise they may not be there.
- When making up the schedule, staff your early classes first, see previous bullet point
- Communicate early, communicate often, communicate clearly
It is my experience that while email is a very good way to contact your workers and let them know what the schedule is, for positions like your early workers it is better to telephone them and make sure they know what is up. More than once I've had the experience (when someone else did the schedule and I was doing "day of" only) where I had a tough time finding workers for that very critical first class of the morning and nobody that was assigned to it was there. This was in most of those cases because the volunteers did not know they had that assignment, weren't expecting to show their dog until later in the day and they weren't going to arrive at the trial site until just before they were getting in the ring. This is why in the bullet items above communications is stressed so highly.
When communicating by email it doesn't hurt to send "electronic" copies of your worker schedule. The best and most universal format for doing so is in Adobe Acrobat or PDF format. Most word processing and spreadsheet programs nowadays will either print to a PDF file or export to the PDF format. Don't count on everybody out there having a copy of your particular spreadsheet, word processing program or worse yet database program.
Good information to include on your worker schedule and communicate to your volunteers:
- Worker check in time
- Names of your Ring Captains (if you have such)
- What time each class and walkthrough is expected to begin
- Judge for each ring
- Jump height order
- If there is a separate time for the course builders to check in, when that is
Make hard copies of your worker schedule:
- One for each Ring Captain
- One to post at each ring
- One to post in a central place for worker check in
- One for yourself or whoever is doing the day of coordination.
Day of trial
The day of the trial the Chief Ring Steward is a very busy individual indeed. They need to be there at the trial site as early as possible to start setting up the rings. I'm not talking about course building, but make sure a copy of the worker schedule for each ring is posted at each ring. Make sure you have a copy posted at a central spot and get ready for worker check in. If possible have your Ring Captains present at the worker check in so they can be introduced to the volunteers as well as the judges for each ring.
Immediately start working on making sure the volunteers for the first classes of the day are in place. This can be done either by the Chief Ring Steward or by delegating that to the Ring Captains.
Once the first classes of the day are started, you can breathe a quick sigh of relief. But don't get complacent. You need to keep an eye on the rings. Work with your Ring Captains and make sure they have the workers they need. If you become aware that workers are absent (which can happen for many reaons) start looking for fill ins. Some folks on your schedule might be able to do jobs other than what they were assigned and you can find a replacement to do their job. For instance, a leash runner who can time replacing a missing timer and get a 10 year old child to run leashes.