News Archives
16 June 2008
I hope this finds you all well. Jim Cantrell (TRC,
President) has asked that I announce the "Spring Meeting". We will
also be incorporating the planning meeting with the Spring Meeting.
The meeting will be conducted via a conference call on Monday June
23rd at 6:00 PM. If you have the time please make plans to call in
and participate. I will be sending out an agenda soon. If any of you
have topics you would like on the agenda please e-mail them to me
ASAP. Thank you!
D.J. Walker, Secretary
As part of this meeting, members will be ratifying a proposed
By-Laws amendment. You may access the proposed
By-Laws
by clicking here.
Greg Higgins
Oct 9 2007
At the 2006 Garner Competition, SRTs' were allowed after successfully passing a "check-off" on Thursday evening. The times were documented for 2006 and 2007 for future reference and a page was developed to provide this information and other relevant material. Also read the Oct 2006 comments below. Please click here to review this technique.
Apr 3 2007
President DJ Walker has called for the Annual Spring Meeting to be on April 9th at 7:00 PM via a conference call. All are invited to call in. The number to call is 1-913-643-3051, guest code 289997. He will send out an agenda a few days before the meeting. If any of you have something you would like discussed during the meeting, please e-mail DJ in the next few days. The agenda can be found here.
Oct 2006
The 2006 Garner Rescue Competition has come and
gone. Everything went very well. Three teams participated and
everyone had a positive experience. There were some changes from
previous years. I would like to highlight those changes and provide
some feedback.
There are many schools of thought about how rescue should be
accomplished. Some teams go light and skinny with a wilderness style
of rescue work. Others go heavy and utilize a more industrial style.
There are merits to both methods and neither is any less safe. So
instead of criticizing one or the other for the competition we
changed our philosophy. We want more teams to participate and some
of those teams may not buy into one method or the other. We do not
want to limit their participation. So for this years competition and
the plan for next year it to allow teams to come to Garner and
operate in the scenarios the way they would back home and not
concern themselves with "what the judges want to see". Each team
will be scored on the efficacy in which they operate their systems.
The team that operates most efficiently should prevail.
To accommodate this philosophy, with the help from Andy Lancaster,
we changed our scoring methods. New score sheets were drafted to
move from an objective scoring style to a more subjective scoring
scheme based on efficacy. This allows the judges to more accurately
score what they see. Everyone involved liked the new score sheets,
commenting on how they were more user friendly and gave the
participants more feedback.
In addition to all of this we also made allowances in the rules for
the use of single rope techniques (SRT) (rappelling on a single rope
with no redundant top belay). Many teams operate back home with SRT
and we want people to operate the way they do back home. With the
help from Rod Denison, a "check off" process was formulated to
ensure individuals that utilize SRT are competent to do so. Sending
someone over an edge SRT places the safety of that person solely on
themselves. This is unlike the other systems being built and
operated, where there is a judge or other team member to look out
for them. So before we were willing to place that kind of
responsibility with an individual we wanted to ensure they possessed
the skills to do so safely. We had 10 participants test for SRT use.
All passed and were allowed to utilize SRT during the competition.
On Friday night the TRC board meeting was held with representatives
from all teams participating. A new board of directors were elected
to carry us into 2007.
Many thanks need to go out to the many individuals that helped plan
and organize the event. With out the help of everyone involved
Garner would not be in its 29th year. We are always looking for
people to help and new ideas to make the competition better. One way
to do that is get involved with TRC, join the yahoo e-mail group, or
I am always available to discuss the competition, just e-mail or
call anytime.
Stay safe and hope to see you around.
DJ Walker
Aug 2006
The TRC Planning group met August 14th and made some
changes to this years competition, the major change being that ALL
medical will be evaluated at the EMT - BASIC level only! More
emphasis will be placed on patient evaluation and prompt
recognition, treatment and transport of the patient to a definitive
care facility. There will also be criteria developed for teams to
use SRT if they choose. It will be posted in the near future to the
"Competition Forms" web page. The Competition Rules will also be
updated to reflect changes to the competition as well as new scoring
criteria. Based on feedback from the teams and from other
competition's, this years scoring format will be more subjective.
ALL new competition related documents have been posted in the
"Competition Forms" section.
Oct 2005
The 2005 competition is now "in the can" and Mother
Nature once again put an appearance in! Teams enjoyed a sunny and
rather warm Thursday afternoon practicing on the hill. The
competition staff made final plans for Fridays' activities and the
Captains' meeting was short. For the first time, the annual TRC,
Inc. Board meeting was well attended and a new Board for 2006
elected (minutes are available by
clicking
here). Teams, family members and friends visited and went to bed
with the West Texas stars shining bright.
Then Mother Nature came to visit! I woke up at 5:30 and wandered
from my shelter over to the bathrooms with a cool north breeze
blowing. As I walked out from under the oak trees I felt something
wet on my face. Not a good sign! Looking up revealed that the bright
stars from the evening before had been obscured by low clouds. While
in the bathroom, I heard the sound of the rain picking up and
getting heavier. Running back to my shelter confirmed that the rain
was settling in. After conferring with judges, staff, patients,
moulage folks and team captains, it was decided to delay the start
of the competition until 10:00 A.M. About 9:30, Patrick with the
Llama Mountain Rescue Team, managed to get on the internet and look
at a radar loop and the NWS forecast which indicated that the rain
SHOULD end after noon with the clouds thinning out over the
afternoon. After talking it over with everyone concerned, it was
decided that 1:00 PM, rain or shine, the competition would begin. I
want to congratulate all of the teams on their flexibility in
scheduling Fridays activities. At 12:30 the Vertical judges started
up Old Baldy in the rain, but as we arrived at the site, the rain
had slacked off. The rain stopped completely by the time we had
ropes over the side ! Even though the walk-up was still slick, the
teams did get to compete in a more favorable environment than in
years past!
Over the past 20 years that I have been involved in the Competition,
I have seen snow, ice, rain, floods, extreme heat and cold and even
an occasional elusive beautiful Fall day. All of which makes the
Competition so special and brings everyone back for another year in
hopes of spotting that beautiful day just one more time.