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Thread: Rc Wars, your questions clarified

  1. #11
    James, unfortunately I do not believe the FRA is in a position to accept representation from everyone who wants to run robot events in their garden. You are suggesting that without representation on the committee the FRA was somehow failing you. This is not the case - there is nothing stopping you from taking on board and using the publicly published FRA rules and event guidelines.

    At the time of your last application the event you were working on was for someones Birthday party I believe. Whilst in that scenario you would still have to have Public Liability Insurance etc for what you were doing (which Im not questioning you had) it is still an event in a garden, and that is not what the event organisers area of the FRA is about and this is why your application was rejected to join the Event Organisers committee I believe.

    You are right - people are people, and you dont have to be a member of the FRA to use and abide by the rules and guidelines which are accepted in the community as being best practice, Event Organisers on the committee are public event organisers - otherwise where does the FRA draw the line, they would be swamped by applications! If you wish to make your events safe and ensure they are running to best practice perhaps I could ask if you are already running to the FRA rules and guidelines ?

    Also, joining the FRA doesnt mean that you wont get criticised - in fact it means you are totally open for scrutiny and anything that goes wrong is discussed publicly. For example the recent Inspire Featherweight Smash that happened in December is on the agenda for discussion at this months meeting. You need to be able to take criticism on board and improve where needed rather than just provide justification as to why you thought you were right - some people can react very badly to this !

    My suggestion is that before approaching the FRA you ensure that your arena and event procedures fit in with the FRA guidelines.

    You can download the safety guidelines here

    http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/FRAEventSafety.pdf>
    http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/FRAEventSafety.pdf

    And the FRA Build Rules here

    http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/FRARulesandGuidelines.pdf>http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/FRAR...Guidelines.pdf

    Ask yourself if this is something that you want to be involved in - you do have a reputation for being somewhat isolated from the mainstream community (for example your mum wouldnt be able to attend FRA meetings if she saw a robot she didnt like) P

    Once youve done that, and youre sure that your events will meet the FRA guidelines and run by the FRA rules then youre up and running as an FRA event organiser; meaning youll benefit from the FRA supporting your events, providing you with help and expertise, a dedicated safety officer at your event who looks after the safety independently of you etc etc etc !

    Ed
    http://www.stormrobot.com>http://www.stormrobot.com

  2. #12
    Ok Ed,

    First of all yes i run my events to the FRA guidlines of arena and event safty, i have read through your guidlines throughly and with a bit more work according to the FRA guidlines we would be classed as a class 2 event.

    Yes i am deadly serious about being an event organiser and i know its a reachable goal. I have chatted with jono about what Rc Wars does and its goals and his adivce is to become an event organiser with the FRA.

    I am very dedicated and i would really like to hear construcive critisisam from the FRA. so where do i go from here?

  3. #13
    James I will come along too your event as its not to far away, and will go through an event safety report with you.
    This will highlight, both good, and bad points of your event.

    I will then feed back to the FRA Committee and we will go from there.

    Jonno

  4. #14
    Just wanted to add my 2 pence worth.

    1st, I am 50% of RCWars, with James Cooper, and as a commitee member of the FRA myself, its not like there has been no FRA influence on the RCWars development. I was the person who put James Coopers name forward as wanting to join the FRA as an events organiser, and to be honest I was disgusted by the response from one or two members. This should be recorded in the FRA minutes so Ill say no more about it at this point.

    2nd, the vast amount of critasism is coming from people who have never been to an RCWars event. It seems to have the reputation of a group of kids playing in their back garden. I can say that this is not the case, and with RCWars running without incident or injury for well over 3 years prior to me joining, and the introduction of the fully inclosed arena, I would say that James Cooper and his father have a damned site more experince running events than most of the people on the forum.

    3rd, I think it is distructive to the image of RCWars, the FRA and the individuals who raise publically their unfounded concerns over things thay have no knowledge of, to continue to publically, or privatly slate the safety of someone or someones business whaen you have no first hand knowledge of what you are talking about. Though I respect the feedback of people who have attended our events, I have no intention of being publiclly attacked by people who have not even seen our arena.

    Jonno has very kindly agreed to attend our next event to give his expertise and experience in making our events as safe as they can be, but make no mistake, as a qualified health and safety assessor myself I have not been idle on this issue. We just accept that we may have missed somethings that a respected roboteer and event organiser like Jonno can help us spot. Someone who has no got Jonnos qualifications is not welcome to puss judgement, especially having never attended.

    I have almost had to cancel one event before due to certain people running off on a safety crusade just because we never told them the full story. I would say that although we appreciate any and all input, do not assume that the gossip and back biting you may hear on the grapevine is reliable. Therefore do not condem someones safety when you do not know what is going on.

    People need to shut up until they have first hand knowledge, because Ill be damned if I put my livelyhood at risk just because some people like to preach.

    This new arena was never designed to have public featherweight events like roaming robots has, we run them as fun and as a favour to the roboteers who want to come. If the public critasism is looking like it may effect what we actually use the arena for we will withdraw its use from the roboteering community, not out of spite, but out of concern for our reputation. Who wins then? not the roboteers who use it, ceratinly not James Cooper and I who love holding the featherweight fun event. The winners will be gossips who can sit back in satisfaction knowing they have pi$$ed on someone elses bonfire.

    Sorry to be so blunt, but I have seen posts on other threads relating to RCWars that are discraceful, and I will be bringing this up at the next FRA meeting.

  5. #15
    Guest
    I have never seen a rcwars event but i must say any robot no matter what it is can only be good for our (sport)(hobby) and can only lead to bigger and better things .Even the Knex bots if that is what they are called can help the younger end build and get the ideas
    So for what it is worth James well done and keep it going

  6. #16

  7. #17
    This was a great event, all run well with no problems (that I know of ) Micro-Maul did its job, and now Im moving onto a new version for March.
    I hope you passed the FRAs check.
    Cheers, Ewan

  8. #18
    good event. robots ran well, G3 went well for its first outing (just got to get a bungee!)

    We were made very welcome, and even got some food (cant be bad!) even G3 got something to eat (daves little car thingy). Nice to see the razer boys (cheers to rudder for showing us his chopper!).

    Safety was fine, even tho we were being slowy poisoned by the dodgy gas heater!

  9. #19
    team_ireland
    Guest
    Well said james barker!

    Alot of people think they know alot of things (my self included) when actually they know very little. Well done for saying what you really think

    Regards
    Ian Mc Donald

  10. #20
    team_ireland
    Guest
    Sorry James

    I called you barker instead of baker

    My appoligies

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