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Missed Opportunity or is something not right?


matty40s

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31 minutes ago, Gordon M said:

Hi as a Boater and now a Volockie [in training]   I thought I must reply...many Volockies are not boaters But are still keen to give their Free time up to assist boaters at various sites across the system . If a Boater Declines help that's Fine ,But many are Glad of Help , So please Don't belittle Volockies...They're Giving up their Time For YOU

Gordon, I love Volockies that assist my passage, I do not like Volockies that Insist on how I do my passage.

There are some that have a power surge, especially at high volume tourist locations that like to shout and dictate how everything should be.

If your use of capitals helps you put your point across..That's how some of the volockies seem to us experienced boaters to be working - and it isnt working.

They are NOT giving up their free time for us, they are giving up their free time because they want to feel included, want to give something back, want to do something interesting in the countryside, they are contributing to CRT volunteer numbers, they are contributing to the waterways network and to help inexperienced boaters.

 

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2 hours ago, Gordon M said:

They're Giving up their Time For YOU

 

Excuse me but no they are NOT.

 

They are using their free time to to do something they want to do, at my expense. Don't kid yourself. They do it because want to play with locks without going to the expense of buying a boat, and using the fig leaf of 'helping' me, a boater. I'd rather do the locks myself thank you. Unless its a freezing cold winter's day and pissing with rain, but never a volly in sight on those days are there?

 

This is why I pay CRT £Ks per year and you interfering with my opportunities to work the locks (a major pleasure for me as a boater) is not welcome, by and large. 

 

Just sayin' like. 

 

 

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9 hours ago, Gordon M said:

Hi as a Boater and now a Volockie [in training]   I thought I must reply...many Volockies are not boaters But are still keen to give their Free time up to assist boaters at various sites across the system . If a Boater Declines help that's Fine ,But many are Glad of Help , So please Don't belittle Volockies...They're Giving up their Time For YOU

You were doing OK until your last statement, which seems to sum up the problematic attitude that you find with some volunteers.  The reasons that people are doing this I am sure are many, but it is for their own benefit not mine.  It that results in help when it is wanted that is great, but the problem is that there are too many who’s reason for doing this is to throw their weight about.  Perhaps is it just the training that is a fault, I don’t know, but the culture seems totally wrong to me.

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10 hours ago, Gordon M said:

Hi as a Boater and now a Volockie [in training]   I thought I must reply...many Volockies are not boaters But are still keen to give their Free time up to assist boaters at various sites across the system . If a Boater Declines help that's Fine ,But many are Glad of Help , So please Don't belittle Volockies...They're Giving up their Time For YOU

This is a common characteristic in the charitable world, that of 'doing good' to others. It is the 'to which creates the biggest problems as it inevitably allows the does to decide what the recipient needs, not even wants. It was for this reason that when we established a business in the care sector we declined to operate as a charity but instead a business. I know that this can lead some political factions to bang on about making a profit at others expense, except that making a profit in this business us an uphill challenge on a daily basis. But rather we wanted to work with guests (It was a holiday facility) rather than clients, or worse, patients. Some mock the use of language to affect attitude and, on its own, it rarely works but if it is part of an overall culture shift then it can be a very effective regular reminder to staff (not volunteers) of how they are expect to treat those they interact with. It made a tremendous impact and was often remarked on by inspectors as well as those coming to stay. Sadly we saw too many examples of the opposite in organisations that 'prided' themselves as charities and put a lot of their PR into telling everyone so. I am pleased to say that the ethos has survived well in the years since we sold up.

 

As I said, this is a cultureissue which CaRT will only tackle with VLKs once they understand the root cause. Training on its own will only be sticking plaster. 

 

Suppose, just for a moment, that with the ready availability of portable low cost small amount case devices, lock assistance was charged at, say £ per lock, just wave a card at the start. What might be the outcome? Useful and intrrestingvthoughtvexoeriment as I suspect it unlikely that the current aims and objectives for CaRT would not create the right climate for such a culture, but it may just be over the horizon.

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1 hour ago, john6767 said:

You were doing OK until your last statement, which seems to sum up the problematic attitude that you find with some volunteers.  The reasons that people are doing this I am sure are many, but it is for their own benefit not mine.  It that results in help when it is wanted that is great, but the problem is that there are too many who’s reason for doing this is to throw their weight about.  Perhaps is it just the training that is a fault, I don’t know, but the culture seems totally wrong to me.

I’m convinced it’s the training that’s at fault, having  experienced it at first hand while I was “worked” through Atherstone top lock by a team of new volunteers and their CRT gaffer.

The gates slammed behind me then he immediately whipped a top paddle up without even looking in my direction for any sign from me. As soon as the boat stopped banging around I shot up the ladder and explained as politely as possible that he wasn’t teaching people the correct way of working a lock. The trainees actually seemed keen to hear what I was saying but unfortunately their boss didn’t, and wouldn’t even make eye contact. 

Part of a volunteers training should be a passage through a lock that’s been worked badly, so they get an idea how easy it is for things to go wrong. 

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45 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Suppose, just for a moment, that with the ready availability of portable low cost small amount case devices, lock assistance was charged at, say £ per lock, just wave a card at the start. What might be the outcome?

 

A sobering thought for Vollies reading here. I suspect if their 'help' was charged at say £1 per lock, the vast majority of boaters would elect to do it themselves, thereby illustrating they value volly help at less than £1. 

 

A neat illustration of how much boaters value and need their assistance. I might set up a poll later to canvas opinion on the value boaters put on the currently free 'help' (some call it interference) we get from vollies.

 

I would, on reflection, happily pay the vollies £1 to leave me alone and not interfere...

 

Now there's an idea!!!!

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I'm still quite new to all this (nearly 4 years since we bought Lily Rose) but I am now changing my views on volockies. When we started out, with me doing almost everything to get us through each lock, I was pleased to see a volockie ahead as we approached.

 

A few years on my wife is now confident taking the boat in and out (she is not physically able to work the locks) leaving me to concentrate on working the lock. I have also become much more aware of what can go wrong, and how quickly, which makes me want to be off the boat and in charge of the paddles rather than on it and relying on someone else to operate the lock safely.

 

For this reason I now inwardly groan when I see a lockie ahead, particularly if they say "stay on the boat". I normally do so if they say that but I am now reaching the point where I will get off the boat anyway. I now think the main value of a lockie is to assist by opening and closing the gates to speed things up a little. I'm not sure I want them whacking open paddles so my (45') boat ends up shooting backwards and forwards in the lock (or worse). I'd rather take a minute longer and do it in a safe and controlled manner. I don't suppose Nicknorman would be happy if he was behind me but you can't have everything.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Lily Rose said:

 

 

For this reason I now inwardly groan when I see a lockie ahead, particularly if they say "stay on the boat". I normally do so if they say that but I am now reaching the point where I will get off the boat anyway. I now think the main value of a lockie is to assist by opening and closing the gates to speed things up a little. I'm not sure I want them whacking open paddles so my (45') boat ends up shooting backwards and forwards in the lock (or worse). I'd rather take a minute longer and do it in a safe and controlled manner. I don't suppose Nicknorman would be happy if he was behind me but you can't have everything.

 

 

I get off anyway much to the displeasure of one at Fradley. But to often I have seen them open paddles then wander off talking to passes by.

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1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

But to often I have seen them open paddles then wander off talking to passes by.

 

Same here, I've seen this too and not just by vollies. Any 'helping' boater is prone to doing the same. I get off the boat ESPECIALLY if told 'stay on the boat' by whomever. 

 

The last place you need to be is on the boat if a problem develops. 

 

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We set off from Shardlow a few days ago. First lock was Aston. Two volockies present, c/w dormobile, I'm assured not issued by CRT, personally I let them got on with operation The as long as I think and believe they realise that I need to be consulted to ascertain when I'm ready for this paddle and that paddle to be operated. I adopt the attitude, until I realise otherwise, that they know the behaviour of that particular lock. No problems so far. I did get a little wound up once at Fradley when a volockie decided I needed a lesson on the history of Canal and their uses.

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Actualy maybe they should be paying us. Good passage £5.00 bad £50 . Plus the cost of the damage. Having done hillmorten literaly hundreds of times, solo with crew, with the butty solo with a butty, with a butty on an outboard , on a cruiser ( you get the drift) getting told how to operate it by an idiot really peeves me.

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By far my preference is for the help to be in readying the next lock, but to be fair that is a bit of a lonely job to expect of someone volunteering their leisure time. I really don't mind them operating paddles provided that the steerer's readiness is checked first and they then stay alert by the open paddles ready to close them in an emergency. This is, of course, the same if another boat crew is helping, who may just as likely be either be better or worse than the average volunteer.  Closing the gate behind is also a blessing, but you tend to get the paddle operating with that by default.  

 

All that said, those who don't want the assistance of volunteers can politely decline it.  Far better to do that rather than tar all of the volunteers with the same brush and hack off the good ones by berating Volockies in general. I'm pretty sure the good Volockies don't have a problem with the odd one who lets the side down being called out, but we ought to be careful of how such criticism is targeted. 

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3 hours ago, Nightwatch said:

We set off from Shardlow a few days ago. First lock was Aston. Two volockies present, c/w dormobile, I'm assured not issued by CRT, personally I let them got on with operation The as long as I think and believe they realise that I need to be consulted to ascertain when I'm ready for this paddle and that paddle to be operated. I adopt the attitude, until I realise otherwise, that they know the behaviour of that particular lock. No problems so far. I did get a little wound up once at Fradley when a volockie decided I needed a lesson on the history of Canal and their uses.

The guy with the camper van at Aston lock on the T&M is ok, unlike the bunch at Stetson lock who are a total liability, who are only interested in bossing boaters about for the entertainment of the customers at the cafe.  I had a real problem with them when they would not let us through the lock unless we shared with a cruiser.  I do not think it is their call, and I regret complying, I know I will not again.  Noting against cruisers BTW, but the boat was over width because of the big fenders that they use, so should not be sharing a lock with anything, and their wide point was well above our gunnel and I spent most of the assent on the gunnel fending it off, and the guy in the cruiser was crapping it, he also said never again.

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4 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

No way- you went up a deep lock with another boat that overhung you?

if the lock had tapered in anyway or you had moved to a narrower or bowed bit you would have stuck.

the liability would be you not crt ...

They would not let you through a lock? Pardon...

Quite.  I would say the lock gets wider to the top, but still not their call to force their will on you. 

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58 minutes ago, john6767 said:

The guy with the camper van at Aston lock on the T&M is ok, unlike the bunch at Stetson lock who are a total liability, who are only interested in bossing boaters about for the entertainment of the customers at the cafe.  I had a real problem with them when they would not let us through the lock unless we shared with a cruiser.  I do not think it is their call, and I regret complying, I know I will not again.  Noting against cruisers BTW, but the boat was over width because of the big fenders that they use, so should not be sharing a lock with anything, and their wide point was well above our gunnel and I spent most of the assent on the gunnel fending it off, and the guy in the cruiser was crapping it, he also said never again.

Two very nice and polite lady volockies when we came through. My wife told me, I didn't speak to them. Shared with another Narrowboat so was okay. That is one aggressive lock!!

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3 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

Two very nice and polite lady volockies when we came through. My wife told me, I didn't speak to them. Shared with another Narrowboat so was okay. That is one aggressive lock!!

Yep it is.  Glad you had a good experience!

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15 hours ago, john6767 said:

The guy with the camper van at Aston lock on the T&M is ok, unlike the bunch at Stetson lock who are a total liability.............................

 

Stetson lock?  Are they cowboys then  ?

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