Risk Assessment

[Tommy B]

Has anyone carried out a Risk Assessment for their club? I feel these may be compulsory sometime in the future and would like to be ahead of the game if and when it happens, bearing in mind GNAS's talent for bureaucracy.

The GNAS website carries a form that gives some guidance but I'd prefer to hear from anyone who has done one.

The usual apologies if my search failed to find an existing thread.

[Furface]

I have put a copy of a Risk Assessment I have done in the dropBox. It does not claim to be exhaustive, but it was enough for the school involved and the local authority.
I welcome any comments or suggestions.

[grimsby archer]

Lord preserve us from any more self serving but otherwise pointless red tape.

Risk assessments inevitably show how safe your operation is, usually because you dont put down the things that are unsafe. If it was unsafe and you knew about it, you'd do something about it and make it safe. No one in their right mind would ever produce a risk assessment that said their activity was unsafe.

As a club secretary and a coach, I already have a small mountain of paperwork to fullfill, without any do gooder at gnas or elsewhere adding to the pile. (crbs, local council accreditation, clubmark, detail coaching logs, cpd, the list goes on...).
Its getting so that there isnt time to actually do any archery between writing up reports and documents about the club activities that we dont get time to do cause I'm too busy with all the damn paperwork.

I suspect that too many organisations are made up of committees of people with nothing better to do with their time than justify their own importance by finding other people things to do.

[TWIW]

Originally Posted by grimsby archer

Lord preserve us from any more self serving but otherwise pointless red tape.

Risk assessments inevitably show how safe your operation is, usually because you dont put down the things that are unsafe. If it was unsafe and you knew about it, you'd do something about it and make it safe. No one in their right mind would ever produce a risk assessment that said their activity was unsafe.

As a club secretary and a coach, I already have a small mountain of paperwork to fullfill, without any do gooder at gnas or elsewhere adding to the pile. (crbs, local council accreditation, clubmark, detail coaching logs, cpd, the list goes on...).
Its getting so that there isnt time to actually do any archery between writing up reports and documents about the club activities that we dont get time to do cause I'm too busy with all the damn paperwork.

I suspect that too many organisations are made up of committees of people with nothing better to do with their time than justify their own importance by finding other people things to do.

Not a very helpful reply G-A. There are organisations (ATC, Armed Forces etc) who already insist on a Risk Assessment for archery.

I completed one for both indoor and outdoor last year for the ATC.

The whole point of an RA is to identify the risks and ensure that safeguards are in place to remove or minimise the consequences of those risks. (Risks cannot be removed usually)

[bimble]

I can remember one year when our university Catholic Society put down "risk of rapture" after having to fill in yet another risk assessment form. The risk being that if rapture happened while they were indoors people might hit their heads on the ceiling.

Did anyone comment on it when it was handed in?? Nope. It wouldn't surprise me if they're not read at all, only used as a 'cover-my-ass' insurance.

"Well, I did say...."

[Owweeee]

Originally Posted by bimble

I can remember one year when our university Catholic Society put down "risk of rapture" after having to fill in yet another risk assessment form. The risk being that if rapture happened while they were indoors people might hit their heads on the ceiling.

Did anyone comment on it when it was handed in?? Nope. It wouldn't surprise me if they're not read at all, only used as a 'cover-my-ass' insurance.

"Well, I did say...."

the Students Union is a classic bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake.

We did one at our club for the outdoor season 2 years ago because the Sports centre was faffing about over letting us use the field (which the club had been shooting on probably since it became part of the University). We found the GNAS info really useful and relatively easy to use. It took about 5 or 6 hours work between the two of us.

It was also useful as a check to make sure that we were following the correct procedure for laying out, and clearing up the field (which had multiple uses) As it gave a quick checklist of things to do.

[Furface]

As you might guess, I am all in favour of writing things down, and re-doing that regularly. As others have mentioned, a large number of clubs are run as they have "always" been run, with procedures passed down by word of mouth and demonstration. This works for "What" but not for "Why", and tends to inhibit development. Writing things down tends to highlight inefficiencies that have grown up over the years, and provides good arguments against the "we've always done it like that" brigade.
Risk assessments are equally prone to stagnation. Is what we are doing still safe, either absolutely, or judged by the changing standards of the time? For instance, a field that was judged to have sufficient overshoot for recurve and longbow may well not have if a member shooting compound joins the club. Are the safety notices used enough to provide protection in a court case? A centrally developed checklist is also useful (so long as it itself is regularly reviewed) as it will almost certainly ask questions no one at the club had thought of, and satisfy the requirements of the insurers.
With such a checklist, a risk-assessment should not take up much time. Once done, a periodic review would take even less (unless circumstances have changed, in which case it is a useful prompt).
On the other hand, writing as a club secretary, tournament organiser, and coach, I could easily feel that this is the last straw imposed by a heartless bureaucracy (see GA's posts passim!). But that is why we are in a club - pass it on to other members.

[Clive]

Originally Posted by Tommy B

Has anyone carried out a Risk Assessment for their club? I feel these may be compulsory sometime in the future and would like to be ahead of the game if and when it happens, bearing in mind GNAS's talent for bureaucracy.

The GNAS website carries a form that gives some guidance but I'd prefer to hear from anyone who has done one.

The usual apologies if my search failed to find an existing thread.

I have done risk assessments for indoor and outdoor ranges for my club. They are in MS word format using a form I use at work so if they are suitable you can modify them to suit your club/range. If you pm me with an e-mail address I will send them on to you.

Clive

[Watch_Man]

We have found the main risks are:

1. Locating smoking area in front of shooting line.
2. Double booking a target and field event on the same day.
3. putting an arrow through the window of the club hut.
4. Scoring higher than your wife.

Our risk assesment consists of:

1. Recommend giving up smoking as it can damage your health.

2. Malcolm says to Kevin - have you got anything booked on X date? - Risk of punch up with field archers avoided.

3. Put a big bit of wood in front of club hut window so juniors can't 'accidentally miss' to see if their arrow will go through the window.

4. Never going to happen so number 4 doesn't count.

Seriously though, I think Tommy is right, it won't be too long before someone with nothing better to do decides all clubs need to do risk assesments.

I know from our boys school trips that risk assesments are becoming a way of life. BTW does anyone know if the mortality rate for children on school trips has fallen since the introduction of Risk Assesments. If it has then I am all for them, if not then ............

[phil_r_58]

I think most will have gathered by now that I am not a great fan of bureaucratic processes, but I have to agree with risk assessment, due to the nature of our sport. Maybe many years of being in civil and heavy engineering when I left college points me that way too. I have seen too many avoidable accidents.

• The actual act of walking round a course and looking for faults, sometimes opens your eyes to things we overlook on a day to day basis.
  
• Even better, if a fresh pair of eyes goes over things and has to concentrate hard enough to detail things down to writing.

At a recent shoot at my own club. I came across a target that sent shivers down my spine. Although it was an unmarked distance, and a short range target, the Burger van was in clear view behind the shooting lane, with no trees in between. It has been put in that spot lots of time, so became accepted practise. If someone had hit the top frame, like at the NFAS nationals, a ricochet could have gone into the burger van or into the crowd, just the same. Perhaps, an independent pair of eyes, doing a risk assessment would have seen the risk others overlooked.

In my old days as an EFAA archer when we had a course in Lincolnshire, we had to have our course inspected for safety and accuracy by the EFAA's range charter officer, in part a safety/risk assessment check, before it was accredited.

At work we have to do lots of risk assessment, mainly in case we face litigation, which archers and clubs are not immune from. Even with risk assessment, things can go wrong. But the defence in law for the club is that they have made "reasonable effort" in doing a risk assessment. So they are an item of self protection from daft archers, and a dafter public, who do idiotic things like walk their dogs behind the target line. Especially in these litigation mad times.