Toboggan Advisor's Report July 21, 2006

By Tony Ortega

Fall Division meeting Sept 8-10

The Fall DIVISION meeting is going to be at Wausau Sept 8-10 this year.  The DIVISION toboggan advisor, Tom Worley, is highly encouraging all region toboggan advisors to attend this meeting.  The topics that he wants to cover are these:

• Emergency Transportation Manual
• Second edition of the Central Division Senior Manual
• Toboggan Enhancement Seminar - how to improve and generate attendance
• Instructor Trainers rolls and responsibilities
• Region Toboggan Supervisor position needs further definition
• PSIA involvement with hill training
• Teaching terms and methodologies
• Togobban Instructor status - requirements and enforcement
• Existing Patroller transportation skills - how to maintain at the appropriate level.

I will report on the results of this meeting in the next Sweep.

All Patrollers:

Hard to believe, but the winter season is just around the corner.  By now, your patrols are getting prepared to conduct or have already conducted your annual first aid refreshers.  As you know, this is to prepare you for when you need to render first aid to some customer who suffered an injury of some kind.

After your first aid refresher, your first aid skills should be ready, but what about your transportation skills?  Once the person has been treated and stable, it is just as important to provide safe transportation down the hill. You never know, the first day first run, something may happen which will require you to transport someone off the hill.  Will you be physically ready?  Now is the time to prepare so you are in reasonable shape come the first day.

To help you improve your transportation skills, the region is offering many clinics, including the Toboggan Enhancement Seminar (TES).  In the TES, we focus on the skills necessary to provide safe transportation down the hill in whatever conditions exist.  When the details are finalized, they will be posted in the South Central Website.  http://www.nsp-southcentral.org/

Toboggan Instructors:

Thanks to all who submitted their activity logs from last year. Remember, to maintain your status, you need to submit your activity log at the end of the season.  Enter 1 line per activity.  Any training related activity counts, including conducting on the hill refreshers for your patrollers. Also, you need to attend a clinic of some kind every 3 years.  Heck, the clinics are so good and the prices are so reasonable, and they are so much fun (especially the Toboggan Enhancement Seminar) that it might be worth it to attend more often. :-)

Also, you should be preparing your lesson plans, weather you are going to be teaching new candidates or conducting on the hill refreshers for your patrollers.  Be sure to record that preparation time in your activity log because course preparation time is just as important as course delivery.

Transportation Manual

The new transportation manual is available for order from National, and every patrol should have at least 1 copy available for their patrollers to refer to.  It is very well done with a lot of good information.

Have a good fall (autumn) and see you when the flakes are out

Tony Ortega

Toboggan Advisor

South Central Region

"Toboggan Guy"