The main job of the call steward is to ensure that there is a handler waiting to run at all times. Your second job is to try to keep everyone more or less in order, and to prevent mass queue-skipping. This is ideally a job for an assertive person with a loud voice.
Before the Class Starts
Position your call board in a location where you won’t be in the way. You need to be outside the holding area, and facing away from high-traffic locations so that you won’t cause too much congestion. Face the board away from the entrance to the holding area, so that people won’t get in the way while they are looking at the running order.
Try to stand to one side of the board most of the time, so that you aren’t obstructing people’s view of the running order. If somebody spends a loooong time standing right in front of the board, you can politely ask them to move away so that other people can see. This happens more often than you would think – most agility people love to talk, and lose their situational awareness when they are chatting with their mates.
When People Check In
Hopefully you will soon have people and their dogs turning up to run. They will come up to you and tell you their number. Draw a wee dot above their number on the running order sheet, to help you keep track of who’s turned up and who hasn’t.
Some people may check in and then go away to warm their dogs up. Usually you can rely on them to be back in time, but you do need to keep track of where everyone is.
When A Dog Enters the Ring
Ideally there should always be at least five dogs that have checked in and are ready to run. Start with the dog that is in the ring and then work your way down the list:
- Mark off each dog once they have gone into the ring itself (not the holding area). Most call stewards do this with a single diagonal line through the dog’s number.
- Locate the next person to run, and make sure that they are paying attention. If they don’t move into the holding area very soon after the previous dog starts, don’t be shy about reminding them. Once they are in the holding area, leave them alone so they can concentrate on their upcoming run.
- Now locate the second-to-next person. I like to remind them that they are after So-and-So at this stage. If they have checked in but aren’t near the ring, you need to call them now so that they will be there in time to run. If they have not checked in yet, you should assume they won’t be there. Draw a circle around their number and tell the next-next person that they will be after the dog in the holding area.
- Call any of the next three dogs that have not yet checked in. You’ll get much better results if you call the person’s name rather than the number, as other people may be able to tell you where they are.
When People Turn Up Late
Once somebody has been circled, they have missed their turn. If they turn up at the last second and try to push in front of the person who is running in their place, do not allow this. It is not fair on the other person, who turned up on time and is now all psyched up and ready to go into the ring.
If they’ve only just missed their turn, the easiest thing to do is to run them straight after the dog that was supposed to run after them. On the example running order above, if K682 is a bit late turning up, you could let them run after R603 instead.
If they are too late for this, do not let them push in front of people who have already checked in. Often the best place to put them is just before the first person who has not checked in. If they want more time to warm up you could put them later, perhaps at the end of the class.
Sometimes handlers will make their own arrangements that breach the guidelines above – even asking the person in the holding area if it’s OK for them to swap places! It’s OK to go along with this if everybody has agreed and is happy with the new plan. It’s not OK for you, as the call steward, to be the one asking the question. You should be prioritising the people who can turn up on time.
When People Want to Move
People can’t be in two places at the same time, so sometimes they will need to move. Generally the only valid reasons for this are:
- “I’m going to be running in the other ring at the same time”
- “I don’t have enough space between my two dogs”
- “I need to go and help in the other ring”
There are a small number of people who make a habit of constantly shifting around in the running orders with flimsy excuses. As a new call steward you won’t know who they are, and it’s probably better to be fairly lenient about other excuses. If you notice some serial offenders over the course of the weekend, though, don’t be afraid to push back. Be particularly wary if it’s the last class of the day, as some people think they should be allowed to go home earlier than everyone else!
Dealing with Fortune Tellers
You may encounter a handler who asks to be circled or moved a looooong time before their turn, because “I’m going to be in the other ring”. Once they have been circled, they became Schrodinger’s Dog, neither running in place nor running out of place, until they decide to actually turn up to the ring. Or if you move them, they may discover that now they really do have a clash with the other ring.
While you can get a rough idea of when you’ll be running by counting the number of dogs before your turn, this is not an exact science. Some classes take longer to run than others. Timer failures and sudden gusts of wind can bring everything to a halt. Personally, I’m rather dubious of people who think they can see more than twenty minutes into the future at an agility show.
The most astute fortune tellers will be able to tell you that they have a clash before either ring has started running. This is very difficult for a mere mortal to accurately predict, as it’s not uncommon for one class to start up to ten minutes before the other one.
I deal with fortune tellers by asking them to pop back and check closer to the time, and promising that I will keep an eye on the other ring and shift them if they really are over there when it’s their turn to run.
At the End of a Height Group
It’s nice to announce the height change while the last dog is running, so that people can get ready to swoop in and change all the jumps. It’s not the end of the world if you’re too busy to do this – somebody will figure out that the Australian Terrier isn’t supposed to be jumping 500.
Changing heights takes a while, so count that as a “dog” when you are making sure your next five dogs are ready. Even then, it may be hard to have four of them lined up, but they’ll all come out of the woodwork when they see the jumps changing. Just concentrate on having your first two dogs organised, and hope for the best.
At the End of the Class
Bravo, your work is done! The running order boards are rubbish once you’ve finished with them, so feel free to find a bin to chuck them in. Have a nice cold drink and five minutes of sitting down in the shade – you’ve earned it.