pbeardmore wrote:Sorry if you think that was insulting people but just because people are volunteering does not justify poor service . (are the security staff volunteers?) Back to the point re lowering the costs to a mimimum. Sometimes, you have to invest in professionals to get a profesional quality of service.
I am happy to be corrected, but I think it is reasonably clear who are volunteers, who are contracted in and who are military. Volunteers do a lot of specific tasks around the site but in relatively small teams, manning information desks, airfield tasks etc. Contractor's staff provide security, car parking, those tasks requiring lots of bodies. This year I notice contractors had taken over ticket checking from volunteers, no idea why. The military does the bag checks. On each entrance, there will also be a number of RIAT volunteers trying to manage the whole thing.
In my personal experience, it is the contractor's staff that let things down. For example on Friday morning a security guy insisting that I remove my rucksack and soaking poncho, despite it pouring at the time. He then wafted his wand around me, with it buzzing many times, but made no attempt to identify what was in my pockets. Fortunately, the RAF guy had more sense and suggested that I get my things back together before I got wetter.
I suspect this also explains why it took us 30 minutes to leave the red car park on Friday at about 4.30 and we were only about 10 rows back from the front, but there was only one character doing anything to attempt to manage the whole thing.