DC Site Services

2004 DCSS Christmas Newsletter

18 Dec 04

Dear All,

Another Year has come and gone, and what a year this has been, we have worked on over 60 shows this year starting at Homelands Festival in May and finishing with the Festival of Christmas at Portsmouth.

The Christmas party was a great success again, thanks to Nicky (Janet’s Café) and Matt for making the arrangements, but due to it’s location it is difficult for many people to get there. We have plans for 2005!

Somehow we managed to achieve some amazing feats this year, but the weekend that I remember most was when we cleared litter in Hyde Park (The Red Hot Chilli Peppers) on the Friday, working overnight to clear the site and prepare for the Olympic Parade in the Mall on Saturday, clearing The Mall and in front of Buckingham Palace for the following morning and then clearing the litter on one of the "Party in the Park" shows, this one at Brighton. At the same time, Mark & Matt took 120 staff to Glastonbury. They said it couldn’t be done!!!

We could not have managed all these events without your help, and the hard work and long hours that you are prepared to accept without too many moans. When I think of the conditions at Reading with the rain and the mud and at Leeds when we could not feed you because of faulty generators, the showers were cold, if they worked, and the toilets that were overflowing, I wonder why you still work with us!

Looking at 2005 there will be many changes to the training that Stewards undertake. This will impact on all of the security and Steward Company’s not just us and will be good for the event industry. You will remember that this year we started the training courses before each event. Matt Hettle (Company Trainer), Mark Hatchard ( Team Leader and Website Designer) and myself are hoping to achieve a proper training package that you will be able to undertake by "distance learning" with practical courses held on site before and during events. This we hope will give you a qualification by the end of 2005, quite what that will be we are not too sure about. Once again this will mean that you will have to spend your own time on this task, but we hope that we can keep the cost to a minimum, with the company absorbing most of that. It is now normal for Police Checks to be made on Security and Stewarding staff and may even extend to any staff working on festival or show events. We may ask you to provide us with a copy of a “Police Subject Access Report” or we may have to send details to the promoters for checking, this once again will be a good thing for the industry, and for you as you live and work with staff in unsecured conditions.

Also in 2005 we need to make sure that we can provide sufficient staff for each event, and that if you apply to work on a particular show you will be available. Glastonbury caught us by surprise, that after turning staff away, who wanted to work, we then, with two weeks to go had to recruit more staff quickly.

We have as you know many Polish friends who come and work with us each year and we have decided to make a trip to Poland in January to meet with them and thank them for their hard work. (Alright I admit it, another Christmas Party).

We hope that you have a good Christmas and that we will see you all again next year. The application form will be on the site by the end of January, so keep checking the website for updates!

Once again, many thanks for your support and hard work.

Best wishes for 2005,

Dick & Janet.

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