Hello

I guess safety policies might come into three categories: things you might due to reduce injury risk, things you might do to be better prepared if injuries do happen, and things around legal liability.  I don't know if any of this is helpful or relevant to your situation but maybe some of it will be?

(1) Reducing injury risk
* People are more alert and less likely to be injured if they are better hydrated.  I've noticed young dancers are always swigging water between dances whilst older dancers rarely are (and yes I can work out why that might be...)  But can you encourage them to drink water by making it easily available, giving water breaks and comfort breaks more often?  
* Do the frailer dancers maybe go home earlier?  Could you group the harder dances at the end of the evening and focus on doing dances within their capability whilst they are there?
* This may be a daft question, but what is good about the harder dances that makes you keep doing them instead of simpler dances?  I say this because I have been to a lot of events and workshops, especially English, where the programme seems unnecessarily hard, with dances that were technically difficult but not very satisfying.  I think callers sometimes feel under pressure to do hard dances, when actually simple dances are enjoyed just as much if not more.  If complex dances are unsafe for a significant subset of your group, is it possible to just dial the difficulty level down?  I may be off-base here as I don't know your club at all -- you will know if this could work for your group.  ("Doctor doctor it hurts when I do this."  "Well don't do that then!")

(2) Being prepared
* Does someone in the group have first aid training?  If not, is it worth getting some (maybe at the club's expense)?  
* Does the venue have a first aid kit?  Worth checking it and seeing if the supplies are in date, you'd be amazed.  Is there a defibrillator nearby?  (village halls / community centres etc sometimes have one)
* Does the venue have an accident recording book or do you need your own?
* If you did have to call the emergency services have you memorised the address of the venue (incl postcode) or do you have it close to hand if you needed it?  (I know this sounds silly but I read an article once by a 999 call handler about how they often spend ages on the phone with panicking people just trying to get them to say where they are.  Common sense sometimes goes out of the window in stressful situations.)  If you did have to call an ambulance for someone, where would it park?  
* Is it worth collecting emergency contact details for everyone in the group just in case?  And details on any pre-existing medical conditions you might want to tell the paramedics about in an emergency?  You'd need a confidential system for storing these.

(3) Legal liability
* Check that you have Public Liability Insurance which is definitely suitable for the activity you're doing
* I do not know whether what you suggest, effectively a disclaimer, has any legal effect.  I expect it depends on where you are.  This might be worth looking into.  

We danced in a set at Whitby with a couple of older dancers who had near zero mobility.  I am not sure if they did not understand the instructions,couldn't hear them, or whether they were just physically unable to follow them.  We just danced around them so they were a sort of fixed point in the set.  It mostly worked.  I think they preferred that to not participating at all.  

I hope it works out anyway!
Jen


On 30 Aug 2018 06:00, "Martha Wild via Callers" <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
What do you do if you have dancers who are becoming frail, but do not seem to acknowledge it, and that you are concerned might fall and hurt themselves (or others) at an English country dance or contra? Particularly dancers who have danced for a long time and given much to the community, but just refuse to admit that they are becoming hazardous to themselves and others?

We have some very good and much older dancers, slowing down but still quite capable, and it is not about these that I am speaking. I’m talking about a dancer that everyone watches with great anxiety, and who has been gently spoken to suggesting they only dance those dances that are identified (and we’ve started identifying them) as slow and simple. Did not take the hint and was rather affronted.

Also, Does anyone have any safety policies? For example, that by participating in the dance, you are affirming that you believe yourself to be physically able to do it? Or language to that effect?

Any advice?

Martha


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