Good afternoon CREST members.

I wanted to take a moment to talk about yesterday's team event.

This was our final event for 2024. We have assisted the Savanna Band for MANY years (over ten). Most were held at Glover Stadium off Swan St. in Anaheim until this year when it was moved to Western High School campus. I will admit Glover was MUICH easier to manage and we had much more experience there in what we do.

Each year the City (or school system) seems to give us a challenge to make our job harder. First, we had a beautiful nice parking lot although we did have to weave our busses around parking light standards. That's okay. The lights were a nice touch at night. Then,  they decided to erect chain link fencing around the perimeter eliminating exiting via the alley leaving us three gates. Ok, we can work with that but don't you think the fence gates should line up with the curbing driveway cutouts? The entrance one is offset which I'm sure the bus drivers love. Now, while I haven't seen the parking lot I understand it has something preventing us from having busses enter - perhaps it is more solar panels like Western H.S. has. Not sure.

Speaking of Western H.S., last month we assisted Loara Band event there and arrangements had to be made with contractors to be sure not to block the lot with equipment, etc. as they are also installing solar units above the parking area. They complied for us reasonably well. The solar lighting is slanted to face South and the high edge is 18' but the low edge is only 13' from the ground level. Busses can just barely drive under them but semi trucks and some rental box trucks cannot. We learned how to overcome the solar obstacle. Getting the semi trucks required us to bring them in the exit gate and they had to back down the isle to keep away from the solar in the isle close to the street. These guys are good drivers but it is still a chore for them and us. Now we get to the Savanna event one month later same site. The construction is still going on. They are now installing the electrical boxes to the solar and have dug up some of the pavement requiring them to cover with plywood and fence off around it. Ah, we love more fencing don't we plus they left a nice diesel life heavy equipment parked right in the middle of one isle meaning we had to park on either side of it. We could only park 5 vehicles towing equipment trailers all along that isle side. So much for describing the parking in what we call Lot 1 (paved front lot).

Our Lot 2 is the outfield for three connected ball fields with a difficult-to-see entrance on Western. The custodian (I guess) is especially sensitive to the field condition and no busses may park in the grass - just cars and pickups. Absolutely NO parking or driving on/in the baseball infields and the custodian had the three areas coned off. Thank you. That was a big help to us. Still, last month an idiot volunteer for Loara event parked right next to second base! Yes, we took care of "educating" that individual and was awaiting her arrival at Savanna yesterday but no Jeep arrived. That's good!

Our members did a fabulous job parking in both lots. In the evening when all the bands had arrived in Lot 1 I took the golf cart to eyeball what Lot 2 looked like as I never saw it last month. Wow, was I impressed! The rows were perfectly in line, all vehicles had an easy exit if they wished to leave early, and no tire tracks on the dirt infields. A special thanks to Nephi for using his motorcycle on Orange Avenue blocking lane 2 so cars can exit our entrance gate and make a right turn only utilizing our cones separating the two lanes on the street. Very effective and professionally smooth.

We decided against pizza this event in lieu of a choice between a special hot dog or a turkey and cheese sandwich and water all day long. It's not much but financially effective. When our events were at Glover, we would bring our team RV trailer and setup a BBQ station for our helpers. Food is not suppose to be served at these events but we were never actually told and they never bothered us about it. It is forbidden in the band's contract because it conflicts with the goal of the host band trying to sell their food for their funding. We were asked to enforce the "no-food" matter when the schools would set up tables, etc. in the parking lot. That rule we like so we have less interference for parking but we are not the "food police" and we will simply alert the host school that it is occurring or has occurred. One school in particular brought a semi truck which has always contained band instruments and uniforms and a place to change clothes. This time, the sides of the trailer completely opened up like a patio cover and inside was a cafeteria style setup where the students started at one end ending at the other end serving  up their plates with food. I'm thinking that semi may not be coming again.

This event we had our team golf cart, a Can-Am and Mike's 3-wheel handicap vehicle to help coordinate things. I like using the handicap vehicle because it is narrow enough I can actually drive through or alongside parked busses and between curb stops to get from place to place. The golf cart can't do that. The 4-person Can-Am is great for transporting passengers and/or equipment such as our traffic cones, water, food, and other equipment. The golf cart worked for years doing this but can only carry one passenger to/from.

We had a total of 20 team members and 2 Associate volunteers yesterday but not for both shifts. Six members earned the 2-events-worth for membership renewal requirements for 2025.

My thanks to Glenn for his photos and Dave for posting additional ones. If anyone took more we would love to see them.

While I did not witness the incident, I am told one box rental trailer while exiting, skidded along a bus mirror while the bus driver was blowing her horn over and over. Apparently the driver was unfamiliar with driving this type of truck or was just careless. Oops! It wasn't due to our parking as he was the first vehicle in the line. How does that happen? At least he stayed away from the solar. I am not aware of any other issues.

In conclusion, thank you to everyone who participated in this event. It is you volunteers that make it successful (and sometimes profitable to us with a donation from them.)

Ed, 25