The risk of hot chocolate

It is easy to retreat indoors in January and February. It’s cold and dark outside. Inside, it is warm and there are flickering computer and television screens ready to offer a diversion. It’s seductive. But deadly.

So it is encouraging to note that for the past couple of weeks, a handful of folks in Milford have been working in preparation for the hamlet’s annual winter carnival. Clearing the ice on the mill pond, retrieving wood-block curling stones and preparing sturdy comfort food for the revellers. It is meant to draw folks out of their homes. It is all done by volunteers— people who want to make their place a bit more enjoyable. A bit more healthy. And a bit more fun. In the dark middle of winter.

So on Saturday, gallons of hot chocolate flowed into styrofoam cups gripped by bulky woollen mittens. Skates were laced onto feet that hadn’t been on ice for a while. Kids bundled up to play in the snow. Inexplicably three-wheeled bicycles were pedalled around a snow-packed track. Curlers took turns tossing future firewood, watching it skid across the ice. It was a cold morning. But, as they do every year, people came out to celebrate their community in a shared defiance of winter.

This was the work of volunteers. Organized. Prepared. Advertised. Managed. Cleaned up afterward. By volunteers. This is how things are done in Prince Edward County. I expect this community would be unrecognizable if suddenly the volunteer contributions disappeared.

Consider a moment the volunteers around you—at the rink, in our hospital, at the town hall, at the park or on the mill pond.

This is the way it has always been done in this community. If volunteers didn’t rally and coalesce to create an event or program, it just wasn’t done. They built rinks. Staged theatre. Fed the infirm. Coached kids. They raised money. They used their own hands and talents to knit a community together.

But volunteers are encountering new, unwelcome, hurdles these days. Obstacles in the form of litigation lawyers, insurance companies and short-sighted managers. Bit by bit, volunteers are being shunted to the sidelines.

Last week, a representative from the County’s insurer spoke to the issue of volunteers at a council committee meeting. It was a glum, yet predictable, message. While praising the contribution of volunteers, the insurance rep then set about erecting a series of barriers, effectively marginalizing these folks to the edges of the community.

According to Robin McCleave of BFL Insurance, it is the municipality’s responsibility to ensure that volunteers have the requisite skills and training for the task they have offered to do on municipal property—such as a park, playground or arena. As a general rule, a volunteer’s feet must always be on the ground, with no sharp objects in their hands, explained Mc- Cleave.

And as good insurance people are trained to do, the representative offered the assembled the nightmare scenario of a volunteer falling off a roof.

“Perhaps they are badly hurt, left a quadriplegic or a paraplegic,” said McCleave. “You will have to take care of him for the rest of his life. And his family.”

A shudder runs around the table. She had done her job.

She went on. Volunteers on municipal property must be supervised and directed by municipal authority. To have folks walking along the roadside picking up trash, for example, is an uninsurable risk. Those volunteers, we learned, must be trained, clad in safety equipment, supervised by municipal staff and guarded by portable road signs indicating workers ahead.

A year ago, an ice storm felled branches and trees on lanes, roadways and streets across a wide swath of the County. Neighbours fanned out with chainsaws and pick-up trucks to clear the debris—opening roads and clearing parks. They likely did so believing they were providing a service to their community. I doubt it occurred to them that by jumping in to help, they posed a liability threat to the municipality.

It is a twisted and ultimately destructive path. Council must guard against narrow advice. Not blindly, mind you. It is important that council hear and understand the risks as spelled out by their insurers. But that cannot be the end of their due diligence. There is too much at stake. Now they must seek out alternate advice—to discover strategies used by other organizations and municipalities that enable volunteers to continue to play a vital role in their communities.

Council cannot roll over and accept that volunteers are a liability. They are too important—too vital a resource. This community simply cannot function without them.

The insurer is but one voice. Its earnings are maximized when nothing happens. When we stay home and stare at flickering screens, we improve our insurer’s profitability. It is the opposite of community.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca