When Tony Sach and I, Perter Lee, were on the Field Sub-Committee of the South of England Officials' Association (SEAOA), we arranged for a number of senior officials to get EDM training but then found that there were few opportunities for them to exercise their knowledge. We managed to arrange the hire of some machines but then the costs escalated out of reach. Tony decided he would buy a second-hand EDM if he could get one at a reasonable price and I said I would fund the purchase of a second machine. We wanted to make EDMs available at events below National level so that officials would not be fazed when they had to use them under pressure at high level meetings. That was over 20yrs ago now.
Currently, 2023, we have around 50 machines with spikes, prisms, batteries and chargers and we have now been running as Precision Athletics for many years with another official, Bob Hammond, because we found the hiring out was getting to be as much as two of us could cope with. Originally each EDM required a team of three which reduced to two with our machines and now to one as all Level 3 Field Officials are expected to be able to use an EDM. With the help of SEAOA and many clubs, a large number of Level 2 officials and even volunteers are also getting the chance to use the machines which makes it unnecessary to have a dedicated EDM team; it is just another duty on the Official's duty sheet and the normal Technical team do the setting up.
Another way Precision Athletics tries to help is by holding free "EDM Play Days" when officials can spend time setting machines up and using them at their own speed to give them more confidence.
In recent years we have also expanded out to the hire of "Time Clocks" . We only have a very limited number so its first come first served. Please enquire if you are interested in this product.
We have been researching and investing in Cameras & software solutions for use at meetings which require a video recording on the take-off boards in both long Jump and Triple Jump. This is following the recent enactment of the World Athletics rules re foot placement on boards. Working with UK Athletics and Andrew Hulse we have established a cost effective system and process to support this decision supporting package. We regularly support senior matches around the country with this system.
