Crew

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Are you ready to support 600+ walkers? Whether you're cheering or riding, these posts are meant for you.

My version of crew training

Written by Jill on August 13, 2010 at 12:06 pm

Wow! Only a month until the MS Challenge Walk. I better start doing some training.

Crew training, that is. There's the official training session that the chapter just held, but I'm referring to the training that we all do on our own. Here's how I recommend my fellow crew members prepare for the big event:

Rest your vocal cords for the next month. Keep talking to an absolute minimum, because you are going to need all your cheering volume when the walk rolls around in September.
Toughen your hands by practicing clapping for extended periods of time. Otherwise, your hands will be stinging shortly after you start on the first day, and you will have no feeling in them by the end of the weekend.
Give up all pretenses of dignity as you prepare your outfits for the themed rest stops (when I think of some of the things I have worn).
Make sure you know what poison ivy looks like (I have sat in it twice now). The pink calamine lotion doesn't look good on anyone.
Make sure you practice your picture-taking skills and that you're on the right side of the camera when #3–4 happen.
Prepare to have a great weekend!

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Jill lives in East Taunton with her husband and a very annoying cat. She was diagnosed with MS a little over 10 years ago when she was 24. She has been participating in the Challenge Walk since the beginning as a crew member and can also be found at many other fundraising events.

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What to expect at the medical tents

Written by Jacqueline on August 9, 2010 at 10:45 am

I have had the opportunity to experience the medical tents both as a walker and as a nurse. The medical crew is available for everything you may need as a walker or as a crew member. As a walker you may develop sore, blistered feet; the crew will mend you with ointments, bandages, gauze, and advice. You may develop sore or swollen joints; the crew will ice and wrap you up! Maybe you will suffer a bit of dehydration or heat exhaustion. They will cool you down and nourish you with fluids. Aches and pains? A little Tylenol or Advil will do!

The main medical tent is available at the Sea Camps from 6 AM until the last patient leaves, and each rest stop has a medical station with nearly everything you might need on your two-day, 30-mile journey. Should the need arise for more intensive medical treatment, the crew will stabilize you until more advanced care arrives.

As a walker my first year, I was treated with TLC, and I saw all walkers treated that way. As a nurse on medical crew my second year, I treated everyone with the same TLC! But no matter how well you're treated, the best care is preventive. Over the next few Mondays, I'll give some medical advice that you can use to take care of yourself and avoid any medical emergencies. Stay tuned!

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Jacqui is a registered nurse working in home dialysis, living in Denver, Colorado. Born and rasied in Gray, Maine, Jacqui was diagnosed with MS in 2003 and has been participating in the MS Challenge Walk since 2007. This year is the first time she's had her own team, Whittaker's Warriors.

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Crew training meeting

Written by Events on June 17, 2010 at 11:17 am

The crew information meeting has been set for Wednesday, August 11th, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM at the NMSS office in Waltham, MA. Due to the change in format for this year's MS Challenge Walk, we have made some logistical modifications that you’ll need to know. As crew, the walkers depend on you for information, so the more you know, the better prepared you will be to assist those in need.

Please email Sandra Baldi or call 781-693-5138 no later than Friday, July 30th, to register for the meeting.

Come and meet your fellow crew, have some pizza and snacks, and learn how YOU will help make the 2010 MS Challenge Walk a great event for everyone!

This is the events calendar, featuring official NMSS rallies and meetings as well as volunteer-sponsored fundraisers. Want to see your event listed here? Please submit the details, and we'll add it!

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Biking and walking for a cure

Written by Ken on September 23, 2009 at 1:15 pm

Note: This post is courtesy guest author Jim Moran.

This was my third year doing the MS Challenge Walk, and my third year on the bike crew. Riding support is always a fun time, as I get the chance to ride with some really great bike riders; it felt like we'd been riding together for ages!

The best part of being on the bike crew though is getting to see and meet the wonderful people that walk in the event. We get a great opportunity as bike crew to frequently check in on the walkers and get to know many of them rather well.

The stalwart Jim Moran, victorious over both heel and wheel. Photo courtesy Sara Wells.

That said, this was the first year that I actually got on my feet and walked the final ten miles with the rest of the D-Terminators team and get the chance to experience the walk from their perspective. To their surprise — and mine! — there were no blisters or other anticipated aches and pains. But I did get the chance to feel the support and the kindness that's always being given by the crew we encounter on the route.

The only down side of walking was I only got to interact with the few walkers that were in the same area that I was in, instead of seeing everyone's smiling faces as I rode up and down the trail. Everyone on the walk is so great, I can't help but want to see them all!

Being on the support crew is a great way to support the walk and be a part of it. Consider registering as crew for the 2010 event. That's the way I plan to continue doing the walk for as long as I'm "young enough" to do it. Hopefully the cure we all pray for will be found before I'm "old enough" to have to stop.

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Ken, a Worcester resident, joined the MS Challenge Walk in 2005, more than a decade after his mother was diagnosed. After walking for three years and 150 miles, he switched to the support crew and now rides his bicycle along the trail, providing whatever encouragement (and snacks!) he can to the 600 walkers. He is also on the event's steering committee and is this site's webmaster.

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Zis boom bah!

Written by Ken on September 7, 2009 at 1:45 pm

You've been walking for 19 miles — which is probably nineteen times farther then you've ever walked in your life. You hot, you're tired, your hungry, you're thirsty, and you desperately need a massage. The Cape Cod Rail Trail seems to extend indefinitely… but off in the distance, what's that you hear? Is that cheering? And not just an occasional holler, but constant and consistent hoots, applause, and merrymaking. Who could they be cheering for?

You turn the corner… and tears start streaming down your face. All the cheering? It's for you.

We walkers think we have it tough, walking 50 miles in three days. But at least we can admit it and grumble about it. The crew somehow finds the energy to be optimistic, enthusiastic, and encouraging all day long. They wear goofy costumes, employ noisy noisemakers, and never budge from either their position or disposition. They do it for the walkers, because they know sometimes what we need to keep going can't be found in a bottle of Gatorade.

If you need help in your quest to free the world from MS, the crew is there to help you, whether they be familiar faces or new ones. And if you cross the finish line and find yourself with a reserve of energy, consider giving back:return to the finish line and cheer the folks who come in after you. You needed that boost, and they might, too.

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We want to entertain you!

Written by Jill on July 1, 2009 at 1:17 pm

This is not the walker you're looking for!

Every year about this time, each crew starts coming up with different ideas for rest stop themes. Each stop is always a surprise for the walkers and is usually pretty amusing. Over the years, the crews have come up with some imaginative stops, with such themes as a wedding, Mardi Gras, pajama party, Star Wars, the Eighties, Halloween, The Wizard of Oz, villains, OktoberFest, and a Hawaiian luau, to name but a few. I wish I could name more, but like I said I never get to see the other stops!

I have seen some of the ideas which have come up for suggestion this year, and they are great. But the real point of this post is to ask you, the walkers, what would you like to see? Maybe a movie theme? Gone with the Wind? Maybe a profession? Doctors and nurses? Give us some ideas! Who knows, you may see your suggestion at one of the stops.

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Crew training — no, not the training you are thinking of

Written by Jill on June 15, 2009 at 9:59 am

The Challenge Walk is only three months away, which means it's time to be training. But crew training is so different from walker training. For crew, now is the time we come up with our themes for the rest stops — the wackier the better for my crew!

We need to be inventive in how to keep the walkers entertained and give them a few smiles as they go through our rest stop. Who knows what costumes we'll get for this year? Over the years, I have been a pirate, a leprechaun, a Jedi Knight, an evil clown, and the world's largest Munchkin, to name a few. With the little bit of rain we got last year, my Jedi Knight costume, complete with bright yellow Wellington boots, looked more like the Gordon fisherman. I didn't look very professional in any of these costumes — but that wasn't the point. The point was to make the walkers comfortable and happy!

I'll soon be looking through the huge tote of costumes that I have been accumulating and see what I can pull out. After I've made my selections, my luggage will be about four times as much as any walker brings. How else would I fit in a military-sized squirt gun, Wellington boots, cowboy hat, and who knows what else? I'm hoping that someday, my appearance will be that of a person cured of MS — but that it won't be a costume, it will be the real me. That will be one costume that I will be happy to wear for the rest of my life.

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Starting the crew experience — in a van

Written by Jill on June 1, 2009 at 11:34 am

Somehow, I have become the driver of the crew van for my crew. I've been driving since that first year when we were all still trying to figure out how to manage this great new event, the MS Challenge Walk. A fifteen-passenger van filled with strangers seemed like nothing to me. My first car when I was 16 was a 1979 GMC Cargo Van. How different could it be?

Quite a bit different, it turns out. When I was driving my beloved van (black with a big white smiley face on the side) in high school, I'd have only one passenger in the other bucket seat, in addition to anyone who wanted to sit on the floor in the back. But in the crew van that first year, we were stuffed in like sardines with all our gear for the stops. People and gear there was plenty of. Sense of direction? Not so much, but plenty of back seat driving. I made so many three-point turns in that huge van, it was comical. And I managed to hit only ten curbs in the process!

As I continue driving the crew vans every year, the amount of gear increases, but fewer people means less cramming, and the strangers are now my dear friends. We still don't ever have any sense of direction, we still get lost at least twice each year, and I still hit curbs, though fewer of them. But we get there. What would the walkers do without us? And what would we do without them?

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