This director fellow definitely needs to be reminded that gravity isn't just a good idea, it's the law....
I've been told before, by customers, that they're 'just' a school theater, and therefore they don't need to worry about this or that. It's an OK justification for doing Les Miz with two chairs and a table, only owning twelve fixtures, or some other scale-related idea, but not for
safety. I've fielded the 'We're doing Peter Pan, and thought we'd go down to the hardware store and get a bunch of stuff..." phone calls, and my response is always the same - "No. No. Nonononono. N. O. No." It's one thing for paid professionals with proper training to take known risks, it's a much different ball of wax for someone to take chances with the lives of other people's children. The situation you're in is where you start documenting everything, what happened, when, what was done, what he said about it. Keep a diary, both as evidence, and for your own protection. I hope you never need to refer to the diary in court, but you will probably need it when talking to the school board.
Most of the
arbor issues (weights on lock collars, spreaders trapped at the bottom) you mentioned are things that could be easily rectified in a long work session, just putting things to rights. The rope splinters you mentioned tells me that the operating lines are natural fiber ropes. These, in general, are considered to have about a ten year usable life span, and should then be replaced. If they're shedding splinters, they're probably much older than that, and are past due. Old ropes tend to be significantly weaker tan new, and often have thin spots, which would explain some of your rope lock problems, since a lock set for a thick portion won't properly
grip a thin portion. At this
point, you're probably on borrowed time before an operating
line breaks, and you have a
runaway on your hands.
I'm reminded of someone I met at a Glerum/Donovan rigging seminar, a school TD who'd been getting resistance about buying new operating lines. He finally got them after every single rope was mysteriously cut one night, in a random act of vandalization.... Fortunately, the administration was a good sport about it, and they didn't look too hard for a culprit to press charges against. *
Something that should happen sooner rather than later is a full inspection. Most
stage rigging contractors offer inspection and reporting (I've heard $1,500 plus travel from a couple places), and they'll go to bat for you to convince the administration to correct
safety issues. If the school doesn't want to spend that amount, ask them how much they think the medical bills from an accident might cost. They may drag their feet even so, since once a report is on paper, they're legally aware of the problems, and are that much more exposed to liability if they don't fix them. In that case, turn up the heat even more.
* Do not try this at home... this was the person responsible for the
system permanently disabling it until repairs could be made. The 'vandalism' subterfuge was his political tactic to circumvent a budgeting stalemate.
