Movers Rodeo Competition
Imaging putting your packing skills to the test as you compete against other movers to be the best. Well you can at the Annual Mover Skills Rodeo in Wichita Falls, Texas sponsored by Albert Moving & Storage. The competition was originally developed to highlight the best practices in the moving industry and serve as a training experience. Now, though, it is an all-out competition among moving companies across the country.
Once a year, the Albert Moving warehouses are packed with plastic wrap and packing paper as teams of movers come in for the competition. Competitors rotate through seven different event stations to show their “best practices” in areas packing, loading, driving, paperwork, and compliances. Each station is timed and a panel of judges score each event based on predetermined criteria to determine winners. Winners of each event receive prizes, and the overall winner also gets a prize.
This year, teams from Carlyle Van Lines in Warrensburg, Missouri and Gateways International in Seattle, Washington, joined the competition to add a national moving industry perspective. Albert Moving & Storage General Manager George Dunaway said that he hopes to keep the competition growing every year and inviting groups from all over the country. “We’d love to have 8, 10. 20 teams from all across the nation.”
This year’s rodeo was a day of fun and a learning experience for all of the teams involved. The packing event had a surprise mechanical tarantula to see what the movers would do when the unexpected happened. The blanket wrapping area tested the contestants’ memories like keeping the light-colored side of the blanket inside to keep furniture clean. The paperwork area included several different stations, including them throwing a dart at a board and matching the correct paperwork needed to the moving situation code on the dart board.
The competition was extremely close. Each team won at least one event, but the mover from Albert Moving & Storage, Steven Bashford, was awarded the best all-around mover and the Top Dog award for the best team went to the The Underdogs.
It is important to take the best moving practices into consideration because moving is very physically and mentally demanding. Looking for ways to introduce best practices into work makes for the best moving experience for both the mover and company.
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