Instructional Professional Doorman DVDs for door staff

(14/11/2008)

Security Instruction DVDs has announced the release of the first in its series of instructional DVDs for door staff.

The DVD, titled “Stop it on the Door”, outlines basic techniques for entry-level door staff in refusing patrons entry to a venue and in dealing with the potential conflict that can result. It also includes some tricks of the trade used by professional door staff around the world.

The DVD was described as “amazing” and “life-saving” by Geoff Thompson, martial artist, BAFTA winning writer, and probably the world’s most famous former bouncer. Stop it on the Door is destined to become the cornerstone of many professional door staff’s libraries.

Stop it on the Door is the first in a series of Professional Doorman DVDs designed and delivered by former doorman Mark Toner. Mark has been involved in the security industry for over 15 years. During that time he went to college and collected a first class honours degree in education, as well as a Master’s in Training and Development from Bradford University. His Master’s thesis explored the real training needs of door staff in today’s ever-changing work environment.

Mark is certified to train door staff to the levels required for licensing in England and Ireland. He has trained with literally thousands of security staff since the introduction of licensing into both countries.

Mark is at pains to stress that this first DVD is a product not just of his time and experiences on the door but of those he has worked and trained with over the years. “No one man knows it all. I think you will always learn something new every time you put on the uniform and stand on a door, and it’s the same now when I run a course – there is always someone there who will show you a technique or introduce you to a new way of dealing with the issues door staff are dealing with every day.”

When asked where he got the idea for the DVDs his passion for the industry immediately comes to the surface. “Licensing has had many effects, good and bad. One of the effects of licensing in both countries has been the retirement of some of the most experienced door staff. They decided they weren’t going to do the job any longer. They weren’t going to work if they had to pay tax or attend a training course so you had these guys with 20 or 25 years experience and knowledge on the doors who just left the industry. So we now had a raft of new people moving onto the door having completed the required training and gotten a licence but they were still arriving on the door with no real idea. What I wanted to do was get them as much information as possible, and a DVD seemed the natural way to do that.”

When asked whether the DVD would put him out of a job by replacing training courses, Mark leaned back and laughed. “Look, you can’t learn how to do this job from a DVD, you can’t, it’s like saying you can fly a plane after playing a video game. That’s not what the DVD is about. In this job, standing on a door, the real training has been and always will be on-the-job training. You work alongside experienced professionals and you watch and learn from them. That type of training will never be replaced. However, learning the tricks of the trade in any job is done through trial and error. You give something a go and it works or it doesn’t and you modify it and try again. The difficulty for door staff is that our work environment is unforgiving and when we make errors people get hurt. It is a truly sickening feeling, the worst in the world, when the people you are working alongside or are paid to protect get hurt because you messed up.

“We cannot replace on-the-job training but what we can do is give someone, who is considering standing on a door for the first time, an insight into some simple techniques they can use to deal with refusing a group or an angry patron. So when they do stand on the door for the first time, they are perhaps a little better prepared than I was, than we all were, and perhaps prevent them from making some of the same mistakes we made.”

Mark admitted he was delighted and surprised by some of the rave reviews and kind wishes the DVD has received from security professionals around the globe. “You know when someone like Geoff Thompson says what he said about the DVD, well, it just leaves you speechless. He was the only one, when I started on doors, who had published anything about door work. He is an icon, a true legend from the industry. The feedback from him and everyone else has been humbling, it really has.”

When asked about what the future held, Mark said, “We are already in the process of making the second and third DVDs. The next DVD in the series is a continuation of Stop it on the Door – we continue some of the themes discussed in the first DVD as well as introducing some new ideas, and the third DVD in the series examines eviction techniques.”

Related topics:  Security guarding   Security training 

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