Don brings up some good points, namely that attending a training course can be very informative and we could greatly improve the erosion issues at Hartshorne by attending trail maintenance dates.
I have to come clean, I am a Monmouth County employee who is also an avid mountain biker. I have spoken to Karen Livingston(MCPS) regarding TM. All park volunteers are required to take a training course so that they know what trail maintenace is all about, guys like Mike Flatery pass on great info free of charge. The indoor class is followed up by outdoor hands on training, in total the class lasts about 3hrs. This class only needs to be attended once, your name is entered in the MCPS data base and your volunteer hours are tracked. Those that perform 40 or more volunteer hrs. a year are invited to a free luncheon. There is no background check, this only pertains to volunteers who work with children.
Volunteers at MCPS put in over 1000hrs. of work at various parks, and is planning to have approx. 6 TM dates at Hartshorne in 2009. Having volunteered for TM at other parks throughout the state I do admit that having to attend a training course to volunteer for TM can be a hassle. But you can also look at this as an opportunty to get some good info from some good teachers and use this knowledge to perform TM at Hartshorne as well other parks.
There will probably be a trainging course in March, it will be posted on Jorba when exact dates are available.