in: kupackman; kupackman > 2009-06-28;
| # Posted 2009-06-29 10:34:28 | |
| drewi: | I count 3. Unless you know something I don't... (S,M,E) |
| Advertisement | |
| # Posted 2009-06-29 20:00:09 | |
| kupackman: | I'm also counting the registrar (J), who did a lot of work leading up to the event (managing registrations, money, start times, etc) but wasn't at the event. |
| # Posted 2009-06-30 23:40:47 | |
| Cristina: | It definitely seemed like sheer numbers would have made a big difference, because it's not like the event didn't have all the makings of a great meet - good courses and maps, participant logistics worked out, even nice weather! ;-)
How come there weren't more volunteers? Why were there so many COC runners who weren't helping? |
| # Posted 2009-06-30 23:42:19 | |
| disorienteer: | This just freakin' boggles the mind, Patrick. It's impressive that things went as well as they did with that few people! But why were there so few? I'm asking out of ignorance -- I have no idea how many members COC has, or what the club culture is like. Why were there COC members competing, but not volunteering? |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 00:17:35 | |
| j-man: | I don't think I could be involved in a meet like that. Where I come from we have at least that many people on the course setting crew: designer and two independent vetters. And then I try to line up two other "hangers." For Eric to do this on his own is impressive, although I suspect something he just accepts and kind of revels in. Eric obviously has unimpeachable technical abilities and knowledge, but I am not sure how it would be to be to work with him given his scheduling proclivities.
But, I guess that only works in a big club. The DVOA paradigm is that those people sacrifice their runs. Believe it or not, I always have had that level of staffing happen. |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 00:38:07 | |
| disorienteer: | NTOA is nowhere near the size of DVOA, but that's still closer to our experience as well. Bag-hanging is divided among 3-4 people, and experienced club members do the vetting.
I've only been involved in putting on two A meets, but in both cases, NTOA members sacrificed their runs. We make some exceptions -- a guy who doesn't travel to A meets may be given a job that never puts him in the woods, for example, and long-time/emeritus members like the Snells are invited to simply come and enjoy. But everyone else has to pitch in. |
| # Posted 2009-07-01 19:51:39 | |
| j-man: | At the CSU meet, almost everyone got to run. Even the day 1 course setter ran on day 2.
While some of us weren't involved in the course setting parts of things, it was a bit of a stretch running and then running our tasks. Luckily, we had just enough volunteers (at least for the non-woods stuff) that it was possible. It really wasn't optimal though. Many times DVOA has divided course setting into day 1 and day 2, with two different people. That helps a lot, with the expectation that the "off" course setter is the right-hand person on the other day, working just as hard. |
| # Posted 2009-07-02 01:27:57 | |
| disorienteer: | If you can make it work, great. Splitting course-setting duties would definitely help in that regard. (We have done that to reduce workload, meaning someone takes W-Y-O and another B-G-R; that doesn't solve the competition aspect, though.) But as I mentioned to Spike over in my log, we don't put on A meets often, so it doesn't seem as much a sacrifice as an investment. If NTOA put on an A meet every year, it might be different story. |
| # Posted 2009-07-02 02:29:53 | |
| j-man: | While this might be hard to duplicate, check out the level of staffing that BAOC recently had:
http://baoc.org/wiki/Results/2009/Boggs_Mountain They had people inside and outside the club helping. Pretty impressive, and a fine event. |
| # Posted 2009-07-02 02:37:44 | |
| maprunner: | In my opinion, the meet director's job is to line up enough volunteers. On the day of the event, the meet director should have nothing to do but answer questions and help troubleshoot. Nadim did this very well, as meet director of the US Champs recently. |
| # Posted 2009-07-02 06:59:38 | |
| ebone: | Well, there were more than four people who worked hard on this event. I would certainly add Leif and Tracy, and Debbie and Patrick contributed significantly, although I'm fairly out of the loop on who did what, so I'm probably missing others. However, the fact remains that this was a skeleton crew, and it was a whole lot of work for a few of us.
Given the slow progress of the mapping in the fall, the restrictions we were handed by the land managers, the late second blast of winter in May (with the attendant delay in snow melt), and the resulting fact that the map wasn't finished until two weeks before the event, I'm relieved that the event was generally successful. Setting all three days is a lot of work for one person, and it would have been a whole lot easier to handle if I weren't already working 1.5-2 x full time during peak season on my business, and looking after my other events, along with the late completion of the map, made it all but impossible for me to do the majority of the course work in anything but a big, concentrated push. The event director has some A meet experience, but not a lot, and it seemed to me that she did a remarkably good job managing the situation and learning as she went. There are a laundry list of things that could have or should have been done differently/better (including having more volunteers, including assistant control setters), and while I won't go into all of them here, we'll compile these and hand them to the team for next year. |
| # Posted 2009-07-02 07:27:51 | |
| kupackman: | Well, there were more than four people who worked hard on this event... However, the fact remains that this was a skeleton crew, and it was a whole lot of work for a few of us.
I don't want it to sound like I'm belittling the contributions of the other volunteers, because I'm not. The meet would have been a disaster without them. But I'd say that was a whole, whole, whole lot of work for Eric, Mike, and Sally. Knowing what I knew about the hurdles of mapping and course-setting, about Sally substituting as meet director just six months ago (with not a lot of meet directing experience prior), I'd agree that the event was pulled off remarkably well. There was significant praise for the map (mostly Mike's work), there was significant praise for the courses (entirely Eric's work), and while there were a few small glitches, I think Sally's contribution was pretty heroic. I'm looking forward to our post-Salmon Run meeting where we can collect everyone's thoughts and parlay that into next year's event. |
| # Posted 2009-07-02 08:38:08 | |
| j-man: | For what it's worth, I thought the meet was great. The courses and map were just super. I was really unperturbed by the delay on Saturday because it gave me an extra 25 minutes to soak in the beautiful day and amazing scenery. The map thing on Friday was a bit annoying, but not really much to worry about. And as I didn't run green, I wasn't affected by anything on Sunday :)
Anyway, if you guys have another A-event there, I would be excited to come back. But, try to do yourselves a favor and get some more help next time. |
You must be logged in to add a message