Springton Manor June 7
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Topic created by ErikEddy on Wed May 27, 2015 at 10:16 am
Hey All,
The volunteer sign up list has been posted to the schedule for June 7th VP Cup. We will be having a regular meet with slightly condensed start times (10:30-12:30) with picnic/meeting to follow. More details soon. Look out for Facebook event.
Send me an email erikreddy@gmail.com if you are interested in general help, but do not want to commit to a certain job window.
As many of you know, I am getting married only 3 weeks after this event. I hope to keep this event "stress free", so I would certainly greatly appreciate many hands helping in small ways :) .
See you then!
Erik
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Reply by Nancy on Sat May 30, 2015 at 8:53 pmReminder: As mentioned in the event announcement, in addition to this being our VP Cup, it is also our summer meeting. Please plan on staying after the event for an update and discussion of the club's activities.A topic of particular interest to me and other club leaders: the lack of volunteers, in particular course setters and event directors. When no one steps up to volunteer for either of these activities (especially course setters), we have to cut these events from the schedule.I see two possible options: one is to find someway to encourage people to volunteer. The other is to intentionally reduce the number of events we plan to hold in a year.I want to hear from our members on this topic. Are you willing to volunteer for either of these roles for upcoming events? If you're not experienced in either of these roles, we do have members who are willing to serve as mentors. Or do you favor shortening our list of events? Am I missing some other solution?Nancy SharpPresident, DVOA
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Reply by DaveUrban on Sun May 31, 2015 at 7:58 pmSome other possible solutions:
Develop procedures & utilize technology to reduce the volunteer effort and skill levels. Some ideas are: Instead of creating new courses, consider an amalgam of prior events. Place start near registration to eliminate starter positions. Reduce registration & E-punch to a 1 person job. Reduce number of controls set out to reduce control pickup staff. Reduce registration window to 1.5 hrs eliminating need for second shift. Be nice to pickup staff and don’t return full water bottles.
Have a web page showing volunteer names and number of hours worked.
Make a minimum number of volunteer hours worked to get ranked.
Require x volunteer hours / year from each member.
Consider not supporting events that require a large number of volunteer hours.
Have 2 tiers of membership, 1 requiring volunteer effort for less cost another no volunteer effort and higher cost.
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Reply by ErikEddy on Mon Jun 1, 2015 at 4:54 pmNancy, you certainly are posing a big question. It's amazing how many people come out each week to help support the club and sport, but I am sure there are some volunteers out there that would like to play more.
Personally, I like the idea of having less "Ranked" events. We could focus volunteer efforts on maybe 8-10 events in Spring and then 8-10 events in the Fall. Add in more effort on promotion, event center, branding the events together, etc. These events would be on the schedule early with all event directors and course setters in place.
The rest of the schedule could be more laid back shoestring events (in less desireable terrain) but good community outreach areas or teaching maps (like Lower Perkiomen, Norristown Farm Park). The event director / course setter should follow good practices but less pressure on all the bells and whistles (not require e-punch or laser printing, perhaps only 3-5 courses) and incorporate some of what Dave is saying and some flexibility (like shorter start window).
I feel like something along these lines may help might strike a balance between club members that want every event to be close to A-event (and really enjoy doing so), with someone that wants to help the club by providing an opportunity for folks to get out in the woods without too much stress and less volunteers required. Both are extremely valuable, and I could see myself taking part in both styles.
But I am just one relatively new member of the club... thoughts... -
Reply by Guy-O on Tue Jun 2, 2015 at 0:36 amSeems to me there are a lot of W/Y events on Saturdays, presumably beginner-oriented, on the schedule every year. They could also serve as some of the unranked events, with some, perhaps on Sundays...
BTW, I have been keeping some stats on HVO's NJ events (Dual & non-Dual), for at least 10 years, and found something interesting...
There have been noticeably* more White & Yellow starts and participants (ie, more starts by groups), on Sundays than on Saturdays. Orange is similar but much less pronounced. Brown-Blue are essentially the same for either day.
* - I was going to say "significantly", but figured somebody might ask me if I did a t-test... 8-) -
Reply by Nancy on Thu Jun 4, 2015 at 9:48 pmGuy: I believe our reasoning for holding W/Y and maybe orange events on Saturdays is twofold: to make use of the smaller county parks we have mapped, parks that wouldn't sustain a full range of courses and that don't allow hunting, and to provide an option for folks who may not be available to orienteer on a Sunday.Dave: where the club really needs volunteers to step up is in the roles of course setter and event director. Course setter is probably the most technical and time-consuming of our needs for our local/non-national events but it is the most pressing: without them, we don't hold events. Period.I don't think it's a wise idea to eliminate the start volunteer position, no matter how close to registration it's located. Registration folks need to focus on greeting people, especially newbies. And that role should be separate from entering folks into e-punch, which takes concentration. The registration person can focus on being a greeter and explainer-in-chief. The start person can answer last-minute questions. And many folks aren't familiar with our strategy of having two minutes between starters on the same course, so it's helpful to have someone there to keep track of that sort of thing.I personally like our current three-hour start window, as it gives me flexibility in planning my day, though shortening it in winter with fewer daylight hours makes sense. What do other clubs do? I'd like to hear from folks on this topic.The events that require the most volunteer hours are the A events. We had determined a few years ago that we couldn't support two A events in one year. Are we now at a point that we can't/don't want to support one a year? Should we consider holding them in alternate years?
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Reply by furlong47 on Thu Jun 4, 2015 at 11:30 pmI can't make the picnic this year but here are some thoughts.We're fortunate to live in an area with several clubs' events in reasonable distance. If the schedule is to be cut back, perhaps things could be coordinated so the closer SVO/QOC/HVO events are on the weekends that DVOA takes off. There are some weeks when I have to choose between 2 or even 3 event choices (which I typically base on having to volunteer for SVO/drive time/how much I like the map/ranking vs non-ranking/event format) but then there will be other weeks with no meets available to attend. Also the weekends with bigger A-meets in the region, which can pull away many volunteers/participants, might be a good time to hold just a beginner or smaller event (or no event) rather than going full scale.I wouldn't mind more unranked unique/fun events like the bike-o, canoe-o, score-o with fun twists, day with 2 or 3 sprints, relay or team events, etc. and those tend to be easier to set and can make use of parks/maps less desirable for classic events.I don't like the idea of compressing start windows for a few reasons. One, the bigger window allows people to do things like go to church (not something I do personally, but it affects others) and still make it to orienteering, or come earlier and still make it to lunch with Grandma. When you have to drive 2 or 3 hours to an event, it's nice to not have to arrive super early, and the bigger window also allows for unexpected things that may happen along the way. And it would be harder for people to volunteer and run on the same day, unless they all go out at the end, but then someone will still have to be hanging out for another 90+ minutes waiting to pick up controls, finish downloads, and clean up. SVO has the same start window (10-1) all the time. QOC has a slightly shorter window (11-1:30) and it used to move earlier during standard time/later during daylight saving time but their website doesn't indicate that anymore.QOC has a nice tablet computer that lets regulars register their own e-punch and select their course without having to involve the e-punch operator, which might make it nice to allow that person to concentrate on beginners and rentals. That wouldn't really reduce number of positions but would make one job easier.
